Education News Roundup

West Seattle High School Suicide Prevention Parent Night

This comes to us via the West Seattle Blog.

WSHS will be hosting our 8th annual Forefront Suicide Prevention Parent Night, Thursday, March 6th, from 6-8 pm in the WSHS library. This parent night will focus on learning the stats and risk factors for teen suicide, as well as teaching parents active listening skills and how to listen to their teens with empathy. Preventing death by suicide is everyone’s job- from school staff to parents, friends and the community as a whole. WSHS has partnered with Forefront in the Schools to educate our entire West Seattle community on suicide and how we, as a team, play a role in prevention.

Please RSVP at the following link: Forefront Parent Night RSVP

RSVP is recommended, not required. Questions? Contact School Counselor Mallory Neuman at mlneuman@seattleschools.org

 

DOGE Wants YOU to Be a Snitch

From the Network for Public Education

Last week, at the urging of Moms for Liberty, the U.S. Department of Education created a portal to allow parents to anonymously "snitch" on schools that they think engage in DEI.

The online form, which the Department calls the Stop DEI Portal, can be found here: https://enddei.ed.gov. It encourages the reporting of discrimination.

We believe this offers an opportunity to report REAL discrimination--especially the rampant discrimination that occurs in some charter schools and voucher schools.

Please join us in reporting the discrimination that far too many families experience based on disability, LGBTQ status, race, religion or poverty.

Teens with disabilities were getting help with life after high school. Then DOGE started cutting.

From the Chalkbeat blog:

Charting My Path was among more than 200 Education Department contracts and grants terminated over the last two weeks by the Trump administration’s U.S. DOGE Service. DOGE has slashed spending it deemed to be wasteful, fraudulent, or in service of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility goals that President Donald Trump has sought to ban. But in several instances, the decision to cancel contracts affected more than researchers analyzing data in their offices — it affected students.

Many projects, like Charting My Path, involved training teachers in new methods, testing learning materials in actual classrooms, and helping school systems use data more effectively.

“Students were going to learn really how to set goals and track progress themselves, rather than having it be done for them,” McCrath-Smith said. “That is the skill that they will need post-high school when there’s not a teacher around.”

All of that work was abruptly halted — in some cases with nearly finished results that now cannot be distributed.

 

Education Dept. Cancels Over $600M in Grants for Teacher Pipeline Programs
From the 74

At last week’s confirmation hearing, education secretary nominee Linda McMahon called teaching “one of the most noble professions that we have in our country” and expressed support for workforce development programs.

But now the department she wants to lead has abruptly canceled more than $600 million in grants designed to prepare teachers, especially in high-need schools.

On the Keisha Scarlett front

You may recall former SPS senior staffer Keisha Scarlett left SPS to become superintendent in St. Louis Public Schools. From KSDK in St. Louis:

St. Louis Public Schools on Tuesday released the findings of an audit on district pay, hiring practices and credit card usage under Superintendent Keisha Scarlett.

The former superintendent's employment was terminated in October, months after she was placed on leave amid an investigation into the district's budget.

The more than 50-page in-depth management assessment, conducted by accounting firm Aramino, focused on the district's hiring of new senior-level staff, credit card and expense reimbursements, and strategic contracts that occurred after Scarlett was hired.

What is fairly stunning is that Scarlett went against most basic types of school districts' policies like credit card mismanagement, "Strategic consulting agreements, with eight out of 17 classified as sole-source or emergency contracts and multiple agreements reached without board approval, including a $234,000 contract with Impact Educational that was never approved or resubmitted," and "A lack of oversight over Superintendent Scarlett's office also led to unchecked authority, with staff members expressing concern about potential repercussions or retaliation for resisting orders from the superintendent, deputy superintendent or chief of staff."

I bring this up because Scarlett really cut her teeth in administrative work in SPS. It's astonishing that she would, in a single year, act in this manner.

The St. Louis School Board took responsibility for old policies and lack of oversight. Meanwhile Scarlett's lawyers say,

"This is a continuation of the pattern of injustice and vendetta the Board of Education has against Dr. Scarlett."

The same Board that hired her just a year ago then created a pattern of injustice and had a vendetta against her? Hmmm.

OSPI Launches Universal Online High School and Beyond Plan Platform

In Washington state, K–12 public school graduates are required to have a High School and Beyond Plan (HSBP) in order to earn a diploma. The plan, which students begin in the 7th grade, is designed to help connect students’ career interests with their classes, and their classes with career training or college majors.

Following a request by State Superintendent Chris Reykdal, the 2023 Legislature directed OSPI to facilitate a transition to a universal online HSBP platform. Today, the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) is announcing the launch of that transition.

“Our goal for this project is to ensure all Washington students have access to a platform that offers the most comprehensive suite of tools and resources, and that provides real-time data and information to students, parents, guardians, and counselors,” Reykdal continued.

In May 2024 following a competitive process, OSPI selected SchooLinks as the vendor for the universal online tool. Students in grades 7–12 will get annual access to SchooLinks to support their progress toward graduation and achieving goals such as entering a college or university, apprenticeship program, industry-standard certificate program, military training, internship, or on-the-job training after high school.

Seattle Times Editorial Board Asks SPS To Give Parents a Reason to Stay

The Seattle district currently supports a range of student learning styles and needs by operating a diversity of neighborhood and alternative schools/programs. Alternative programs provide dual language immersion; schools for K-8; dedicated classrooms for medically fragile and deaf/hard of hearing students; a focus on STEM; highly capable cohorts; advanced/above grade-level curriculum and more. These programs are in strong demand, as evidenced by waitlists during open enrollment. Yet last fall, SPS attempted to eliminate most of these programs, stating that enrollment had dropped so much due to declining birthrates that one in four elementary schools in the district must close.

Neither SPS nor the School Board questioned whether the decline had multiple causes.

In other words, many Seattle families are seeking enrollment in private schools, charter schools and even nearby public school districts — anywhere but SPS. Why? Here are two reasons.

SPS has been manipulating enrollment and capacity in neighborhood and option schools without transparency, refusing to enroll more than 600 K-5 and K-8 students in schools other than their assigned neighborhood schools last year.

The district is also pursuing decisions that deepen concerns about its educational quality and rigor.

Curious about AI in the Classroom? From Children and Screens

As powerful AI tools are deployed in classrooms nationwide, what should parents and educators know about the risks and opportunities specific to children using them in educational settings? Join Children and Screens for our next #AskTheExperts webinar, “New School? Promises and Risks of AI in the Classroom” on Wednesday, March 19, 2025 at 12pm ET, for an insightful webinar exploring the intersection of AI and children’s learning.

Our expert panel will break down:

☑️ How children process information from AI-driven tools.

☑️ How AI can best be used to support children’s cognitive development in the classroom.

☑️ Best practices for ethically integrating AI into educational systems.

☑️ AI literacy skills for parents, teachers and children.

Plus Live Q&A