Seattle Schools Community Forum

The Portland, Oregon teachers strike is over after a long three weeks. From the NYTimes: The strike has drawn attention to public school funding in Oregon. While unions in other industries have recently secured major wins, taking advantage of profits of Hollywood studios and Detroit’s large automakers , Portland Public Schools said repeatedly that its budget was limited by state education funding, an assertion that was at least partly supported by state fiscal analysts . And the district has said that it will have to find more than $100 million in cuts to afford the contract, The Oregonian reported. Uh oh, same as Seattle. From the Seattle Times : One person is hospitalized and another has been arrested after a shooting in the 1400 block of Northwest 67th Street, the Seattle Police Department said on the social media platform X . Ballard High School is within that block, though police did not specify in its posts, published early Sunday afternoon, whether the reported shooting took

The title of this post comes from a middle school teacher being quoted by Claudia Rowe, a member of the Seattle Times' editorial board. The title of the op-ed is Student discipline: Are schools equipped to handle behavioral extremes? This op-ed in the Times absolutely circles back to a key question I have been asking - what is public education and what should it do? Districts are being asked to do many things beyond the academic. But there are not enough dollars to do all the things outside of academics. Something's gotta give. In the last 12 months, students from the Seattle, Renton and Highline school districts have been charged with crimes ranging from assault to murder, some of which happened inside school buildings. Rowe goes on: If you are a person who believes, as I do, that no child is born a killer, the obvious question is what are we doing wrong? Kids’ lives outside of school shape their psyches, but blaming families leaves us with the same problem: disconnected young

Today was one of the darkest days in American history - President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. I was remiss in posting this but KUOW's Sami West did - November 8th was the sad one year anniversary of the shooting at Ingraham High School that took the life of student Ebenezer Haile. West's story is a follow-up to how students are doing one year later. To that end, KUOW has another story on student mental health and the work of the Seattle Student Union. The Seattle Student Union has been advocating for more mental health support in schools since a shooting at Ingraham last year left one student dead — and a school community continuing to grieve months later. The city responded with $4.5 million to pilot a mental health program in five schools. But Makar-Wituki says more funding is needed to reach more students at more schools. And while the Seattle Student Union had wanted more — the group's initial proposal was for about $27 million — Makar-Wituki is

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This phase of the board meeting took two hours. It felt much more like a Work Session than a board meeting. Everyone moved to tables set up nearby to view the PowerPoint. Below will be key quotes but here are the important highlights. The MOST important highlight is two-fold.  One, I believe Director Liza Rankin is now a conduit for new ideas from the Superintendent and staff, particularly around closure and consolidation of schools. I've seen this now several times where she seems to pull an idea from the air or "someone at a school told" her something. Then, someone on the staff agrees with her or says it might be possible. Two, want to know what that means in this board meeting?  Rankin put forth the idea that some K-5 principals, tired of not being able to have a full staff or being in an old building (or both), might want to volunteer to consolidate with another school. Superintendent Brent Jones concurs saying some school communities are "approaching readines

This third hour of the Seattle School Board meeting was the vote on the Consent Agenda which is where the fiscal policy had been moved. Once again, the Board is placing items on the Consent Agenda which have no business being there and this certainly was one of them. Any director for any reason can pull an item off the Consent Agenda and move it to the floor for discussion. Since an amendment (by Director Vivian Song Maritz) was attached, the item was pulled off the Consent Agenda for discussion. Director Chandra Hampson spoke first as this policy was developed by her and Director Liza Rankin. Hampson said it was an already amended version with some changes (which you can see from the redlined version) as well as grammar updates. Apparently, she and Rankin had wanted to put in something else but Legal deemed that "the change was too big to be considered this late in the game."  This should have been the first red flag that this policy was not ready for primetime. But wait, i

I misread the length of the Board meeting. Silly me, it wasn't 3 hours, it was 6 hours. This will wrap up the first two hours. It was the last meeting for Director Leslie Harris and Director Chandra Hampson so there were thank-yous and farewells plus director and Superintendent comments. The comment I was most taken with was from one of the new student board members, Aayush Muthuswamy. He said he had had limited contact with Hampson and Harris but that they had been wonderful to him. On the fiscal stabilization plan, he said he knows it has been months of work by staff but he wanted to remind the Board and the district that they should seek "direct student feedback." He said for difficult decisions, staff and the Board should involve students. Highlights (key thoughts in bold - I do this because I want people to remember who said what.) All the board members had something nice to say. This is hour 1. Hersey had praise for both. He met Harris first and she tried to recru

Here's a link to the final version of the BAR with the PowerPoint of "Direction for 2024-25 & 2025-26 Fiscal Stabilization Plan to Create a System of Well-Resourced Schools" and the Board Resolution on that "direction."  I'll talk about both of these but I just want to call out a glaring issue. Director Liza Rankin recently made a comment to a parent on Facebook about enrollment.  (Bold mine) She said: "We know that enrollment is declining now, but all indications are that the district will grow; "   Someone should call her out and ask her HOW she knows this. Because the Board's resolution on that plan AND the Superintendent's well-resourced schools report do NOT reflect that optimism.    From the Resolution:   "WHEREAS, the District’s student enrollment for the 2024-25 school year is projected to decline from the current school year, and is projected to continue to decline in future years;"   The Superintendent's rep

Update 2: So the district is hitting the pause button. Several thoughts from me. 1) From the Times ' article: “We know it takes time to plan and implement large-scale changes and will include our community to provide feedback as we move through the process,” Redmond wrote. Yeah. The logistics in closing schools makes up a huge list. These "well-resourced schools" meetings that were a cover for getting parents prepped for closures. SPS better understand and suss out ALL the ramifications because if this goes badly, the district may go into full crisis mode.  Some of what I learned from being on the last Closure and Consolidation Committee were things like this.  Younger teachers will get bumped out by older teachers with seniority. It's just a contractual fact. Many parents get upset when teachers at their school - not a closing one or a consolidation school, any school - are RIFed for teacher with seniority. That it is VERY important to transfer some of the cus