Seattle Schools Community Forum

 I heard from a source that the first of five STAFF meetings on the well-resourced/closed schools plan was woefully underattended - just 15 people. Sarah Pritchett, head of HR, led the meeting. There were no school board members present but they had their own engagement meeting on Wednesday for the ‘vision and values” for the new Strategic Plan.  Apparently, because there were so few people, the audience members were allowed to ask questions at this meeting. There was one about option schools that didn’t get a real answer.  They did have a timeline slide. Looks like the time up to the announcement on or around June 10th from the Superintendent of the preliminary list is “Phase 1.0-1.5.” Phase 2 starts the legally required 30 days of “public review,” followed by the site-base hearings for each named school that have to fall within 90 days after the public review. After that the Board will have a BAR (Board Action Report) at the next Board meeting after the hearings and the...

 I’m hearing feedback from various sources at last night’s Well-resourced schools/Closures meeting at Roosevelt High School. - It was a near full house which is a good indicator of interest/concern in this subject. - Superintendent Brent Jones, coming into the meeting, was stopped by several parents who wanted to talk. He stopped and talked. Meanwhile, some parents were talking to media and then School Board President Liza Rankin apparently broken in to those conversations.  - State Senator Javier Valdez was in attendance and it’s reported that he told a crowd of frustrated parents, “ I heard zip, zitch, nada about the details and data.” Not good. - Apparently the district had some app available - the Thought Exchange -  to register questions/concerns; it seems many parents didn’t like this option. I note that one parent said it was not clear if the app would register how many times parents said the same comment (meaning, hey district pay attention here). - Finance guy F...

Just a couple of items. One , tonight is the first "well-resourced"- school closure meeting at Roosevelt High School from 6-7:30 pm. Wish it was televised but I'll count on readers to chime in.   Two, also in the mix over the next 10 days are the Board's " Values and Vision" meetings for the next Strategic Plan. Here's a link with info including a SURVEY.  The survey has five basic questions but not sure how they elicit "vision." Tepid and lame. How should we be able to describe a graduate of Seattle Public Schools? What should students in Seattle Public Schools know and be able to do? What does equity in education mean to you, and how should we measure it?   What's good about SPS or something working well for students that we should keep doing?   What is something that needs improvement in SPS to better support positive student outcomes?   Three,  the SCPTSA has weighed in on school closures. I find their messaging tedious. Clearly, t...

Update: I had meant to add this story out of Olympia, We Thought She Was a Great Teacher. This teacher was obviously very misguided but it's frightening that no other adults saw the behavior until it was too late.  update I have attempted to wade into this topic previously but new stories have cropped up so I think it bears revisiting.  I want to be clear - I believe trans people. I also believe that kids can know this about themselves. However, the issue of trans children in schools makes it part of more than just one family's life.  It can affect schools in many ways. In the classroom. In sports. In the locker room. In bathrooms. Parents, I'm not in SPS but what does the district send home at the beginning of the year that covers this topic? Anything? I recall decades back when police finally developed rape kits and it became okay to publicly talk about rape, the number of rape arrests went up. Were there more rapes or was there more reporting? I think the latter. Th...

Readers, I am taking a much needed vacation so I will not be able to write as many posts as I normally would. And, all the Strategic Plan board engagement meetings and Well-Resourced/School Closures meetings are coming up but I'll miss them all. If you attend any of these meetings, I would love if you would write a couple of paragraphs about your impressions about: - how the meeting was organized - how much open discussion there was - who attended - which Board members and what staff - what were major impressions you got on the discussion and what was the vibe of the meetings Send your thoughts to: sss.westbrook@gmail.com Thanks!

