Seattle Schools Community Forum

On Enrollment Issues in Seattle Schools A story from the South Seattle Emerald that states: “In Seattle, over one-third of our households are considered to be low-income, ” said Kelli Larsen, policy and planning director for the Office of Housing, citing data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. A low-income household in Seattle is one that makes less than 80% of AMI. Seattle’s AMI is approximately $116,068. According to Seattle Housing Authority, a household of one making $77,700 or less is considered low-income. The national median income is $74,750 as of April 2024.  “Renters make up over 50% of the residents in Seattle. We understand how important it is to invest in rental affordable homes, and the rental housing program is the majority of our funds for the Seattle Housing Levy, payroll expense tax, and MHA [Mandatory Housing Affordability Program]. We recently announced the 2023 funding awards, totaling 53 million to build 443 homes,” said

The Seattle School Board briefly met on June 10th but only to amendment the 2023-2024 Board meeting schedule. Basically, because of the issues from the fatal shooting at Garfield High School, the Board and the Superintendent Brent Jones decided to cancel the scheduled Board meeting where the Superintendent was expected to give his preliminary list of schools to be closed. (They also met in Executive Session but unclear what that was about).    On that issue of the Garfield shooting: - Garfield's graduation is on Monday evening at Memorial Stadium. If you have a child graduating from Garfield, let us know how it goes. - I have not seen any mention of when Amarr Murphy-Paine's funeral is. From the Times: Amarr Murphy-Paine, the 17-year-old shot and killed last week outside Garfield High School, was described as a resilient football player, an aspiring rapper, a lovable kid, someone who was still finding his voice. Reggie Witherspoon Jr., the former head football coach at Garf

The Seattle Times had a recent story about gun violence at schools that had some decent suggestions and a few choice quotes.  Here’s one quote: Alyssa Marsh, a Central District parent whose son is assigned to attend Garfield next year, reached behind her sunglasses to wipe tears from her eyes as she spoke Friday morning. She carried a handwritten black and white sign under her arm that read, “Don’t let my child be next!”   “I came out here purely from emotion and heart,” she said. “I’m tired of gun violence in my community.” I think every parent can agree with her feeling of wanting to protect their child AND the feeling of helplessness.  City and school leaders have struggled to wrap their arms around the problem for years. Most shootings happen outside of school buildings, beyond the reach of most school security protocols. Like any kind of crime, school violence often involves complex social factors — poverty, lack of social connection, inability to resolve personal conflicts.   “

The Seattle School Board has abruptly cancelled their Monday, June 10th meeting. I had wondered if the Superintendent had changed his preliminary announcements for possible school closures because June 10th was the date previously stated.  Well, that’s not happening either. The only thing happening on June 10th is an Executive Session. The Board meeting AND the legally required public hearing on the Budget are rescheduled for June 26th.  So when is the Superintendent’s announcement coming? The other big story is what the heck was happening at last night’s Seattle Council PTSA meeting where they were trying to elect new officers for next year.  Via Twitter: SCPTSA elections were an unmitigated failure. More than 2 hours of informercial-style presentations followed by lots of procedural stalling tactics until the custodian kicked us out. Vote will happen … sometime? As one of my cohort said: “ On a more serious note: this is a collosal failure of basic process leadership by the current

Update: The student killed was Amarr Murphy Paine.  From Facebook via Curtis Wells, Jr. : Yesterday was one of the saddest days serving kids. Amarr would say to me every day. “ love you coach”. Yesterday at lunch time he came to my class asking for some Cup of Noodles. I told him how proud I was of how well he was playing in spring ball. We laugh & joke. He was happy about the fall season. 15-20 minutes later. I rushed to his side holding his hand telling him to breath, come back, your tough, hang in there, and hold on. I cried all day and I hug my players and other students. I told them I loved them. I should not be going to these kids funeral. They should be going to mine. God help our kids, show me what to do, tell me what to do, Lord comfort the Murphy Paine family. Don’t let Amarr death be in vain. Lord we need you, I need you, my coaches need you, my players need you, Garfield needs you, 💜💜💜💜💜💜Amarr I love you too I saw the entire photo of the shooter standing over Amar

Well-Resourced/Closed Schools Meetings I heard that the Garfield meeting was a bit contentous. I’m hearing there are just not solid answers. One thing I find odd is that Superintendent Brent Jones has said if anyone has a better idea, they want to hear it but give over no time for that. And then, he says that they have looked at everything and this is the best way forward. Puzzling.  As for the West Seattle meeting, I look to the West Seattle Blog Though the first of this round of meetings was reported to have been contentious, this one only had one outburst, when an attendee yelled out that Dr. Jones should more aggressively push lawmakers to fix the persistent education-funding shortfall. Also of note, though the meetings were held regionally, there was almost nothing West Seattle-specific this morning, except for the question “Why build a new Alki Elementary when schools (will likely be) closing?” (More on Alki in a minute.) Jones said the balanced budget plan would be presented to