This and That in Seattle Schools

Just wondering if the district is going to offer parents any information or guidance on the state of COVID/monkeypox and their child's school. Granted, school doesn't start for a couple of weeks but it's a thought. Nothing so far at the district website. 

Speaking of pandemic issues, there has been a case of polio (yes, polio) in New York State. To note, polio is a disease that really affects kids (my older sister had it and has felt its effects her entire life) so this is scary. How scary (bold mine)?

 From CNN:

A polio case identified in New York last month is "just the very, very tip of the iceberg" and an indication there "must be several hundred cases in the community circulating," a senior official with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told CNN on Wednesday. 

The case was found In Rockland County, which has a stunningly low polio vaccination rate. Dr. José Romero, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, noted that the majority of people with polio don't have symptoms and so can spread the virus without knowing it.

Polio can cause incurable paralysis and death, but most people in the US are protected, thanks to vaccination. Others, however, may be vulnerable to the virus for a variety of reasons. Immune-compromised people can be vulnerable even if they are fully vaccinated.

Romero said the CDC is considering a variety of options to protect people from polio, including offering children in the area an extra shot of the vaccine, as UK health authorities are doing now in London, or recommending extra doses to certain groups of adults.

From our friends at the West Seattle blog, several stories. 

The playground at Alki Elementary has been closed. Seattle Parks says:

The safety inspection revealed a major structural issue with the wood decking. This play structure is long overdue for replacement. We plan to remove the wooden structure prior to this school year. We are working with Seattle Public Schools on a replacement plan.

From West Seattle blog:

The playground is a Seattle Parks Alki Elementary, which is scheduled close in one year for a reconstruction project. 

However, something might need to get done sooner as there is also this story at the WS blog about West Seattle Elementary: 

When the addition that’s under construction at West Seattle Elementary in High Point was first planned, Seattle Public Schools said it would be built without having to temporarily relocate the school. Then that changed, and the district decided to relocate WSES for the 2021-2022 school year, to the former Schmitz Park Elementary campus in west Admiral. 

With less than a month to go until the 2022-2023 school year begins, we asked the district about the project’s status, and learned that WSES will now spend a second school year at Schmitz Park. District spokesperson Tina Christiansen says the project was delayed about three months by the concrete strike. 

It’s expected to be complete this winter, but the school won’t move back until the following fall, Christiansen says, because, “The school leadership decided the school community would be better served by waiting until fall to move in rather than moving mid-year.” Plus: “The added time is allowing for replacement of the glazing in the existing building, which wasn’t originally planned.” 

She says the WSES community has been aware of all this since spring but they hadn’t planned a wider community announcement until later this summer. The $28 million project will add 12 classrooms to WSES. 

So Alki's renovation - scheduled after West Seattle Elementary's - will have to wait another year to get started.  And speaking of Alki, another story at the West Seattle Blog is an update on what their new school will look like. One major issue? Zero parking. No parking lot at all, just on the street parking. The residents are not happy. 

I recently found out that Carri Campbell, formerly the head of Communications at SPS and then co-head with Sarah Pritchett of this odd thing (the Office of Strategy Deployment and Responsiveness), has left SPS and is now working in the Northshore District. Guess who's the interim superintendent there? None other than Michael Tolley who had been at SPS in different senior leadership positions. And look at how their Board picked just the interim superintendent:

Michael Tolley was selected by the school board after a thorough selection process that included community feedback. In the community survey that closed on May 13, respondents identified eight traits that the interim leader should possess. The school board added three additional traits they wanted to see in an interim superintendent. From these 11 traits, the board created interview questions and interviewed five final candidates on May 25-27.

Wow, if the Northshore Board did all that to find an interim superintendent, it will be interesting to follow how they lay out the process for selecting a permanent superintendent.  

 Campbell is working as Executive Director of Communications at Northshore. Pritchett is now the head of HR for SPS. That office they were co-heading? Gone with the wind. Hmmm.