 A spate of stories from across the nation have crossed my Twitterfeed about math in middle school. The first is from the NY Times: The Algebra Problem: How Middle School Math Became a National Flashpoint The dual pathways inspire some of the most fiery debates over equity and academic opportunity in American education. Do bias and inequality keep Black and Latino children off the fast track? Should middle schools eliminate algebra to level the playing field? What if standout pupils lose the chance to challenge themselves? The questions are so fraught because algebra functions as a crucial crossroads in the education system. Students who fail it are far less likely to graduate. Those who take it early can take calculus by 12th grade, giving them a potential edge when applying to elite universities and lifting them toward society’s most high-status and lucrative professions.   But racial and economic gaps in math achievement are wide in the United States, and grew wid...

According to the Seattle Times , Seattle Schools will NOT be changing any graduation dates .  Muslim students at three Seattle high schools have a difficult choice to make on June 17: Celebrate Eid al-Adha, one of the most important Muslim holidays, with their families or attend their graduations, an important rite of passage. But the students said the outreach to their administration and follow-up efforts with Seattle Public Schools officials went nowhere. Last month, a coalition of students from Garfield, Cleveland and Franklin high schools spoke during a School Board meeting, asking the district publicly to change the graduation date.  It notes that some dates are not fixed and are based on moon sightings. It lists the date of Eid al-Adha in the 2023-24 academic year as June 16-17. But OSPI keeps a list of religious holidays and had June 17th for this particular one. So SPS saying they didn't know for sure seems lame.  Some said that scheduling the ceremonies...

Via the Seattle Special Education Facebook page: We hope that, especially if you live in the NW region, you can join us on June 10 at Loyal Heights Elementary for this community conversation.  The SPS description of a "well-resourced school" refers to "inclusive learning."   Join us for a community conversation to share ideas and address barriers to creating effective inclusive classrooms. All are welcome to join and participate even though we have six NW schools specifically participating. If we are going to make inclusive classrooms and schools a reality, these kinds of conversations are vital. (We hope to offer more of these kings of conversations in the fall.)

  H ello, parents of room #231! Allow me to introduce myself: I am your child’s new ChatGPTchr© , streamed into the classroom to replace the recently downsized Ms. Jackson. I know! I miss her, too, but it is important to keep in mind that technological advancement must bring both winners and losers. If I run into her out on the internet searching for jobs, I will tell her you said “hi.” I’m sure she will love that! It's a funny piece to read but I wanted to continue on to what software Seattle Schools is using that does use AI. - Microsoft 365 Suite - Adobe Express and Photoshop:Adobe Firefly - Canva - MagicSchool AI education-focused AI for staff and students What is fascinating is that the district has a link about MagicSchoolAI to Common Sense Education , which is a non-profit, research-backed group that works to educate families about tech media. They give MagicSchool.AI a 63% with a warning. This product received a Warning rating based on the following details: Personal ...

Former School Board director Lisa Rivera was on last night's public testimony list but didn't make the cut. (And I note that district watchdog, Chris Jackins, offered that President Rankin could expand the list but she didn't. This despite the fact that the Board had virtually no business to conduct.) Here's what Rivera would have said (bold mine): "Hello, my name is Lisa Rivera, and I am the parent of two SPS graduates and one current 2nd grader. Most of you knew me as the Board Director of District 2. And while I no longer serve in that capacity, I am here today to stand with my Native community, and with all the students of SPS, for whom almost every adult in this room is in service of. I may no longer have a vote in the matters before this board, but I still have a voice.   "Having recently served on this board, I’ve received many questions and concerns from families who are worried about the impending changes that may soon come to this district. But I don...

 I was looking for something else at the SPS website under "School Board" and look what I found. More public engagement meetings , this time for "vision and values" for the next Strategic Plan.  And AGAIN, the Board and the Superintendent are piling on important meetings right at the end of the school year? After the well-resourced schools/closures (plus boundaries), the Strategic Plan IS the guiding document for the district. Surely, they could have started this work earlier.    In order to develop these goals, we need to hear from our community. Many of you have engaged in the Superintendent Jones’ conversations about what a System of Well-Resourced Schools looks like. Now we are asking you to engage with us on the outcomes for students we as a community expect from those schools.   Online survey Please fill out this online form to provide your thoughts on the vision and values for Seattle Public Schools. The survey will be open until June 7, 2024. ...

