Seattle Schools Community Forum

  As usual, when I go to the district website to look at one thing, I find something else interesting. As I mentioned in a previous post, the district has not seen fit to acknowledge and celebrate the achievements of high school musicians and athletes from Garfield and Roosevelt as well as Lincoln, either at their website or on Twitter. So I went to look at the agenda for the School Board meeting, next Wednesday, June 7th to see if there might be a mention.  And look what I found under the "Personnel Report."  First, we already knew that Keisha Scarlett, the Chief Academic Officer, was leaving. She finally got a superintendent gig. (And I wonder if they will replace her any time soon, given the district's financial woes.) Then I see the head of Early Learning, Heather Brown, is leaving (although not until October which seems odd). As well, the Early Learning Coordinator, Mary Fickes, is leaving September 1. But then I see James Bush, Executive Director for the offic...

 I'm baffled.  As you may recall from this post and this post, both musicians and athletes from three high schools in SPS, Lincoln, Garfield and Roosevelt , did wonderful things over the last month.  Has Seattle Schools acknowledged this at their website? Nope. On Twitter? Nope. Their Facebook page only reflects the Lincoln High School accomplishments.  So does a team or band have to win it all to get attention from the district? Because in the past, when the Roosevelt or Garfield Jazz Band came in first or second at the Essentially Ellington Competition, the district would always acknowledge it. I'll be interested to see if the Superintendent and/or the Board make an acknowledgement of these schools at next week's Board meeting. 

 I ask because I have four cities on my weather app on my phone and Seattle is one of them. There looks to be a spate of hot days in a week or so. I also saw that school doesn't get out until June 30! So that's plenty of time for hot weather to build up before the official summer start in Seattle of July 5th.  Does your child's school have fans and/or AC? Any complaints from your student about the temps being too high in class?

The first story comes from KUOW , it's related to school safety and it's not good. Ingraham High murder suspect brought weapons to school the previous month, records show Ingraham staff confiscated a large knife and a BB gun resembling a real pistol from the boy on October 3, according to district files KUOW obtained through a public records request. "Can't we just expel [the student] and they can appeal?" one staff member texted another. Instead, the student was suspended for several days, records show. A district spokesperson declined to comment, citing the legal case surrounding the shooting and the student. Are you kidding me? The district knew this happened and yet they just suspended him? It would be great to know what the discussion was when he got caught with these items. Because if he said he needed them for protection, then wouldn't the district worry about if that fear was gang-related?  Seattle Police Department Detective Judinna Gulpan declined ...

 The Seattle Times has not one but two articles this morning about Seattle Schools being segregated. Let's dive in. The reporting is done through their "Education Lab" funded by the Gates Foundation. It's always a bit confusing to me because their blurb page says, "Education Lab is a Seattle Times project that spotlights promising approaches to some of the most persistent challenges in public education." That is not the nature of this article at all. The first article is entitled " Why Seattle schools are more segregated today than the 1980."  For those of you who don't know, Seattle experimented with busing in the '70s with very mixed outcomes and reactions. For decades, the district sent thousands of kids on buses to far-off neighborhoods in the name of resolving the same problems Seattle schools face today.  The article covers the history of SPS efforts. Embedded in the article is a nifty look-up tool to see a single school's int...

 There's a wonderful essay series called Humans of New York where random New Yorkers get asked questions about their lives. The humanity that comes out is very moving. I recently read this one and it solidly goes along with this discussion. I hope you read it to your children and have a family talk about it. (Bold mine)   Humans of New York   S e t s d p n o o r a 1 i 0 l h f 2   “I used to say: ‘I like to watch TikTok, or YouTube.’ But I don’t really like to describe myself that way anymore. Because if you think about it, that’s not really something you do. It’s just something that pulls you in. It made me feel connected. Like, I know this person. But I really didn’t know them at all.    And I’d sit at home getting sucked into this endless void of whatever I was watching. Windows closed, AC on. My dad would say: ‘Go outside and do something, it builds character.’ Most of the time he’d only say it because he wanted me to take out the trash, or go on an e...

Part One is all about you, parents.  Let me just say that I thank my lucky stars that I am not raising a child today. In my opinion, the issues for parents today are worse than they have ever been.  Only you know your child/teen and what access they have to social media in general. (I say in general because you may not realize what they see at school or how they use social media at school. Check out this infographic on teens and their exposure to porn from Common Sense.)  You buy the phones and the phone service. Right there, folks, there's a HUGE amount of control. I see on some Facebook pages for local parents, questions about when kids should get a smartphone (it's never a starter flip phone). My experience as a parent is to instill your rules as soon as you can, as young as you can and their enforcement. Let your child know that this is a privilege, not a right. You read my headline, right? Like so many other issues in your child's life, it is really up to you. You...

 From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services : Surgeon General Issues New Advisory About Effects Social Media Use Has on Youth Mental Health Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy Urges Action to Ensure Social Media Environments are Healthy and Safe, as Previously-Advised National Youth Mental Health Crisis Continues Today, United States Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy released a new Surgeon General’s Advisory on Social Media and Youth Mental Health - PDF . While social media may offer some benefits, there are ample indicators that social media can also pose a risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents. Social media use by young people is nearly universal, with up to 95% of young people ages 13-17 reporting using a social media platform and more than a third saying they use social media “almost constantly.” With adolescence and childhood representing a critical stage in brain development that can make young people more vulnerable...

