This and That

  • Not sure why there is no notice of this at the district website but a water main broke at JSCEE a week or so ago. I am told that a notice about it stated that all central office staff will be working from home at least until March 3rd. 
  • Looks like Eric Marshall, principal at Cleveland, is going to be replaced. The school is advertising for people to serve on a principal search committee. 
  • At the next Board meeting on March 1, one item to be introduced is the document with the C-SIPs for each school

The Continuous School Improvement Plan is an action plan for each school that identifies the areas a school plans to focus on in the current and coming school year, the performance goals they want students to achieve, and how the school plans to collaboratively meet these goals.

I will be interested to see what schools say. I did a spot-check of the current ones  and while there is better uniformity, there was also not as much real information as in past years. Hmmm.

  • On Tuesday, February 28th, the Board is to have Work Session on their "Policy Diet" work as well as a Budget Work Session. No agendas are yet available but I will be interested to see what the agenda of the budget portion of the meeting looks like.
  • It appears the Board has created a new ad hoc committee: Ad Hoc Community Engagement Committee. They will be meeting directly before the next Board meeting. This might be interesting as well but again, no agenda yet.  They will have a meeting every week (save during Spring Break) until nearly the end of the school yet. I find this a bit puzzling because I thought there was going to be community meetings about the budget and the possible closure of schools.
  • Out of the blue, the district has cancelled meetings for the Superintendent’s Highly Capable and Racial Equity Services Advisory (HC/RESA) Committee. It was created "to support the development and implementation of procedures and practices for advanced learning. The committee advises the district as they design and implement equitable access to advanced learning."

What is odd is that a notice was sent to members of the committee but there is nothing at the district website. It's unclear if they are regrouping or if the advisory committee will just end its work.

May be an image of text

Comments

Transparency Needed said…
The Audit and Finance Committee held a quarterly meeting in December. Minutes haven't been posted.

The lack of transparency with this board is absolutely shameful.
Anonymous said…
The minutes that do get posted will probably say, “audits and finance were discussed” if they’re anything like all the other minutes I’ve seen lately from SPS.

The HC/RESA meetings have predictably been a sham, of course. Shana Brown sounded sick to her stomach when she realized that the new universal screening has done nothing to change the anti-girl bias in highly capable identification and that there’s plenty of scholarship showing that teacher recommendations are more biased than standardized tests. Whoops.

However much we’re paying Deenie is too much. That money could have gone toward library books which are the only highly capable services provided in the district now.
Unknown said…
If CNN and MSNBC covered the SPS Board as is but changed the name to Someplace, Texas or Atown, Florida, the Prius drivers in Seattle would shake their heads at the paternalism and oppression.

SP
Anonymous said…
I wouldn't worry too much about bias in those teacher recommendations. Though I spent several hours on that form, checking through data to guard against my own bias, they paid zero attention to any teacher input. And regardless of recommendations, test scores, or hc status, they are refusing advanced math placemt in 6th grade to any incoming students not previously enrolled in math 6. Telling my families who can manage it to consider heading to Shoreline.
-Seattlelifer
Outsider said…
They have transformed HC services into something that does not exist. After that, the committee would server no purpose except to generate some muffled noise and motion to confuse gullible journalists or public officials, if any were even interested, but probably they aren't. The entire advanced learning department would be an easy cut for budgetary reasons -- no one would miss it at this point.
Outsider, I think they'll keep the "office of AL" and one person but yeah, what's the point?

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