Seattle Schools Community Forum

Update 2: Well, from FOX to the UK rag, the Daily Mail, this story on SPS has legs. Given how long Rainier View Elementary parents had to wait for their concerns to be addressed by the district, I suspect that the HCC changes will have to absolutely crash and burn (a lawsuit maybe?) before the district admits this process was wrong. end of update Update: look who made FOX News .  Yes, Seattle Public Schools and its revamping of the HCC program. Well, at least as far as I can tell, it's only online but who knows?  end of update There are over four hundred comments at the Seattle Times for this morning's article entitled, "Why Seattle Public Schools is closing its highly capable cohort program." I wonder if the district is happy with that headline because I think the district thinks they are just revamping it. I'll print what I said in the Comments section but boy, are people nearly united in their belief that: a) This is NOT a good thing for any student. b) It...

 Update 2: The Board will be having a Special Meeting before their regularly scheduled Board meeting on Wednesday, April 3rd, where they will selected the two people to fill the empty spots in District 2 and District 4.  The Special Meeting starts at 3:30 pm and can be viewed in person or online.  Auditorium, John Stanford Center 2445 – 3rd Avenue South, Seattle WA 98134 Remote access: By Microsoft Teams By Teleconference: +1 206-800-4125 (Conference ID: 585 057 602# This meeting will be about a half hour and then the regular Board meeting will start at 4:15 pm. The new directors will take the oath of office on Thursday, April 4th.  Seems interesting that the Board didn't build in the time for the new members to take the oath after their Special Meeting and seat them for the Board meeting. In the past, this has been done. Of course, the next week is Spring Break so it that does give the new members the chance to do their homework.  Oddly, the next Board meeting ...

From Westside Seattle: In the wake of two fatal shooting deaths in the past year near Chief Sealth International High School (CSIHS) the PTSA is sponsoring a Community Health Forum Tuesday evening, April 16 at 6:30pm. The meeting will feature members of Seattle Public Schools, Seattle City Council, Seattle Police Department, and Seattle Parks and Rec. A Q & A will be included. The school is located at 2600 SW Thistle Street.   From Children and Screens , a lengthy tip sheet on "Girls, Health and Digital Media."    Via a reader: The National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) is pleased to announce Seattle, Washington will host NAGC24, the nation’s largest gifted education conference, November 21-24, 2024. Held at the Seattle Convention Center, NAGC24 will bring the gifted education field to the West Coast for the first time in over 30 years. Every year, NAGC convenes over 2,000 passionate educators, gifted coordinators, psychologists, researchers, an...

 Troubling Issues at Hand One - violence to SPS students and at buildings in SPS continues on . To have some students even suggesting bringing back SPD officers to high schools is stunning because my impression is student overwhelmingly didn't want that. But perhaps they are really scared.    Two - Recalling the overzealous middle school mental health screener being used - Check Yourself - my sources has even MORE distressing comments from students. • “ dont contact anyone or talk to me about any of my answers” • “I don't really see why we have to do this because it is private information, and even if someone needs help they would tell someone if they wanted to.” • “IT WUZ WEERD” • “i never want to do this ever again • “there was not msny middle ground options” • “its nice but im worried my parents will get upset if they find out the things i do” • “why do want to know my sexual orientation? - My teacher is watching me take the questions; please tell the teachers not to....

I have SOFG (Student Outcomes Focused Governance) guru, AJ Crabill, on my follow list on Twitter.  He tweets things like: the tools students need to be successful, the impact of connection on navigating geopolitical challenges, & the role of education in maximizing the potential of individuals in a global sapiosentient society. Okay.  Today he was linking to his article on some of the districts he works with and how it was important for Board's to keep strictly on district goals and guardrails.  I was surprised to read: You will most often hear it suggested that a school board’s greatest power to impact student learning is setting policy. I used to believe this. My experience, however, has taught me a more consistent reality: culture trumps policy every day. Shades of the Moss Adams report on how the district runs from what? 15+ years ago: If you don't change the culture of a bureaucracy, you change nothing.  But here's how Crabill defines "culture:" When ...