 Boy, is Lincoln HS becoming a sports powerhouse. They took the boys baseball title for the Metro League on May 15th after defeating West Seattle HS, 5-2. They then moved on to the 3A State Baseball Championship. They won on Saturday, 6-3 against Lake Washington. According to the Times: Just an hour earlier, Lincoln won the Class 3A state soccer title , 1-0 over Ballard. That's a lot of sweat and dedication to get to that level this soon after reopening just four years ago.  Lincoln coach Ray Atkinson was a student at Lincoln when it was shuttered because of low attendance in 1981 before reopening in 2019, and was emotional after the game when reflecting on his team’s accomplishment.  “(It means) everything,” Atkinson said. “I would’ve never imagined they’d reopen the school. So to be able to go home, I had a goal, to win a state championship, … To be able to do it in four years with the group you started with, is super cool.” Background article from KING 5 ab...

Neither Roosevelt High School's jazz band or Garfield High School's jazz band took top honors at the Essentially Ellington competition this year. However, these musicians from both schools were honored and deserve congratulations (some honors shared with other schools as well): OUTSTANDING RHYTHM SECTION: Roosevelt High School  OUTSTANDING TROMBONE SECTION: Garfield High School OUTSTANDING TRUMPET SECTION: Garfield High School OUTSTANDING BASS: Garfield High School OUTSTANDING DRUMS: Roosevelt High School OUTSTANDING CLARINET: Peter Strickland, Garfield High School HONORABLE MENTION ALTO SAX: Charlee Dobson-Cohen OUTSTANDING ALTO SAX: Graham Cobden, Garfield High School OUTSTANDING TENOR SAX: Taiyo Fuwa, Roosevelt High School  OUTSTANDING DOUBLER: Peter Strickland, Garfield High School OUTSTANDING TRUMPET: Timothy Park, Garfield High School The Cootie Williams Award - Timothy Park, Garfield High School   

District 1 - Currently held by Liza Rankin Michael Christophersen Blaine Parce Liza Rankin (incumbent) Debbie Carlsen   District 2 - Currently held by Lisa Rivera Smith Christina Posten Lisa Rivera Smith (incumbent) Janai Ray   District 3 - Chandra Hampson's region; she's not running and for good reason Christie Robertson Ben Gitenstein Evan Briggs   District 6 - Leslie Harris' region; she's not running again Rosie McCarter Gina Topp Maryanne Wood By tomorrow, I will have interviewed  4 of the candidates; I'm still waiting for replies to my invite from six of them. I will not be interviewing the incumbents because 1) they have a track record and 2) there are taped interviews with them.

 ZUM workers voted to authorize a strike against Seattle Public Schools. From PR Newswire: Nearly 150 Zūm drivers and technicians represented by Teamsters Local 174 that provide school bus service for the Seattle School District (SSD) now sit at the precipice of a work stoppage after workers voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike. "As these negotiations have dragged on, it has become clear that Zūm made an unrealistically low bid to the Seattle School District to take this work, and they want to pass responsibility for that decision onto their workers rather than themselves," said Rick Hicks , Teamsters Western Region International Vice President and Local 174 Secretary-Treasurer. "These hardworking bus drivers refuse to accept less than they deserve just to help protect Zūm's bottom line, especially when Zūm executives were the ones who made the poor business decision to underbid this contract. They can either live with that decision, or they can fac...

Update 2: I had it wrong (see below in red). The 36th - because of confusion and the need to continue on with other endorsements - never VOTED on an endorsement for School Board District 1. Technically, there is no endorsement but until there is a vote, it is just a placeholder. I also was told I misspoke about Suzanne Dale Estey and a couple of others during the discussion. It was unclear if she and the others supported Rankin's candidacy but their beef was around how the 36th leadership allowed the discussion to go. end of update Update : Well, apparently that was some endorsement meeting for the 36th Dems around school board endorsements. They did end up with the same endorsements as their Board did (see below) but not without some controversy. They also offered no endorsement for the District 5 City Council race.  Incumbent Liza Rankin was in attendance as were the other two candidates in that race, Debbie Carlsen and Blane Parse. Apparently Christie Robertson running in Distri...

 Looks like one candidate has withdrawn from Director Liza Rankin's race in District 1. That is Jonathan Assink. That still leaves four candidates; Rankin, Blaine Parce, Michael Christophersen and Debbie Carlsen which means there will be a primary in that race. In Director Lisa Rivera Smith's race in District 2, candidate Janai Ray has dropped out. It leaves just two candidates - Rivera Smith and Christina Posted - so there will be no primary in that race.  One other item of note - it turns out that the 37th Dems did have an endorsement meeting last night but since none of the school board races are within their boundaries, there were no endorsements made for the primary. Once the primary has passed and those school board races become city-wide, the 37th will then make endorsements. Only candidates who identify as Democrats can be considered for their endorsement. 

 Update 2: Here's the link to the coverage of the Alki Elementary rebuild meeting by the West Seattle Blog . Two hours after the appeal deadline, Seattle Public Schools discussed the project at an in-person community meeting, which turned contentious as frustrated neighbors at times shouted their concerns about some of those zoning exceptions, particularly those related to transportation, including the removal of all on-site parking. So last night, after listening for an hour to district director of capital projects Richard Best, architect Becky Hutchinson of Mahlum, and transportation consultant Marni Heffron , they did what they could to be heard, at times shouting their disagreement with the project team’s contentions. The new school’s added height, the subject of one of the zoning departures, gives it a third story, and that’s where the library will be.   The library is on the third floor! That sure makes it handy. That's gonna be some amount of time for teache...