This and That (and More Things That Make You Go, Hmmmm)
Hmmmm
Why would Woodland Park Zoo sponsor a summer "academy"put on by none-other than the Washington Ethnic Studies Now group, led by shrinking violet Tracy Castro Gill? The Zoo's own mission for students is around science, nature, etc which is not any part of what this academy is offering. What's also weird is that the zoo website has no information about it. Why would that be if the Zoo is sponsoring it?
This and That
The Seattle Public Schools (SPS) School and Community Partnerships Department is working to build systems in support of strong partnerships, including two key projects: a student intervention/support tracker that includes community-based organization (CBO) programs and the development of a Partnership Playbook.
Now I can't tell you for sure what that means but it's work being done. I will inquire about the substance of these initiatives. There is already something of "a student intervention/support tracker" that I reported on quite awhile back that is being used in middle schools called Check Yourself.
Next, this survey to students, parents, guardians and community on "attributes" for the next Ballard High School principal will either make you laugh or scream. It consists of 14 incredibly wordy questions and four open-ended questions that are mercifully short. Like:
Please share with something that you hope you(sic) school will stop or start doing?
They make that "you school" mistake twice. Sigh.
Interesting reading from the Schott Foundation on what direction SCOTUS might go in public education. Cases include:
- the obligation for states to educate undocumented immigrant children
- The current Supreme Court also looks poised to roll back the separation of church and state in public schools. The court recently heard oral arguments in the Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, which revolves around a public school football coach leading prayer sessions with his players.
- The case Carson v. Makin, currently being considered by the court, threatens to remove states' ability to keep public education voucher dollars from supporting religious private schools.
- Even more concerning is the fate of Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark school desegregation ruling that, up until recently, was held sacrosanct by the federal courts. Some are eager to change that. The former editor of the conservative National Review argued last week for the court to overturn Brown, and a 2019 Mother Jones article noted that many Trump appointees to the federal bench refused to state during hearings whether Brown was correctly decided.
Meanwhile, over on Facebook, many HC parents/perspective parents are tearing their hair out, trying to 1) find out if their child is eligible for the program (some parents have received notices, others not), 2) trying to understand whether they should move their child to a different school for HCC or stay put in their neighborhood school because it is unclear when the final switch will happen for ALL schools to provide HCC services, 3) the news that several high schools appear to be pulling back on their AP/Honors offering and 4) wondering how services will be provided at any given K-5,K-8 school, with the differing degrees of acceptance of HCC by principals.
As I told those parents, my understanding from the district is that the district will provide some kind of rubric to schools but that each school will have its own "committee" that will decide on delivery services. I find that stunning that each principal gets to do as much or as little as he/she/they want but that is true to SPS.
Now I can't tell you for sure what that means but it's work being done. I will inquire about the substance of these initiatives. There is already something of "a student intervention/support tracker" that I reported on quite awhile back that is being used in middle schools called Check Yourself.
Next, this survey to students, parents, guardians and community on "attributes" for the next Ballard High School principal will either make you laugh or scream. It consists of 14 incredibly wordy questions and four open-ended questions that are mercifully short. Like:
Please share with something that you hope you(sic) school will stop or start doing?
They make that "you school" mistake twice. Sigh.
Interesting reading from the Schott Foundation on what direction SCOTUS might go in public education. Cases include:
- the obligation for states to educate undocumented immigrant children
- The current Supreme Court also looks poised to roll back the separation of church and state in public schools. The court recently heard oral arguments in the Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, which revolves around a public school football coach leading prayer sessions with his players.
- The case Carson v. Makin, currently being considered by the court, threatens to remove states' ability to keep public education voucher dollars from supporting religious private schools.
- Even more concerning is the fate of Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark school desegregation ruling that, up until recently, was held sacrosanct by the federal courts. Some are eager to change that. The former editor of the conservative National Review argued last week for the court to overturn Brown, and a 2019 Mother Jones article noted that many Trump appointees to the federal bench refused to state during hearings whether Brown was correctly decided.
Meanwhile, over on Facebook, many HC parents/perspective parents are tearing their hair out, trying to 1) find out if their child is eligible for the program (some parents have received notices, others not), 2) trying to understand whether they should move their child to a different school for HCC or stay put in their neighborhood school because it is unclear when the final switch will happen for ALL schools to provide HCC services, 3) the news that several high schools appear to be pulling back on their AP/Honors offering and 4) wondering how services will be provided at any given K-5,K-8 school, with the differing degrees of acceptance of HCC by principals.
As I told those parents, my understanding from the district is that the district will provide some kind of rubric to schools but that each school will have its own "committee" that will decide on delivery services. I find that stunning that each principal gets to do as much or as little as he/she/they want but that is true to SPS.
Between the Ballard High School situation and the HC situation, the district sure is doing a good job in getting parents riled up and, hopefully, going to the polls in November 2023 to vote for the majority of school board seats.
Comments
North-end parent in support of dreamers and strivers!
