Items of Note Jan 2024

You may be wondering why I'm not writing about Seattle Schools. Well, this week the Board and the district have zero public meetings. It's great that they all can come back from two weeks of vacation to have an entire week of not having to talk about anything they are doing. (Not to say they aren't working but it sure isn't forward-facing public work.) 

 

There is an "enrichment funding" bill for charter schools in the legislature.  It is SB 5809. It really should be DOA because of what they want to accomplish with the additional funding. It includes:

- amending state law so that charter schools can be eligible to apply for state grants on the same basis as a school district

- the State Superintendent would have to calculate a higher amount for charter school teachers as it applies to any school district where the charter school sits. 

- supplemental instruction services

- Special Education services

- Highly Capable Services (insert laughter here as the joke's on charters - there is very little money here)

- Transportation

- And, that charter schools in any given district could access levy dollars raised by said district.

The salaries uptick and transportation alone will be expensive but saying that districts that bear the costs for levies would now have to share their dollars is just ridiculous. 

In 2015, the Washington State Supreme Court ruled that charter schools could not be funded by General Fund dollars. They receive their funding from the Washington opportunity pathways account which also funds early childhood education, college tuition for low-income students, and more.

 What programs supported by the Account will lose dollars for charter schools to get more? Why are charter schools entitled to more dollars than low-income high school graduates?  Why are charter schools entitled to more dollars than early childhood education students?

 

Also going to the legislature (this from the Seattle Times):

Nearly all of the roughly 12,000 school buses serving Washington’s students run on diesel, a known carcinogen, said Leah Missik, senior policy manager for the nonprofit Climate Solutions, during an Environmental Priorities Coalition briefing. House Bill 1368 would require all new school buses to be zero-emission by the school year 2027 and use some carbon auction revenue to pay for it.

Apparently 70! people are applying for the open Seattle City Council seat vacated by Teresa Mosqueda. There was this good article from the NW Asian Weekly on candidates who are Asian including School Board Director Vivian Song.  Song is mentioned in three news stories so her name is right out there. Eight candidates who previously ran for Council but lost. (I feel like if you ran and lost, then perhaps the people have spoken.)

Here's the story from The Stranger.

I believe that community group endorsements - which the Council is seeking - may play a role.  From The Seattle Times:

 The council will hold a special meeting Friday to hear public comments and decide hosting duties for the public forum; Seattle CityClub and the Transit Riders Union have applied to host the forum, a news release said Thursday.

If there are 70 candidates, that's gonna be some long forum. 

The appointment will last until a special election in November, and then the seat will be part of a regular election in 2025. In theory, up to three different people could serve over the next couple of years. Or the same person appointed this month could be elected this November and reelected in 2025.

The council members mulling the appointment could choose someone with more government experience than political ambition, seeking a “caretaker” to serve in the role until Seattle voters can weigh in directly. Or the council members could appoint someone with aspirations to retain the seat.

Also, they could appoint someone with similar politics to Mosqueda, a former labor organizer who helped lead the council’s progressive wing from 2017 on. Or they could appoint a more conservative applicant, in line with the results of November’s district races, which ushered in a strong centrist majority.

From Florida, an astonishing story from one school district:

A Florida school district has pulled hundreds of books to determine whether they should be permanently removed from schools, including several dictionaries and encyclopedias.

That list of books that could be banned pending review includes five dictionaries — such as Merriam-Webster’s Elementary Dictionary — and eight encyclopedias.  

Anne Frank and dictionaries - boy, those sure are dangerous books. I would assume that the Bible - filled with torture, murder and assault - will likely be pulled as well.