This and That

•  I missed this when it happened in March but congrats to the Roosevelt High School Symphony Orchestra.

Roosevelt’s orchestra was the first-place winner in the Division 1 full orchestra competition at the W-ASTA Western Washington University Orchestra Festival! It was a great day and students had the chance to listen to other high-performing orchestras too. See the performance here . RHS is shown at about minute 42.

Congratulations to Roosevelt High School Band Director Scott Brown and to Katie Lenoue, a music teacher at Rainier Beach High School. Both received awards from the Washington Music Educators Association (WMEA) for their outstanding contributions to the development of music education. Brown was inducted into the association’s Hall of Fame and Lenoue was named one of the region’s Outstanding Music Educators.

• I'll update the running principal list but Licton Springs K-8 is looking for a new principal. The principal there for this school year was previously the new principal at Washington Middle School and went thru there like a wrecking ball. I'm not surprised she didn't last more than a year at Licton Springs.

• Tonight's School Board meeting is notable in a couple of ways. There are NO Introduction items nor any Action Items. That almost NEVER happens but it is happening more with this Board who will Intro items and then sweep them all into the Consent Agenda which take one vote on multiple items. 

Why does this matter? It means that a second opportunity to address the Board before they approve an item is gone. Unless a real protest is mounted to pull an item off the Consent Agenda, are items moved to the Consent Agenda are done deals. 

This action is in service to Board members Hampson, Hersey, Rankin and Sarju who think Board meetings are too long. They are NOT the Board members to contact if you want something pulled off the Consent Agenda. Better to try Harris, Song Maritz or Rivera Smith. 

The other interesting thing is this is the first Board meeting - probably in two years - that has a waitlist of speakers. The speaker list itself is at 25; not sure why it's not at 20 but it may be because there are so many speakers who want to talk about the Cleveland High School principal who being exited because she allegedly did not follow a district directive on COVID. 

There are 15 on the waitlist, most about principal placement. There is one speaker I wish they would move up; Mid Capra who wants to speak on "school food being green."

Update: I did leave out one thing on the Board agenda. The Superintendent has a lengthy report on how the African American Male initiative is working out. I found it somewhat confusing because it sounds like it's going well but wait, not for sure. But in the end, it's always the same thing: more money. They do much good work in defining issues and asking questions but expanding the program when you aren't sure it's working seems premature. 

• Want to keep up with public education jargon? Here's a good article on six new terms from blogger Nancy Bailey.

Here are tech terms threatening teachers and public schools and how students learn. When these words or phrases appear, it’s an indication that school district administrators, school board members, or those at the state or federal education levels are embracing an all-technology system, and teachers will play a secondary role in teaching students.

- Anytime/Anywhere Learning: Anytime, anywhere learning replaces formal schooling, teachers, and the classroom with mobile instruction through technology.

- Deeper learning is associated with whole-child education, with a large part of this technology and data collection.

- Digital Equity: Providing the poorest students access to digital information is essential. Technology has become a part of life and a helpful tool necessary for learning and most professions. Still, is it equity if children no longer have well-funded public schools with qualified, prepared teachers or an in-person connection to other students?

- Personalized Learning: Based on an online assessment, students get lessons aligned to their (personalized) academic level. This kind of instruction does little to connect students socially. Nor is it the best instruction. It collects online personal data about students, which is a concern.

- Seat Time: Criticizing student seat time promotes anytime, anywhere learning. It’s not to be confused with fighting to give children more recess. It’s important to remember too that students usually sit in front of computers.

- Whole Child Learning: Different definitions surround teaching the whole child, but the primary focus involves added responsibility for a child’s health, especially social-emotional learning, and collecting data (it’s a data gold mine) on a child’s behavior.