I do see Human Geography at the RHS website but the only AP sciences they have are Environmental Science and Physics. To note, I only could see this because they have an AP testing schedule up. I cannot find their course catalog.
You can only see Franklin's catalog thru a portal. What?!
Hale only has one AP science and that's Environmental Science.
A couple of high schools don't have their course catalogs available.
Sigh.
AP classes - especially math- allow students to skip some prerequisite college classes and take 300-400 level math classes in college during their sophmore year. As Covid has taught us, We need students that will have the capacity to solve our society's unsolved problems.
There are plenty of capable students in Seattle. Let them thrive.
But teachers don’t have freedom to develop curriculum it seems these days.
IMO, Society’s problems will not be solved with those who have advanced skills in computation, but in interpersonal relationships and understanding of group motivation and behavior.
It seems to me, to be a justice issue.
https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2020/09/22/climate-change-environmental-justice/
Just a rundown of changes from this year that have been taking place behind the scenes: There used to be two different types of AP Physics available, now it is just one. Honors Math has been blended into Core Math classes for Algebra I, Geometry, and Algebra II. Latin is gone.
Perhaps least defensible in my eyes -- Sophomores can no longer take a full year of Social Studies -- the Social Studies course offerings are very very thin at RHS and rigidly tied to grade level. Instead of a full year of APHG (which has been required for many years) they will take a single-semester of World History III and that is all they are allowed. I can understand why they might not want to require the full year, but I feel like they owe it to the students to at least have a second semester of social studies that they could take if that was their area of interest.
Disappointed RHS Parent
None of the teachers wanted it gone but their wishes were ignored.
We lost Latin too, also against student and staff wishes.
-Come on SPS get it together
We've also heard that overnight field trips in the future will require having only two students per hotel room (a COVID thing we thought would be going away), a change which means that most schools won't be able to afford trips for music, DECA, etc. SPS equity in action right there.
I've reached a point where I honestly believe that the district is engaged in a deliberate race to the bottom.
-Come on SPS
I mean, SPS is famous for wanting to tear down buildings rather than just rehabbing them.
Save Latin
1) Unless your PTSA speaks up loudly, at any given school you'll get no help.
2) Most of the current Board doesn't care about anything off the beaten path of education. Not honors, not AP, certainly not some "dead" language. So yes, you need a new majority on the Board.
3) The Superintendent is way too up in the clouds to listen. His CAO, Dr. Keisha Scarlett, appears to want to get out of the district ASAP so she's not going to listen.
4) Maybe the Times might want to do a story but without continued pressure, nothing will come of it.
But you are right that some families will look around and say that there are fewer opportunities in high schools to help students get into colleges and universities and those who can will leave. Or have already left. Because having Latin on your transcript certainly is something different that a college admissions officer might take notice of.
But maybe WPZ needs to hold their own rights of nature summer camp.
https://www.earthlawcenter.org/blog-entries/2020/6/nature-has-a-right-to-a-stable-climate-systemnbsp
So yes, I am also puzzled as to why WPZ has their name attached.
Dear Mr. Halfaker,
Similar to many schools in the district, Roosevelt has experienced many disruptions and changes this year, both in curriculum and staffing. However, unlike at other schools, communication to families about these changes has been sparse, incomplete, and often done at the last minute or after the fact, leaving families and students frustrated and confused. We, as a PTSA Board, have heard directly from families that they consistently don’t know what is going on or who to talk to about administrative and curricular changes, leading to confusion during and after our recent course registration process.
Here are some of the changes we heard about DURING the course registration process from our students. These changes were not communicated to all families until weeks after registration: (letter continued at www.roosevelthsptsa.com)
-AnonymousSeattleMom
933 signatures so far: https://www.change.org/p/saving-latin-at-roosevelt-high-school
AnonymousSeattleMom
Latin has been at RHS since they opened their doors, I believe in 1922.
Bewitched
I care who the zoo sponsors because they should not be sponsoring groups that are headed by a toxic person who calls anyone who disagrees with her, racist. She's a bully who uses the cloak of ethnic studies to attack others. She's unprofessional and that's not just me saying that - it's how she got herself exited from SPS.
And, what's weird is if the zoo is good with that group, why isn't at their website? Why aren't they advertising it?
Plus the fact that the "academy" as stated at the WA Ethnic Studies Now website doesn't align with the zoo's state mission for education for students. I'm not saying that culture is not part of nature/environment. I'm saying that is not what the stated learning mission is about at this camp.
The zoo is partially funded by the public so I would think people who do live there would wonder why the zoo is doing this.
https://roosevelths.seattleschools.org/resources/counseling-center/course-registration/
AnonymousSeattleMom
Dear Ms. Brewer,
Welcome to Roosevelt! I trust you won't mind hearing from a former Roosevelt parent before your work at Roosevelt has even officially begun.
I am very disappointed that the Latin program at Roosevelt is being identified for cancellation. I hope you will give your own consideration to this decision.
