Franklin High Educators Speak Out; Will Seattle Schools Listen?

 Via Facebook:

"Franklin educators led a sick-out today to protest SPS's frighteningly poor protocols for staff & student safety. We have been grossly mis-represented by SPS & the Seattle Times, so please spread this message."

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On December 15th, Seattle Public Schools’ decision to cancel school for students was their response to a credible threat to the building. Despite this valid safety concern, the staff were told to finish our workday in the building “as normal.” If we did not feel safe, we were informed that using personal time was required to leave the building. The message was clear that it was more important to SPS that they can monitor the staff than it was to protect them, even when there are no students present in the building.

Fortunately this threat did not end in tragedy or casualty, however, this event uncovers deficits in protocol, procedure, and communication surrounding a credible threat of violence. This is an opportunity to course correct, create and develop systems that prioritize students, teachers, and staff safety.

The Franklin community needs time to process the events that happened on December 15. We the Franklin staff are using today, Dec 16, to both process our own stress and plan how to support student re-entry with a focus on mental health and student voices.

Our community deserves consistency through a clear plan that advocates for our students and staff’s safety. Even if the threat was truly neutralized last night, more needed to be done for us to feel prepared to reenter the building. Seattle Public Schools District needs to share a clear action plan when an active threat is made against our community.

The District can provide predictability to the community by being more transparent with how decisions are made and communicating with us in a timely manner. More so, SPS can value educators and school staff as humans with emotional and safety needs. It is very disappointing that no SPS communication has mentioned student and staff mental health and anxiety thus far.

Most importantly, in order to address the issue of an increase in violent behavior we need more resources for Social Emotional Learning along with mental health support.