Blog Powering Down For a Bit

Signing off for a short period of time for personal time in Seattle (yes, I see it might snow Saturday night, fun).

Sadly, I won't be able to attend the Board's three-hour special meeting tomorrow on their Goals for the district. (Apparently there is also to be an executive session as well.) It appears it will be roughly 2 hours for the Goals and Guardrails and 1 hour for the executive session.

Checking in with the agenda I am quite surprised to see they expect people to testify on this. What!? I saw no notice that this was part of this meeting. I suspect they will get little input. 

For the Goals and Guardrails there are four amendments, three from Director Liza Rankin and two from Director Sarah Clark.

On the Board Policy 0020, Goals for the District, the agenda states, " This item will be updated prior to action: Goals to be added pending additional Board discussion."

For each Board-adopted Goal and Guardrail, the Superintendent will establish one to three interim goals and guardrails. These metrics will be used for progress monitoring by the Board.

On the Board Engagement to Confirm and Guardrails, they review their efforts for public engagement. (Bold mine)

Goals

Community members indicated that the two goals reflect the previous engagement’s themes of a strong start and strong finish. However, community members also expressed a desire for more ambitious targets for the goals. Community members also requested the addition of a math goal, with some recommending it be focused in middle school. Additional recommendations for goal structure included using at least one year of progress or growth for every student, rather than percent meeting standard.

Questions were raised regarding 1) how students of color furthest from education justice and African American males would be prioritized in the new goals if not reflected in the language, and 2) potential unintended impacts of the goals on multilingual learners, students receiving special education services, and students receiving highly capable services. 
 
Guardrails

Feedback on the Guardrails reflecting the previous engagement’s themes was positive except for
Guardrail 1. In particular, concerns were raised about Guardrail 1 not promoting equitable access to high-quality opportunities, but resulting in those opportunities being discontinued for all students.
Community members also expressed a desire to see the Guardrails framed in the positive rather than negative and found the current structure confusing and inaccessible. There were numerous comments regarding vague wording in the Guardrails, and particularly the need to define equity and anti-racism.
Community members also had questions regarding how the superintendent will be held accountable for the Guardrails and how progress on the Goals and Guardrails will be communicated with the public.


Other Themes
Additional themes on the proposed Goals and Guardrails found across the engagements included:
• If there is a way to reflect budget, enrollment decline, class size, and school closures in the Goals
or Guardrails
• Concerns about lowering expectations in the system
• The need to support teachers and school leaders in implementing the Goals and Guardrails

Rankin's first amendment would raise the second grade percentage "that meet or exceed key grade-level standards for foundational literacy skills from 10% to 15%."

Her second amendment would increase "the percentage of students that graduate" completing certain measures but the increase is unknown until they receive Spring 2025 data.

Clark's first amendment would have a 10% increase for the percentage of 6th graders "prepared to
succeed in grade level coursework in 7th grade, as measured by the 6th grade SBA..."

Her second amendment would raise that to 15% instead of 10%.

Rankin's last amendment on this:

Now - The Superintendent will not allow inequitable access to high-quality educational opportunities
and instruction for any student.

Her version - The Superintendent will not allow a student’s school assignment, family income, race or
ethnicity, need, or identity determine access to high standards, rigorous programming, high-quality teaching, and supports.

 

Last thing, the Times has a story with this description under "Most Read Stories."

Suspects in killings on opposite sides of the U.S. went to high school together in Seattle 

I jumped in to find out which Seattle high school. 

This story is around a Seattle man who was arrested and charged with a murder in California where he somehow links with a Seattle woman who killed a Border Patrol agent in Vermont. Both murders occurred within two weeks of each other.

The man and the woman "were high school classmates who applied for a marriage license in King County in November."

The school?

Both Youngblut and Snyder attended Lakeside School, an elite private school in North Seattle, famously where Bill Gates and Paul Allen met.

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