Items of note from SPS
1) There are articles at the website with a large number of congrats to both students and staff for many awards and honors. There IS good stuff happening in SPS.
Amazingly they even included academic awards (National Merit Scholars).
2) But, in their own SPS way, they are not getting news out in a timely manner. This morning on Facebook they say this:
Seattle Public Schools Needs You — Join our Strategic Plan Stakeholder Task Force! 
We're rolling out a new five-year strategic plan, and your voice matters in this process. We want to hear your hopes for our district, your vision of success in our classrooms, and what our schools need to help every child thrive.
We need families, students, and staff with voices that represent the SPS community to guide feedback collection, review strategies to help students, and examine our future budget predictions.
Submit your application by Friday, May 2.I noted in a comment that there is less than a week to apply! It's not at the district webpage but they said that they sent a direct email to families and that's it's on the site. It's not.
3) There is a public engagement meeting tonight with a couple of Board members at Denny Middle School starting at 5:30 pm.
4) The district has announced that the new head of Highly Capable is Dr. Paula Montgomery, principal at Jane Addams MS. She's going to finish the year at Jane Addams AND start in her role as director of this program.
A good article in this morning's Seattle Times, Why Some Seattle Students Can't Attend the School of Their Choice. This follows up on the discussion of enrollment/waitlists at last week's Board meeting.
Here's the comment I made:
The overall problem is two-fold.
One, the district is operating more schools than they need to, plain and simple. Many of those schools have enrollment issues BUT the question is, can you blame the school or did the district manipulate the process? Did the district make a decision more than a decade ago to NOT work their way through the capital backlog but rather, to build elementary mega-schools in order to later close a nearby school and enroll the kids in a large school? They did and the proof is there for all to see. Has the district refused to move waitlists like at a neighborhood school like North Beach Elementary? Yes. And the situation at Queen Anne Elementary as documented in the story is just ridiculous as is NEVER filling Cleveland STEM High School despite its popularity.
Rainier Beach HS is getting its new building; let the two schools duke it out for students.
Two, I recall decades back when competition was considered a GOOD thing. If Option Schools are more popular, why not duplicate them at schools that are struggling? (To note, schools struggle for all kinds of reasons, not the least of which is a less-than-effective principal.) But no, the district just let these schools twist in the wind and then blamed the Option Schools for fewer resources to neighborhood schools.
"Fred Podesta, the district’s chief operations officer, said the district was not artificially capping enrollment.
“We don’t have any incentive to starve a school,” he said in an interview.
Please, of course they do. The staff tried to close 20 schools; they want to have good reasons for doing so.
The issue of deciding on resources in February - based on an October headcount from the last school year - BEFORE enrollment figures are in is your big red flag. This issue got discussed at the Board meeting and two directors pointed this out. Just ridiculous.
I see one new candidate for School Board at the PDC - it's in Region 5 (Sarju's region) and her name is Julissa Sanchez. That makes four candidates for that spot (if Sarju runs which is unclear at this point). Sanchez is on the board at the Tenants Union of Washington State as a "Housing Justice Advocate and Community Organizer."
She works for the group, Choose 180, as a Director of Advocacy.
A fierce mujer, mother, community organizer, educator, youth, decolonizing, housing and racial justice advocate, xicana feminist and writer.
She is dedicated to collective liberation through policy reform, cultural education, and transformative justice. Julissa is committed to community-led organizing, fighting displacement, and redistributing resources to historically underserved communities.
She has served on the City Council's Renters' Commission.
She has a 15-year old son.
Next week, May 5th starting at 8 am through May 9th finishing at 5 pm is the official window to file as a candidate. Still no one from Director Brandon Hersey's district #7.
Visit this link to fill out the application form: https://maec.iad1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_805sD88YvD1Mfbw
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