Seattle Schools Community Forum

A very happy and safe Halloween to all! Anybody "attend" the virtual levies meeting last night ? I'd like to hear about the questions asked. Sacajawea Elementary saw a protest Wednesday and heartbroken parents and students spoke out. Fox13 reports that State Senator Javier Valdez and State Rep Gerry Pollet were in attendance. There was this claim made in the reporting: They (Seattle Schools) say they're working to build up their enrollment numbers, which would get them more money from the state. Wait, what? Since when and what exactly are they doing?  Sanislo Elementary in West Seattle is also on the closure list and they also had a protest at their school. Their board director, Gina Topp, showed up to listen. From the West Seattle Blog : The school has 145 students, according to district data, and is proposed to be merged into  Highland Park Elementary , with 276, for a combined population of 421. It was a diverse crowd – including an immigrant parent who said that ...

 Update Looking through the Seattle Times' article, I see a couple of things I didn't know about this case. The district’s athletic director also knew Jones was working as a coach despite not being approved to do so, the complaint stated. I'll have to look up who that athletic director was at that time and if he is still working for SPS. The settlement is the largest in the district’s history, a district spokesperson confirmed. And the SPS statement is just wan and pathetic:   “SPS remains committed to its preventative trainings and to strengthening its procedures to prevent incidents like this from occurring in the future,” the statement read. Well, I guess their "preventative trainings" need to do better. Also, they don't need to strengthen their procedures - they need to enforce them. I'd bet there were several people at Garfield who knew the one coach was NOT supposed to be there. And yet, he was allowed access to students.  Just shameful. end of updat...

 From the Seattle Times: A teenage boy died after a shooting in Seattle’s Central District on Monday night, according to Seattle police. Officers arrived at the intersection of 27th Avenue and East Spring Street shortly after 7:40 p.m. and found a male victim with gunshot wounds,  the Seattle Police Department said in an online blotter post . Police provided aid until Seattle Fire Department medics arrived, but the teenager died.  Police said it was not clear what led to the shooting, and they were unable to find a suspect. Police found   more than a dozen shell casings in the street , according to KIRO. The station also reported those in the area told police they heard a car speeding off.   Police ask anyone with information about the shooting to call the violent crimes tip line at 206-233-5000. Spring Street is just a couple of blocks north of Garfield.

 I just slogged through nearly three hours of a presentation around the next goals for Seattle Schools. The meeting was held on October 23rd.  I am very interested in parents' feedback on some of what was said. Agenda here. The featured speaker was the Executive Director of the Council of Great City Schools, Dr. Ray Hart. He and his staff went through very deep data on how different groups of students are doing in SPS. There were a couple of comparisons to other districts slides that included the entire state of Washington, Portland and San Francisco. While I kind of get why those were chosen, I would have liked to see a state that has great funding for K-12 and how they are doing vis a vis Seattle.  Topline Takeaways - I always feel that Superintendent Brent Jones truly cares about outcomes for all students. I also get that vibe from most of the senior staff. However, year after year, President Liza Rankin continues to want to drill down to support a certain group of stu...

Update: I forgot to put in what I hadn't heard about the rebuild for Rainier Beach High School . It will not be finished in 2025; problems have pushed that date out to 2026. If they are working a whole other year on the project, I would expect costs to go higher and higher. end of update A public education advocate friend had told me that the minutes from all of BEX/BTA Capital Programs Oversight Committee meetings for 2024 were not available. Today I checked and happily, they are now there.  Committee meetings are held on the second Friday of the month from 8:30 am-10:30 am and their next meeting is November 8th at JSCEE. Members of the public may attend but not participate in the meeting.  Also happily, these are not the sadly underwritten minutes of the Board meetings. I miss actual detail in public minutes. I will say that there are places here where the words are few and that's usually like this: " The committee and staff discussed the challenges faced in each project...

A shortened election season and yet it's still pretty exhausting. Did I tell you - I'm going to be an inside poll observer for the Democratic Party in of all places, Tombstone. It should be an interesting day and I'll be writing about it. Naturally, the biggest news of the week for SPS is Superintendent Brent Jones' announcement of four schools up for closure. As you may recall, it started with 17-21 schools, then 5 and, for whatever reason, Jones went with four schools.  Two regions of SPS remained untouched - SE and QA/Magnolia.  The district's Communications - in a PR manner I don't get - has labeled this action at the SPS website as Budget Updates and Next Steps for SPS. Is not saying the word "closure" really going to make the district look better?  It is estimated that each elementary or K-8 site closure would result in savings of $750,000- $2,500,000. On average, SPS estimates closing a site serving K-5 students would result in savings of a...

