Seattle Schools Community Forum

From NAGC : NAGC24 Annual Convention November 21-24, 2024 Seattle ARCH Convention Center, Seattle, WA Invigorate your passion for educating gifted and high-potential students at NAGC24, November 21-24, in Seattle, WA. You’re invited to join more than 2,000 educators, gifted coordinators, psychologists, researchers, and caregivers as they gather to share best practices for supporting high-ability children.     Explore the future of gifted education with hands-on workshops, inspiring keynote sessions, and hundreds of innovative sessions filled with proven strategies you can use today and thought-provoking ideas for the classrooms of tomorrow!    Take time to connect, discover, and experience the energy of your gifted education community—all at NAGC24!    There is a lower priced one day rate for Parent Day at NAGC 24. It's Saturday, November 23rd with registration due by Friday, November 15th.

A busy week at JSCEE with yet another meeting - this time for the Board - on Wednesday, Nov. 13th at 4:30 pm. Subjects? Agenda Work Session: Policy Governance 4:30 p.m.* Work Session: Progress Monitoring Training 6:00 p.m.* My very first question would be - who wrote these guidelines? Someone at Council of Great City Schools? They are aware that not all boards are elected and most operate within the challenges of their district. These cover: - Effective Goal Monitoring Goal monitoring is a conversation between the board and superintendent that provides boards the opportunity to evaluate the alignment between the community’s vision for student outcomes (goals) and current student performance/growth (reality). While goals and reality may not match perfectly, it only becomes problematic when there is no evidence of student growth. And even if students aren’t yet growing and making progress, that’s only catastrophic if the superintendent doesn’t have sufficiently aggressive strateg

 Update: So the Seattle Times parsed out something that I missed in the district's announcement about community meetings for the potentially closing schools. Without openly saying it, the district seems to be saying ONLY members of that school community should attend. These meetings are to support the individual impacted school communities.   We want to make sure the impacted families have the chance to fully understand the recommendation, ask questions, and share ideas for how we could implement a potential closure and consolidation with care and support.  SPS will host more engagement opportunities for the broader community. I certainly think only members of that school community should be the ones to speak up at any given meeting. However, there may be parents from other schools - like the potential consolidation schools - who want to learn more NOW. I don't think any parents should be held at arm's length for information by the district. Again, this will af

 From SPS website: Each school recommended for closure will have two community meetings. Initial meetings will take place on the dates below.  Sacajawea Elementary – Thursday, Nov. 7, 6-7 p.m. at Sacajawea   Sanislo Elementary – Tuesday, Nov. 12, from 6 to 7 p.m. at Sanislo  Stevens Elementary – Friday, Nov. 15, 6-7 p.m. at Stevens  North Beach Elementary – Monday, Nov. 18, 6-7 p.m. at North Beach  A districtwide, online meeting will take place on Thursday, Nov. 14, at 6:30 p.m.     Please note: These are not public hearings. Those will be scheduled in December. These meetings are to support the individual impacted school communities.   We want to make sure the impacted families have the chance to fully understand the recommendation, ask questions, and share ideas for how we could implement a potential closure and consolidation with care and support.  SPS will host more engagement opportunities for the broader community. So I assume the school communities named got t

Update: I was reading a critique of the Dems campaign strategy and it said that rather than focusing on Project 2025, the presumptive president was laying out his plan that mirrors it. Here's what it says about K-12 public education: - Parents of all public schools can vote to remove a principal at any time. - School principals will be elected by parents each year. - End tenure for teachers and professors. - Increase merit pay for teachers. - Universal, national school choice for all school systems in the country. - Bible study and school prayer will be instituted in public schools. - All schools receive additional funding to "harden" them against school shooters and invaders. - $10,000 per child tax credit for home schooling.  - Teacher certification will be changed and governed by a new federal agency that will only grant certifications to teachers who "embrace patriotic values." I'm not even listing higher education actions.  Sigh.  end of update   It&#

 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