My child graduated from Roosevelt in 2019. She is proud of her school and particularly proud of her four years of Latin. Ms. Scofield the Latin teacher is the one reason she did not give up on high school and is in college now.
Latin is not some irrelevant language today. Echoes of ancient Rome's culture and politics are clearly heard still. Particularly we have inherited their aspirations toward government by the governed, the rule of law, and the right of the accused to a fair trial. And we have Rome's failings as well, slipping into demagoguery and authoritarianism. Latin students know more about our own culture because of reading what the Romans wrote.
Latin was the lingua franca of educated people throughout medieval and modern times up to the 20th century. If you want to study history or the history of science and read the primary sources in the original, Latin is your first choice of foreign language.
Latin is still used in medicine and law. Now, one could approach the Latin vocabulary as just some words to memorize, but people who already know the plain meanings of the words find learning their medical and legal meanings goes much more quickly. It saves the pre- medicine and law students several terms of expensive college tuition to learn it in high school.
I do some astronomy as a hobby, and one of the awards from the Astronomical League was for observing the 2012 Transit of Venus - Twice a century Venus passes exactly between the earth and the sun, so for about six hours we see it as black dot in front of the sun's disc with a filtered telescope. The award was not only for observing it, but sharing data with a partner on the other side of the world, and using Edmund Halley's trigonometry method to compute the distance from the sun to the earth, and from that the distances between all the planets, published in Latin in 1716. It has been translated, but the method is complicated with many correction factors to be applied, and it is better to read the original than to rely on a translation.
(This letter will be continued in my next post.)
Roosevelt has a gem in Ms. Scofield, the Latin teacher. She is very generous with her time and energy, using her prep period, lunch, and time after class to help her students one on one. She makes her students welcome as well, to do their homework for her class, or for other classes, or even to visit each other as long as they are not disruptive to the students needing help. She goes beyond that to interest her students in Latin events throughout the area: Reed College in Portland has an annual Latin forum with featured speakers and discussion for high school Latin students throughout the Northwest. The Junior Classical League has an annual weekend of Latin events, a mixture of ancient sports, art with Latin themes, and oration. Approximately every other year, she organizes a trip to Italy during midwinter break. When noted classicists like Mary Beard visit Seattle, she passes on information about their speaking events and encourages them to attend. Everything she does help build the relationship between her and her students and between her students and the language and culture. High school students are notorious for not thinking ahead to next week, let alone to four years in the future. But a bond between the student and a mentor like Ms. Scofield helps students find the motivation to perform - if not for their own future, then because they don't want to disappoint their mentor. One thing that makes it easier to form that kind of bond is that Ms. Scofield is the only Latin teacher and the students will have her for all four years. In a language with many teachers, they must start over each year building a mentor-student relationship.
I don't see why Roosevelt thinks they need to cut their foreign language offerings down to two. My own high school was a public, general education high school, where most of the students planned on some higher education after high school. That sounds a lot like Roosevelt, doesn't it? My high school offered nine languages. Nine! And it wasn't any bigger than Roosevelt is now. These are the students who Roosevelt students will be competing with. And Roosevelt is trying to convince people that the school can't support more than two languages?
(continued in next post)
I'll come next to how the Latin cut was made. Two years ago the principal announced that Latin would be phased out, but that current students should not worry because they would continue to offer Latin long enough for all that year's Latin 1 students to continue through Latin 4. It is useless to teach students just one or two years of a language. They won't know enough to read literature on their own yet. The colleges that are selective enough to require a language at all generally require three or four years of the same language. Now this year the assistant principals point to low Latin enrollment as justification for cancelling Latin altogether - when enrollment is low precisely because they announced the program's cancellation! High school students learn from everyone they encounter. When what they see from the leaders of their school is breaking their promise to students, intellectual dishonesty, and lying with statistics, then that is what they will learn. Is that what you want them to learn?
Some have suggested that students study Latin 3 and Latin 4 online instead. Now, if there is one single thing that we should have learned from the last two years it is that online study is absolutely not a substitute for a good in-person teacher.
Latin is a popular language and fills its classes, when it is offered without the footnote that it's a doomed program.
Ms. Scofield is a brilliant teacher and mentor who loves Latin and loves teaching it. She has always been a good sport about teaching sections of English if there are only enough Latin students for four classes and she needs another class to fill her schedule. But I don't know why she would stay at Roosevelt if the Latin program is closed completely. Which would be a shame - Roosevelt is not so blessed with teachers who will go above and beyond the call of duty for the success of every student they teach that those gems can be just thrown away.
There has been a petition online with almost a thousand signers, and it has been pointed out to the three acting principals. Yet they have not reacted at all. I see it as a very poor look for principals not to even acknowledge the concerns of students and their families.
I hope you will reverse the horrible decision to cancel Latin 3 and 4 for the students who began taking it at Roosevelt, and beyond that continue Latin as a going concern.
Sincerely,
Patrick Scheible