 From KUOW: In his latest school closure plan, Superintendent Brent Jones announced Thursday he will recommend North Beach, Sacajawea, Sanislo, and Stevens elementary schools for closure.  As I noted in my post on BEX VI, the district had already spent $500K from BEX V on pre-planning for a Sacajwea renovation. Sympathies to all those schools named. I note that there are no SE or QueenAnne/Magnolia schools named. So the schools are in the NE, NW, Central and SW. Jones acknowledged the changes are difficult. He said the district used factors like building conditions and space to choose which schools to close, and prioritized minimizing disruption to students and families. As part of that goal, students at each respective school will stay together and consolidate into other nearby schools. Under the plan: North Beach students would move to Viewlands Elementary; Sacajawea students would move to John Rogers Elementary; Sanislo students would mov...

So sorry for the late notice - this event fell off my radar. At 5:30 pm at Folio in Pike Place Market Sandeep Kaushik will be moderating a Block Table panel on the litany of problems and controversies the Seattle school district is currently experiencing.   The stellar expert panel includes three former Seattle school board members:   Dr. Stephan Blanford, Vivian Song, and Michael DeBell .    The Folio is at 93 Pike Street.

 I had heard this news from a couple of people prior to Danny Westneat's column in the Seattle Times today. A couple of parents dug deep into the enrollment data including October 2023. October is when districts turn in a count of students for the years. These parents found a loss of less than 500 from 2023.  As one parent said to me, "There's no way to know if the decline is permanent or a blip."  Westneat reports: The October enrollment , used to determine state funding, in fact ticked up for the first time since the 2019 school year, before the pandemic touched off an exodus. The district counts enrollment two ways, one with preschoolers and Running Start high school students, and one without. By the first way, enrollment rose this year versus last by 206 students districtwide. By the second way, it eked up just 14. Either way though, the totals are well above what was forecast as recently as last month — which was that the school system would continue its...

It appears that the Superintendent left these BEX VI informational meetings in the hands of the Capital Projects people without any input from say, the Communications folks.  There were three men seated at a black-draped table with laptops in front of them - Dr. Kurt Buttleman, Assistant Superintendent of Finance; Richard Best, head of Capital Projects and Assistant Superintendent of Technology and Optimization, Carlos Del Valle. I'm guessing because they were talking about money there was no smiling allowed. I know Mr. Best and he's a pleasant and thoughtful person. However, I've seen more lively talk at a memorial service.  There were 26 people there altogether, with probably 3-4 other SPS employees there. You could put in a question but there was no chat feature available for parents to talk. They went over the basics: - It's a renewal levy (but they didn't acknowledge that they are asking for $400M more). - The program has existed since the first BEX was approve...

Update 4: SPS finally got it together and here you go for the virtual meeting tonight: 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. via Teams Join the meeting Dial in by phone: 206-800-4125; phone conference ID: 857001029# (those attending by phone will not have an option to submit questions) end of update Update 3: As we wait (and wait) for the closure list to be released, a couple of other items. 1) Despite the fact that the district is having virtual meetings to talk about BEX VI, they are not listed on the calendar on the front page of the SPS website. Yes, they are listed in the "News" section but the title used there does not say "BEX VI" or "capital levy" but "building for learning." So I'm not sure anyone should believe SPS is sincere in providing useful information to voters.  I just checked and it's less than 3 hours before their first BEX VI meeting and no link. Wow. 2) I did want to mention when it happened but a well-known community activist...

Update I realized I didn't give you a link and I found something odd. In the Board Action Report that the Board received at their October 9th Board meeting, the "property acquisition" cost is in there. BUT, in the webpage at the district's site, it is not. It only says  "Replacement of one aging elementary school in northeast Seattle: $150,000,000." Hmmm end of update I'll give the district credit - it's ballsy to ask for even MORE dollars for capital needs. Before I explain why I find BEX VI just ridiculous, some background. In the past, the district had set up two levies - BEX and BTA - that would be renewed every six years and were staggered three years apart. So, with the Education/Operations levy, there would also be either a BEX levy or BTA on the ballot. T The district last lost a levy in the late '90s. Other districts are probably pea-green with envy over the SPS success in passing levies. BEX stands for Building Excellence and BTA stand...

Coming up tomorrow morning from the Seattle Schools Special Education PTSA: We offer our Soft Landing event every year to welcome families that are new to the Seattle Public Schools community. Whether you have questions, want to share ideas, or are still learning about special education in Seattle, you are welcome. We’re all volunteers with our own experiences in the Seattle school district. If we can’t answer your question, we can find out who can.  We also want to say hi because we’ve seen how families with a child with a disability benefit by connecting with other families. It's at the Douglass Truth Library from 10:30 am to noon. Seattle Schools has announced a series of informational virtual meetings on the two levies coming up for renewal in February 2025. Join us online to learn about the proposals to renew two educational levies – the Educational Programs & Operations (EP&O) Levy and the Building Excellence (BEX) Capital Levy.  Tuesday, Oct. 22: 6:...