This and That, April 24, 2023
Nationally
Texas Senate passes bill requiring public school classrooms to display Ten CommandmentsSenate Bill 1515, authored by state Sen. Phil King, a Republican, requires the Ten Commandments to be displayed in a “conspicuous place” in each classroom in a “size and typeface that is legible to a person with average vision from anywhere in the classroom.”
King has previously said the bill will help restore religious liberties “that were lost” and it “reminds students all across Texas of the importance of a fundamental foundation” of America.
This would apply for the next school year.
Also Thursday, the Senate passed another bill relating to religion, one which would require schools to allow time for students and employees to pray and read the Bible on each school day.
Really? But hey, good news:
Following the passage of the two bills, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said in a statement “allowing the Ten Commandments and prayer back into our public schools is one step we can take to make sure that all Texas have the right to freely express their sincerely held religious beliefs.”
Well, Governor, there are a LOT of people in this country with widely different "sincerely held religious beliefs." And the Supreme Court has upheld this idea so I look forward for the Torah, Qur'an, and, of course, the religion of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, to be widely available in schools.
Because, sir, you are not gonna succeed with this country as a country for just Christians.
Let's go from one sad state to another - Florida. Via Salon:
“Don’t Say Period”: Now Florida wants to ban students from discussing menstruation
The bill proposes banning any form of health education until sixth grade and would prohibit students from asking questions about menstruation, including about their own first periods, which frequently occur before the sixth grade.
How do we make sense of censoring conversations about menstruation in U.S. schools one year after Scotland became the first country in the world to make period products universally accessible, and when Spain, just two months ago, became the first country in the world to offer paid menstrual leave?
You could always take your daughter to the opening of the Judy Blume story, now a movie, "Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret."
What is so incredible is the lack of understanding that more girls are getting their periods in elementary school. Like 8,9, 10. Story from Scientific American.
To tell girls that they cannot talk to other girls about their periods is a form of abuse.
Very interesting article from Willamette Week about the state of enrollment in Portland Schools.
Police confiscate gun student brought to Ingraham High School
Seattle Times story on April 21st about yet another student on the grounds of Ingraham with a gun.
Seattle police confiscated a gun Thursday from a student who brought it to Ingraham High School, almost six months after a student was shot and killed in the school hallways.
A video was posted on social media of a student who attends Nathan Hale High School holding a gun in the parking lot of Ingraham, according to an email Seattle Public Schools sent to families of both schools. The student attends morning classes at Ingraham.
Police officers arrived at Nathan Hale Thursday and spoke with the
student involved, the email said. The gun was recovered and the student
is being disciplined.
I'm confused why the student goes to classes at two different high schools.
Director Vivian Song Maritz is having a community meeting this week, on Tuesday, the 25th from 6:30-7:30 pm via Zoom.
To receive the Zoom meeting link, please register for Director Song Maritz community meeting. Registration is required to attend.
I'm hearing that the Executive Directors numbers may be reduced from 7 to 5 and those remaining will be working by region/K-12.
KUOW had a story on the SE region schools working collectively to raise money that would be jointly shared for enrichment at those schools. I do find the headline problematic:
A group of Seattle school PTSAs is redistributing wealth to help students
This group of schools IS sharing their fundraising funds but how is that redistributing wealth if the point is that these schools are lower-income with small PTAs who don't have the fundraising firepower of larger PTAs in better off areas?
The article mentions schools not having money for field trips. If the district was still answering questions from me (they have stopped without reason given), I'd ask what happened to former Superintendent Denise Juneau's initiative just for schools with few resources to be able to have field trips? Maybe that got eaten up in consulting fees for initiatives that the Board and Superintendent have created. I had been impressed that Juneau had made this a priority. I wish those schools would ask current Super Brent Jones that question.
What is also interesting about this story is...where is the SCPTSA in all this? Why no quotes from the district? It does not appear that KUOW asked so this is not the most balanced story. My take is that KUOW is not that interested in real reporting on public education.
I will also state (again) - the real fundraising money in high school comes not from PTA but from boosters who the district has zero control over. It would be interesting to see what the booster money looks like from high school to high school but that's just not possible to get that info from private organizations.
Comments
Schools Out
Ingraham Parent
SP
It would be nice if we all acknowledged that and stopped pretending the wealthy are part of it.
Spike
As a parent who has volunteered to help on a Garfield field trip last month and will be helping with another one in June ... I'd say you're overstating the paperwork issue. Bigger concerns are the costs, volunteer recruitment and scheduling.
– Chaperone
For example:
"Different schools have more or less public funding available to them. Typically, wealthier areas have higher property taxes to rely on. Others in lower-income communities don't have the same kinds of resources."
While that may be true nationally, that absolutely is not true **within** Seattle public schools. In fact, our WSS is intentionally skewed to steer more money to schools with higher low-income populations.
SPS schools with higher FRL rates (Rising Star, West Seattle, Bailey Gatzert, Wing Luke, Rainier View, Concord, Northgate, Lowell, Emerson, MLK Jr., Roxhill, John Muir, Highland Park, Dunlap, Dearborn Park, Sanislo, Olympic Hills, etc.) receive quite a bit more $ from the district even before you add in extra sources of money for low income students like the City FEL levy, LAP funding, title 1 money, etc.). And SPS schools with lower FRL rates (Fairmount Park, Magnolia, View Ridge, West Woodland, JSIS, Whittier, Genessee Hill, Wedgwood, Lawton, Thornton Creek, Coe, Bryant, Decatur, Cascadia, McDonald, etc.) receive considerably less through the basic WSS formula from the district ($1,000 to $2,000 less per student in many years). The differences really add up. Some SPS schools receive about 2/3 the funding as others ($12,000 vs. $8,000 per student), and the schools that get less funding are the wealthier ones, which is the opposite of what KUOW is saying.
So, when the KUOW story says that "Different schools have more or less public funding available to them" in Seattle that actually means there's way more funding at schools with lower income populations. Intentionally. By design. And it has been this way for a long time.
When KUOW says that "wealthier areas have higher property taxes to rely on," that wealthier area would be Seattle! That's kind of the whole point of the Wahkiakum lawsuit. King County is the poster child state-wide for high property values (although we should really be looking specifically toward Mercer Island...). Aki Kurose Middle School gets MORE money per student than McClure Middle School even though property owners around McClure pay higher property taxes than property owners around Aki Kurose. Higher property taxes allow Seattle schools to have more money than Wahkiakum schools, although we also have way higher costs for teachers and transportation and special education... But when KUOW says "others in lower-income communities don't have the same kinds of resources," that actually refers more to students in Wahkiakum than it does to students in SE Seattle. 78% of students in the entire Federal Way School District are low income. At Aki Kurose Middle School it's 63%. At Rising Star Elementary, it's 65%. In SPS as a whole it's 34%. We're the rich ones.
ALL schools in Seattle are underfunded by the state of Washington. The state should be paying for our actual costs of special education and transportation and capital expenses, etc. (see Washington's Paramount Duty at http://paramountduty.org)
You can donate to the SE Seattle Schools Fundraising Alliance here:
https://secure.givelively.org/donate/alliance-for-education/se-seattle-schools-fundraising-alliance-3rd-annual-move-a-thon
And when you're done with that, write to your legislators and tell them to fully fund schools:
https://app.leg.wa.gov/districtfinder
-Upside Down
SP
-Blue Dog