This and That, April 4,2024
Here's the list of days when national parks are free! The next one coming up is Saturday, April 20th.
Just viewed the oath of office for the two new Board directors, Sarah Clark and Joe Mizrahi. They both made statements.
Clark spoke about fighting rush hour traffic on less than 24 hours notice to be there. (To note, the date of the oath had been up for nearly a week.) She spoke vaguely of overcoming being separated from her parents at birth and childhood PTSD.
She said she was looking forward to listening and learning from communities and advocating for more state funding. She said she wanted to do "a deep dive" into Board policies. As well, she didn't want to continue the status quo.
Mizrahi said he was speaking from the heart in saying that the process had allowed him to talk to so many people about education. He said there are big issues but that SPS has a lot to offer.
He said he was joining a board that is taking on opportunity gaps and "not shying away." He stated a union saying, "It's not complicated, it's just hard." He said he was joining the board at a great time.
Not much to say about Clark's remarks except every time I have heard her speak, she brings up her childhood. That's interesting.
I'm glad Mizrahi is excited about coming onto the board right now - it's going to be a struggle for several years. I will disagree with him on that union statement. I think public education IS more complicated than people think, if only due to the fact that there are no cookie cutter kids.
Director Gina Topp will be holding a community meeting on Saturday, April 13th from 10:30-11:30 am at Delridge Library.
Congrats to the Loyal Heights Elementary Beavers who edged out Thornton Creek's players in the 2024 Global Reading Challenge.
Sponsored by Seattle Public Library (SPL), The Global Reading Challenge (GRC) is a reading incentive program for 4th and 5th graders enrolled in Seattle Public Schools. Students form teams and read selected books then take part in a trivia competition. Over the course of three rounds, judges ask the teams a few questions about each book – 24 questions in total.
There were 495 teams districtwide with 70 going to the semifinals and nine making it to the finals.
SPL supplies the books, providing over 8,000 copies – accessible in a variety of formats and languages – to Seattle’s public elementary schools.
KUOW reports that a former SPS student is suing the district over a teacher punching him in the face in front of his class.
Seattle Public Schools faces a lawsuit from a 2018 incident in which a math teacher at Meany Middle School punched an eighth-grader in the face in front of the entire class.
A KUOW investigation found that the district, then led by Superintendent Larry Nyland, gave teacher James Johnson only a five-day suspension for punching the student, and that Johnson had a documented history of abusing students when the district hired him, and previously at Meany.
This despite nearly a decade of complaints about Johnson.
Now 19, Sheikhibrahim is suing the district in King County Superior Court for damages, including for negligence and for allegedly letting school administrators retaliate against him for getting his teacher in trouble.
In its 2020 reporting, KUOW revealed that Johnson went on to abuse kids after being moved to nearby Washington Middle School. The district fired him in 2021, following reports of abuse at Washington, and Johnson surrendered his teaching certificate.
The last paragraph of the story caught my eye.
In court filings, the district denied the retaliation claims, and said it was not aware Johnson had a history of abusing students when it hired him.
It is very sad that teachers are so protected that any complaints against them that are found to be valid cannot be included in their teaching history. But SPS soon learned that this guy was a problem. I predict a payout.
On the asylum camp on the tennis courts at the Garfield Community Center next to Garfield High, it appears a generous donor has paid for another 10-11 nights for those folks at a motel. My question would be - and after that?
Comments
I blame Katrina Hunt for protecting the abuser at Washington Middle School
I blame Sarah Pritchett for promoting Katrina Hunt to Executive Director of Schools
I surely hope they read this (I am afraid SPS people don’t bother to read this blog) and if you are reading let me make myself clear:
SHAME ON YOU. WE SEE YOU. WE KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING. AND SOMEDAY KARMA WILL COME YOUR WAY.
Oculus
https://www.komonews.com/news/local/seattles-franklin-high-school-facing-urgent-maintenance-needs-amid-ignored-pleas-public-school-bathroom-broken-down-loss-of-power-refrigeration-school-board-issues-meeting-superintendent-changed-problems
Read this at the end:
"KOMO News reached out to the communications department at Seattle Public Schools, asking for an interview with the district’s Chief Operations Officer Fred Podesta, or Chief of Staff Beverly Redmond, who also is the head of Public Affairs, Media Relations, Community Engagement, Communications, Customer Service, School Board Office, and the Ombudsperson Office, among other duties.
KOMO News is still waiting for an answer as to why these issues are not immediately being addressed by maintenance staff."
Is Seattle Public Schools letting Beverly Redmond run the Ombudsperson Office?
Fragrant Violation
The article references that the building is a historical one (as most of the high schools are). Yes, from the outside, they are appealing but all of them were high cost renovations to keep the historical facades.
The district wanted to tear it down in 1986 but pushback got is designated as an official landmark and the City denied the district's request.
"The resulting project removed the 1958 addition and turned the space directly behind the grand windows into a student commons. An addition was located in the middle of the U-shaped plan, and a new wall on the east side encompassed a new auditorium and classrooms. In September 1990, Franklin's students returned from their interim site at Sharples to find that, once again, their school was a contender for "the most beautiful in the Northwest."
So that was 34 years ago and buildings should last at least 50. So why is Franklin doing so badly? I would guess the deferred maintenance that the district has for many buildings.