Two male teens were found shot to death along I-5. They are alleged to have been part of a gang called 5 Star Bloods. One was found around the NE 85th Street on-ramp. Both boys were 16 years old. From My Northwest: One was found between 10:30 and 11 p.m. Thursday night and the other was discovered at around 8 a.m. on Friday morning. King County WSP Trooper Rick Johnson told KIRO Newsradio that late Thursday the WSP received a report that a pedestrian was seen lying on I-5 north about a half-mile away from the NE 85th Street exit. Johnson noted there was no indication the person found on the freeway was struck by a vehicle. So, that quickly turned into a homicide investigation. Johnson explained the WSP has not established a connection between the two victims, but they’re working to get more information on these cases. He also said they’re also trying to determine if the killings occurred on or off the freeway. The reason it is believed that it was gang-related is because there w...

Via the SPS webpage: The public is invited to attend or stream this forum for candidates for appointment to the District 2 and 4 School Board Director seats. All finalists will have the opportunity to share why they are interested in serving on the Seattle School Board and answer questions selected by the Board and Student Members. More information about the appointment process, including a timeline and candidate webpages, can be found on the appointment process web page . SPSTV Streaming: The meeting will be  live streamed on SPSTV  and broadcast on television on Comcast 26 (standard-def) and 319 (hi-def), Wave 26 (standard-def) and 695 (hi-def), and Century Link 8008 (standard-def) and 8508 (hi-def). The agenda reflects the above wording - the meeting will be two-and-a-half hours.   The meeting will be held on Wednesday, March 27th at the Performing Arts Center at Lincoln High School, 4400 Interlake Avenue North from 6-8:30 pm.   The Board's sche...

 Even though my life wasn't personally touched by school closures, I tried to be positive with parents. I reminded them that American kids lived through the 1917 flu pandemic as well as World War II. But time continued to tick by and I became increasingly worried about kids being out of school so long.  In short, I think parents were right. Schools should have reopened sooner. That said, what was a district to do? So many teachers did not want to be there, there were teachers in so many buildings with HVAC issues, and, what if the teachers just didn't show up?  As well, were parents going to sue districts for reopening too soon? The fear of lawsuits looms large for many districts.  But my question is, where was the debriefing for parents? I'm going to do a deeper dive but, so far, I haven't found a district that sat down with parents and talked about what happened. Sure, districts needed to ramp back up for in-person fast but you can't just shake off what came in th...

This story from KUOW: Garfield High School parents want Seattle leaders to do more to protect students after a 17-year-old was shot in the leg nearby the school last week. Parents and community members want city leaders and Seattle Public Schools to take stronger action to protect students and the larger Central District community. They told KUOW they feel like they have to do something to make it clear that something must be done about escalating violence they are witnessing. “It should not be a privilege to have safety. [It] should be offered to all students," said another Garfield parent, whose name we're not disclosing to protect their child's privacy. According to a Seattle Police Department statement , the shooting on March 13 was not connected to a homicide that happened later in the day near 24th Avenue South and South Main Street. Investigators are still looking for a suspect. The student who was shot in the leg was not the intended target, according t...

Update: I probably fired off too quickly. Yes, I know that the district has SAID they aren't closing schools at the earliest in '25-'26. But listening in on Board Work Sessions on the budget, it seems to come up every time. Seems weird if it's settled that they would waste one minute on closures and yet they do. Going on decades of experience and my Spidey sense, but I don't think they will wait that long. I don't say that lightly; I know parents and school communities are worried but that hole in the budget is huge. end of update.   So I'm reading the Seattle Times this morning and there was a story about community partnerships to continue jazz and music programs in Seattle Schools. In that story was a bit of a big surprise: The district has ruled out closing and consolidating schools as part of its deficit response for the 2024-25 school year and has said that budget cuts have been mainly confined to the central office. School-level cuts were generally...

One item to throw out there is that while I did listen into the Board's discussion of criteria/selection and community meeting for the two new Board members, I didn't listen to the Work Session that followed on public engagement. I have been told there were concerning statements made by some directors so I will follow up on that soon. According to the district the next budget update will come at the Board meeting on March 20th. It is getting closer and closer to the time when the "central office leadership team" will have to reveal their plans around school closures.    I note that there was a story in the Seattle Times that Interagency would be closed but that was swiftly denied by the district . But I have to wonder if staff at Interagency were worried about what they were hearing and leaked it.  As the fentanyl crisis claims the lives of more and more teens each year — three times as many Washington teens died in 2022 relative to 2019 — advocates say Interagency ...

