From the "Huh" Department
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.
English
Amharic (coming soon)
Chinese (coming soon)
Spanish (coming soon)
Somali (coming soon)
Vietnamese (coming soon)
Community Meetings
Please attend one of three community meetings to provide your thoughts on the vision and values for Seattle Public Schools. If you need interpretation to participate in the meeting, please email boardoffice@seattleschools.org.
May 29, 2024, 6 – 7:30 p.m.
Robert Eagle Staff Middle School
1330 N 90th St., Seattle, WA 98103
June 5, 2024, 6 – 7:30 p.m.
Cleveland STEM High School
5511 15th Ave. S, Seattle, WA 98108
June 12, 2024, 6 – 7:30 p.m.
Virtual Event hosted by Seattle Council PTSA
Zoom Registration
Just three meetings for such an important document.
I'm going to give. you another way - email the Board at spsdirectors@seattleschools.org
Board Members will also be engaging with groups that represent communities and constituencies that have higher needs or are historically marginalized from our system. The same questions will be asked of these groups that are being asked in the survey and public engagement meetings.
Check out "next steps:"
The School Board will report back what we heard, who we heard from, and what we identify as the top priorities for the next strategic plan in the fall of 2024.
Once the School Board adopts our final goals for the district, the superintendent and his staff will get to work developing the new strategic plan to align the work of the district and its well-resourced schools to best achieve our vision for all kids.
You will have the continued opportunity to engage in the development of the upcoming strategic plan and operational shifts needed to implement it, including school consolidations, over the next year.
So the Strategic Plan needs operational shifts? How is having the meetings now BEFORE any decisions are made going to help?
Comments
I'm new to this blog, since discovering it after the '20 schools closing' announcement.
But I've been extremely upset to learn about the behavior of SPS, and the board - both regarding the school closure plan in general (with no genuine consideration of the public, or how it will impact kids / families), and especially the recent destruction of the HCC program.
Why respond to budget shortfalls - and the exodus from SPS - by getting rid of, or threatening to get rid of the programs that should instead be considered crown jewels to this public school system? The very things that would entice people into SPS, as opposed to private school, moving to the suburbs, or homeschool.
I would like to respond to this suddenly available survey. And I'm wondering if you have any recommended language?
(As a related concern, how likely do you think it will be that popular / full option schools - particularly the fully enrolled DLI schools - will be on the chopping block in this new threatened round of closures? Based on my catching up to the history, these programs have somehow also attracted the discontent of the board - even though they should really be a point of pride for SPS.)
Thank you so much for your help!
I have been aware of the feeling from some teachers and some principals and some parents for decades believe that children should NEVER be separated for any reason in classrooms, save Special Education students with challenging needs. What has always been interesting to me is that it was more about "why should those kids get more" than "it's better for all the kids."
To note, HCC kids were never getting "more." They had the same curriculum (crappy or not), most of the teachers did not have any special training, and the program was generally in poor quality buildings.
The district also chose to start ending "honors" classes in high school or trying some hybrid "honors for all" which seems to have died on the vine.
The biggest issue was the make-up of the Highly Capable program which was largely white and Asian. And Asians, to SPS, apparently aren't people of color. I wish I could explain that but all the evidence is that is what SPS thinks.
Now, decades back, the district just didn't care. Didn't try to find highly capable kids of color (even though there were likely hundreds out there who could have benefited from the program). They had hard to understand enrollment procedures and it was just a mess.
Rather than fixing those problems and reaching more students, they are going in the oppose direction to moving all HCC kids back to their neighborhood schools in a few short years. The district has the belief that they can move those kids back AND most of the Special Education students and the teacher will be able to individualize for all those students with no extra resources.
When this HCC move happens, boundaries will have to change and since closing schools and moving HCC back are NOT happening at the same time, the boundaries may be redrawn again in some areas.
So if I were a parent, I would probably want to leave as well, given that the district has not been specific at all in how this will work. I have no doubt that the HCC issue AND the looking down the road issue has made many parents leave or want to leave. Looking down the road, all I see is a very messy district for at least the next 5 years.
If you are talking about recommended language in order to communicate with the Board and/or Superintendent, speak from the heart. I'm sad to say they are not going to listen to you. Two things that could change that 1) class-action lawsuit over HC services (legally required) or 2) a mass uprising of parents.
I like your last comment because someone else said something similar just today on my Twitter feed. Why, if SPS has some very popular programs, would they try to close them/dismantle them?
1) Cookie-cutter schools are easier to oversee.
2) The union looms large in many cases. For example, at the last Board meeting, a large group came from Chief Sealth HS to plead to keep their Chinese language program that she built from scratch. One where there is a waiting list AND some students participate in out of class activities just because they want to AND the Consul General of China up in San Francisco came down - on his own volition - to see the program.
But I think the issue may be in some way about seniority - why she is being displaced was not noted. And the union rules on seniority.
3) I think sometimes the district feels threatened by strong principals.
4) I think the Option Schools that are full and doing well - TOPS, Hazel Wolf, Boren STEM - may be safe for now. I can't say if that will hold. I do think Orca and Pathfinder and Salmon Bay are in trouble but it may not be the fault of the school but rather, the fault of the district to let those schools struggle.
Oh, I know why they think that. "White adjacency."