This and That, May 2 2024

According to KUOW:

After spending months bouncing from shelter to shelter, asylum-seekers in western Washington have now begun settling into a camp near Seattle’s Garfield High School.

It’s their latest move after money for housing ran out yet again.

They first began camping at Powell Barnett wading pool earlier this week, where 300 to 400 people were staying on Monday night.  (Editor's note; this wading pool is directly east of Garfield High School about 5 blocks away.)

Washington state has allocated $32 million to help address the housing issue. But that money won’t kick in until July, when the new fiscal year begins. Most of that money will be used at the Washington Office of Refugee and Immigrant Assistance to provide housing and legal services. State officials also have asked the public to help find more permanent solutions for the asylum-seekers.

Unlike the federal refugee resettlement program, there is no formal infrastructure for asylum-seekers once they are processed at the border by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.

 

 There's a petition out about the Highly Capable program:

The recommendation is for SPS to retain the current HCC program for now, while doubling down on its efforts to make the highly capable identification process more equitable.  The Op Ed lays out the case that moving to a local advanced learning/HC delivery model - where no such model exists and no funding is proposed - will serve no one and hurt everyone.  

All signatures collected before EOD Friday, May 3, 2024, will be shared with Superintendent Brent Jones and the SPS Board of Directors as endorsing the position of the OpEd.

 

News from KUOW: KUOW lays off 8 staffers, ends RadioActive youth program

Zaki Hamid, KUOW’s director of community engagement, oversaw RadioActive and shared his thoughts about the 20-year-old youth radio training program:

"RadioActive was a champion for youth voices in media. Throughout the years, youth tackled some of the thorniest issues, from abortion to religion to gender identity and so much more.

RadioActive gave us the privilege of insight into the world of young people, and their perspective on the world. The stories that they produced made us pause, rethink issues, laugh, and learn. I hope this program and all of the wonderful memories it created can act as a beacon of hope for youth to continue championing their voices being heard."

 

Bicycle weekends have been announced for Lake Washington Boulevard from 7pm Friday to 7 am Monday. On Memorial Day and Labor day, the closures will extend to 7 am Tuesday morning. More info here.


Image

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tuesday Open Thread

The speaker list is up for the Board meeting tomorrow; not as packed as I thought with just four people on the waitlist. The majority of the speakers are speaking on high school boundaries (with several wanting to talk about Ballard High). There are only three of us speaking about the Green Dot resolution asking the City to not grant the zoning departures that Green Dot has requested.  It's me, long-time watchdog, Chris Jackins, and the head of the Washington State Charter Schools Association, Patrick D'Amelio.  (I knew Mr. D'Amelio when he headed the Alliance for Education and Big Brothers and Big Sisters; he's a stand-up guy.)
Read more

Breaking It Down: Where the District Might Close Schools

Update 2: an absolutely fabulous interactive map made by parent Beth Day (@thebethocracy on Twitter - she covers Board meetings and is fun to read).   end of update    Update 1: Mea culpa, I did indeed get Decatur and Thornton Creek mixed up. Thanks to all for the correction. end of update   I suspect some who read this post will be irate. Why do this? Because the district seems very hellbent on this effort with no oversight skid marks from the Board.    To clearly state - I do not believe that closing 20 schools is a good idea. I think they hit on 20 because they thought it might bring in the most savings. But the jury is still out on the savings because the district has not shown its work nor its data. I suspect closing schools and THEN leasing/renting them is the big plan but that means the district really has to keep the buildings up.   But this district, with its happy talk about "well-resourced schools" is NOT acknowledging the pain and yes, grief, that is to come fro
Read more

MEETING CANCELED - Hey Kids, A Meeting with Three(!) Seattle Schools Board Directors

 Update 2: So I have seen a message from President Liza Rankin on why she, Director Evan Briggs, and Director Michelle Sarju backed out of this meeting.  In a nutshell: - She says there was no organization to the meeting which is just not true. They had a moderator lined up and naturally the board members could have set parameters for what to discuss, length of meeting, etc. All that was fleshed out. - She also claimed that if the meeting was PTA sponsored, they needed to have liability insurance to use the school space. Hello? PTAs use school space all the time and know they have to have this insurance.  - She seems to be worried about the Open Public Meetings law. Look, if she has a meeting in a school building on a non-personnel topic, it should be an open meeting. It appears that Rankin is trying, over and over, to narrow the window of access that parents have to Board members. She even says in her message - "...with decisions made in public." Hmmm - She also says that th
Read more