 From KUOW, a sorry story: Two former coaches from Garfield High School in Seattle have been accused of sexually assaulting a girl who played on the school’s basketball team. One assaulted the girl when she was 13 in 2013, the other coach in 2017 when she was 17.  The first coach is Walter Junior Jones and the other is Marvin Wayne Hall. A Seattle Public Schools investigation found Hall committed sexual misconduct and boundary violations with students, including telling another girl he had a “crush” on her. That girl reportedly told her father, an assistant coach on the team. Hall has not been charged with a crime. Tomás Gahan, the personal attorney for the now 24-year-old woman, called the school’s athletic department a “predatory environment,” and said that the woman is only now grappling with the toll it took on her childhood. “Her middle school and high school experience was defined by serial molestation, or serial rape, by people ...

President Liza Rankin just announced this at the Special Meeting for selection of board directors. Here is the info from SPD: As of 4:14 pm Seattle police are investigating a shooting at a bus stop in the 400 block of 23 rd Avenue near Garfield High School. Officers were called to the scene at 2:40 p.m. on March 13. It was reported shots were fired from an SUV as it traveled southbound on 23 rd Avenue and turned onto East Jefferson Street. Investigators learned that a female juvenile was struck in the right leg. Seattle fire crews arrived to the scene and provided first aid. The victim was transported to Harborview Medical Center with non-life-threatening injuries. After the shots were fired, nearby schools including Garfield High School, went into a shelter-in-place. The scene was secured. Right now, there is no clear suspect information available. No one else was injured in the shooting. Anyone with information about this shooting is asked to call the SP...

 Update 3: I am looking for confirmation on these four applicants that appear to be the Board's top choices for the District 2 spot. They are: Carol Thompson, Sarah Clark, Shawn Sullivan and Danielle Gahl.  I had picked Thompson and Clark but didn't think Sullivan and Gahl would make the cut.  As previously stated, the candidates from District 4 - all four of them - will go on in the selection process. They are: Gabby Gonzalez, Joe Mizrahi, Rachelle C. Olden and Laura Marie Rivera.  Next up in the process is the public forum on March 27th at Lincoln High School. Details as they become available.  end of update Update 2: The Board started their Special Meeting to decide on the 4 candidates out of 11 for the District 2 vacancy (while the 4 candidates for District 4 will move on).  It was mentioned that the meeting is being recorded. President Rankin mentioned the news of a shooting across the street from Garfield High that happened around 4:15 pm where a fema...

Here’s how to request your student’s records. You can obtain student records in several ways: Directly through the school by contacting the school’s administration;  Through Special Education Records via email at  spedrecords@seattleschools.org  where a student is a Special Education student;  Through the General Counsel’s Office by contacting employee Ayrian Hastings via email at  alhastings@seattleschools.org ; or  Online at the District’s Student Archives site for students that have been out of the District for more than two years. The easiest/quickest way would be to go through your principal. They are required to acknowledge your request within five days. That’s acknowledge, NOT fulfill. They usually give you a date; it could be a month or months.    Use narrow language - “I would like to see the results from my child taking any survey/assessment/testing around student mental health through the use of SBIRT and/or the Check Yourself mental he...

 I have been monitoring the SPS webpage on the selection for two empty Board seats.  However, I persuing the home page and found this from late February of this year: New Tool for Classrooms at Seattle Public Schools    Okay, what might that be? For the 2024-25 school year, Seattle Public Schools will be launching a tool to help teachers guide students in their lessons and keep them focused on the task at hand during class time. This system allows teachers to manage student devices and share content quickly and easily.  The new tool will be installed on SPS Devices and will enable our educators build positive learning environment during their classes. The new tools will enable educators to do the following: View of student screens while in-person during class time. Help refocus students on classroom instruction, rather than digital distractions.  Block or allow websites for each class session.  Digitally interact with students through tea...

Update: here's a link to my post on the Seattle Times story. Here's a link to the 2022 Times' story. end of update   Members of the community have been investigating the release and exposure of sensitive student psychological and mental health records to third parties by Seattle Public Schools. If your child took a middle school mental health assessment called Check Yourself between 2018-2024 , their records may have been included in the batches released. These are not anonymized records. This was not an anonymous survey — it was an identifiable Assessment Test that scores the child and “triages” them according to internal documentation. Internal documentation also refers to these student records as “PHI” (Protected Health Information) containing “PII” (Personally Identifiable Information). Normally PHI/PII health records are protected by HIPAA, yet these are not ؅— which is how we could gain copies of them as a test to prove they are unprotected.   Included above is a ...