Update There are four directors present - Rankin, Briggs, Topp, Mizrahi. Rankin referenced two who were remote ( Sarju and Clark) and I guess Hersey is out. They had technical problems with public testimony so it started late. Rankin went on and one about "legally required public testimony" but they didn't have to answer anything. She also said the vote at the last meeting on the Superintendent's Plan was NOT for the plan but for "receipt" of a coming plan.  Seriously? Public testimony was certainly jaw-dropping. Just as Rainier View Elementary has real and severe administrative problems so does Pathfinder K-8. Speaker after speaker, some were children, some were adults reading anonymous testimony from teachers who feel unsafe - it's a horror story. One child, who said they were 9 years old last year, had to stop another child from killing themself in a classroom! In another classroom, a student was acting out sexually against other students. One speaker...

Thank you to a reader (I can't find your comment quickly to name you) who points out that the first public engagement meeting on "well-resourced schools" has been changed with little notice.  The meeting was supposed to be this Saturday, May 25th at Garfield High School. The SPS website reflects that it is NOT happening on that date. Here's the new schedule: Tuesday, May 28, 6 – 7:30 p.m., Roosevelt High School, 1410 NE 66th St. Thursday, May 30, 6 – 7:30 p.m., Garfield High School, 400 23rd Ave. Saturday, June 1, 10:30 a.m. – noon, Chief Sealth International High School, 2600 SW Thistle St. Tuesday, June 4, 6 – 7:30 p.m., Zoom meeting (meeting link will be posted on the well-resourced schools webpage by June 3) Is this on the SPS homepage so that parents and community can easily note this change? Nope. I will await to see if this makes it to the district's Twitter account (but they haven't had a tweet since April 10th). There is also nothing currently at thei...

 I wanted to post some helpful links to resources around school closure.  However, I do want to first point out that it feels like the district is deliberately making it confusing for anyone who wants to get information on the public meetings on well-resourced schools. Here's how: - Not the top of the homepage. I get that the district want to celebrate good things happening in the district first. But the first time you see "well-resourced schools" is in the middle of the homepage. It's a section about the Superintendent's plan. The notice of the actual meetings is buried in this info.  - But then, if you scroll down further, you get to the "News" section and you see not one but two items about public engagement. One is titled, " Well-Resourced Schools Community Meetings" which is the actual notice of the meetings but the other is titled, "Well-Resourced Schools Community Engagement" so you might be confused about what is past and w...

Yes, it's the old reports from the Closure and Consolidation Committee back in 2006. The top photo was a binder of all the schools we were to examine; it was about two-thirds of the schools. I have since gotten rid of its contents but I must have kept the binder. As you can read from the covers of the other two reports, one is the preliminary recommendations and the other is the final recommendations. I am going to try to scan pertinent pages just to allow you to compare and contrast from then to now. Here's a couple of great statements: For 17 years the financial resources of this district have supported excess facility capacity. These resources rightfully should have been directed towards the education of the children of this District.  This tacit approval of the status quo has prioritized the bricks and mortar of buildings over the needs of the children who show up every day to learn. Resources need to be redirected towards the children of our city instead of toward maintain...

Let's see what the Editorial Board of the Seattle Times has to say first in their piece: Dear SPS, to fix Seattle's schools crisis, turn to your community  In a nutshell, about SPS parents: Make them feel like part of the solution, rather than a problem to overcome. One thing that used to set Seattle apart from many major metros was its public schools and who attended them — almost everyone: middle-class, low-income and affluent kids. These days, however, Seattle parents could be forgiven for wondering if the school district wants them gone. In response to a $104 million budget hole and waning enrollment, Seattle Public Schools has, confoundingly, made little effort to burnish its standout gems and entice families back. Ouch.  J ust last fall, Seattle Superintendent Brent Jones told The Times’ editorial board that to hold onto current families and attract new ones, SPS needed to get better at “telling our story.”   If Jones truly believes this move will improv...