What's Today? On Closing Some Seattle Public Schools Next Year

Today is June 6. (Not forgetting that it is D-Day; my father and his brothers were in WWII.) 

No, it's the 6th day of June. That means 6 days have gone by without any kind of scheduling of public engagement about closing/consolidating schools. 

The Superintendent promised that public engagement would start in June.

To note, I see that Director Rankin and some staff are saying it's just "consolidation." In fact Director Lisa Rivera Smith said she would not vote to "close" schools. 

Well, if they shut down McGilvra's building and move that community to the new Montlake building and call it the "M" school, guess what? They will STILL BE CLOSING A SCHOOL. 

That ANY director is operating on the BS is a disgrace. 

I was on the last closure and consolidation committee and it's a BIG F'ing deal.

Schools close on the 30th, with closure for Juneteenth on the 19th. 

So subtract six days from June (30 days) minus Juneteenth and you get...23 days. 

Now is the Superintendent REALLY going to schedule meetings that last week of June when there are graduations and end of year events? I sure hope not because that would be the most obvious "trying to listen to as few people as possible" move. 

Tick tock, Mr. Superintendent.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tuesday Open Thread

The speaker list is up for the Board meeting tomorrow; not as packed as I thought with just four people on the waitlist. The majority of the speakers are speaking on high school boundaries (with several wanting to talk about Ballard High). There are only three of us speaking about the Green Dot resolution asking the City to not grant the zoning departures that Green Dot has requested.  It's me, long-time watchdog, Chris Jackins, and the head of the Washington State Charter Schools Association, Patrick D'Amelio.  (I knew Mr. D'Amelio when he headed the Alliance for Education and Big Brothers and Big Sisters; he's a stand-up guy.)
Read more

Breaking It Down: Where the District Might Close Schools

Update 2: an absolutely fabulous interactive map made by parent Beth Day (@thebethocracy on Twitter - she covers Board meetings and is fun to read).   end of update    Update 1: Mea culpa, I did indeed get Decatur and Thornton Creek mixed up. Thanks to all for the correction. end of update   I suspect some who read this post will be irate. Why do this? Because the district seems very hellbent on this effort with no oversight skid marks from the Board.    To clearly state - I do not believe that closing 20 schools is a good idea. I think they hit on 20 because they thought it might bring in the most savings. But the jury is still out on the savings because the district has not shown its work nor its data. I suspect closing schools and THEN leasing/renting them is the big plan but that means the district really has to keep the buildings up.   But this district, with its happy talk about "well-resourced schools" is NOT acknowledging the pain and yes, grief, that is to come fro
Read more

MEETING CANCELED - Hey Kids, A Meeting with Three(!) Seattle Schools Board Directors

 Update 2: So I have seen a message from President Liza Rankin on why she, Director Evan Briggs, and Director Michelle Sarju backed out of this meeting.  In a nutshell: - She says there was no organization to the meeting which is just not true. They had a moderator lined up and naturally the board members could have set parameters for what to discuss, length of meeting, etc. All that was fleshed out. - She also claimed that if the meeting was PTA sponsored, they needed to have liability insurance to use the school space. Hello? PTAs use school space all the time and know they have to have this insurance.  - She seems to be worried about the Open Public Meetings law. Look, if she has a meeting in a school building on a non-personnel topic, it should be an open meeting. It appears that Rankin is trying, over and over, to narrow the window of access that parents have to Board members. She even says in her message - "...with decisions made in public." Hmmm - She also says that th
Read more