Seattle Schools Community Forum

A Safety Presentation was presented to the Board last night. The PowerPoint link is in the agenda . Ted Howard appears to be the lead. Superintendent Podesta noted a new hire (this happened last October.  Seattle Public Schools (SPS) has selected José Curiel Morelos who will lead the district’s Safety and Security Department as executive director.  He will oversee efforts to ensure the safety of students, staff, and campuses under Superintendent Brent Jones’ School Safety and Gun Violence Prevention Initiative, coordinating with district departments and working with partners such as Seattle Police and Fire departments.   “My vision [for Seattle Public Schools] is to create a space where everyone feels protected, respected, and empowered to thrive, regardless of their background or identity,” said Curiel Morelos. “My goal in the first six months [in this role] is to assess the safety and security protocols across all Seattle Public School buildings, imple...

  As part of the Special Meeting of the Board on Tuesday, there was an enrollment update. That presentation is embedded in the agenda for the overall meeting.  To note: - Assigned enrollment is down slightly from 49, 240 to 49,080. Naturally, that may shift during September as students do or don't go to their assigned school (or not even show up at all in any SPS school). The October 1 count is what OSPI uses for funding.  - There is an enrollment page at SPS that I have never seen before that has lots of info.  - It appears that normally the rate of choice assignment is somewhere between 48-52% but it went from 47% last year to 64% this year. The district seems to have listened to parents.  In January 2026 enrollment, families will know their assignments sooner, including choice assignments. As well, there will be earlier projections for budgeting and staffing. - CODA (Children of Deaf Adults) students will be eligible for the Multilingual Learner eligibil...

 Agenda There are 18 people on the speakers list and most seem to be about safety issues including the return of SROs to SPS buildings.  There are 14 items on the Consent agenda which are too many and I'm sure not a single Board member will question anything. And yup, they passed the whole thing without any discussion of any item. The contract for Acting Superintendent Fred Podesta is, of course, to be introduced AND acted upon in a single meeting. It is one of two Action items, the other being some progress monitoring calendar for the next five years.  I see something new added - a Safety update presentation. It is entitled: School Board Director Briefing:  Safety and Security Department Updates  and Garfield High School Engagement Officer Pilot Updates There are three Board policies around safety that have been updated: 3431 (Emergencies), 4210 (Weapons prohibitions), and 4320 (Relations with law enforcement, CPS, Public Health).   They stated that they h...

Update: Two children, 8 and 10 years old, were killed when the shooter fired through the church windows where students were for mass. The third person who died was the shooter who killed herself. From The NY Times: Of the 17 people injured, 14 were children ranging in age from 6 to 15,   Chief O’Hara said. Three were parishioners in their 80s, he said. All were expected to survive, he said. It appears that the shooter may have been trans, having changed their name in 2020 from Robert to Robin. The shooter seemed to have violent videos on social media describing the killing of children. As well, they show weapons and bullets and explosive devices that have violent wording written on them about different groups. She may also have attended the school; her mother worked there previously. The Pope has offered his support and condolences.  I saw this The Other 98% on Facebook and I think it's good to consider: When shooters are cis white men, the story shifts to individual failings ...

 Update 2: The actual HYA presentation was embedded in the agenda (but I don't think it was there when I first looked.) It is NOT different from what the directors received (or so I am told.)   Update 1: I watched the entire portion of the meeting about the Leadership Profile presented by HYA, the Board's chosen search firm. (It's from the beginning of the meeting to about the 1:10:00 mark.) Topp, Briggs, Rankin, Sarju were in-person and the others - Clark, Mizrahi, and Hersey - were there virtually. Julia Warth, Board administrator, gave the first information and spoke about community engagement.  There were: - In-person sessions - Virtual sessions - Focus groups and single language sessions - Online survey - Emails, Let's Talk, phone calls - Social media, website, individual outreach by community leaders HYA facilitated 36 engagement sessions. At the focus groups, participants were asked: - What do you, as a stakeholder/constituent, value regarding the schools? What...

 The Seattle Times is running a survey.  If you had to convince someone to take the job running Seattle Public Schools, what would you say? How would you persuade them to uproot their lives in, say, Vermont, California or Florida, and move here to become the superintendent of the nearly 50,000-student school system, with its annual multimillion-dollar budget deficits, leadership churn and urgent need to improve academics? How would you sell the district and the city to prospective candidates? What say you, readers? I can think of one thing right off the bat that is an encouraging sign for any candidate.  Seattle has the second smallest children population of an urban city in the U.S. And yet, for decades, the people of Seattle vote to tax themselves, for both SPS operations and capital needs, over and over.  That is NOT the case for most urban school districts. That means that 1) there's money in Seattle and 2) the adults of Seattle support public education. 

From The Times -  What if you raised expectations for students? This Seattle school did   See that guy bottom left? That's Colin Pierce, a long-time teacher and coordinator of the IB program at Rainier Beach High School. I met him early on when he was at RBHS and there is not a more positive person in SPS. He was willing to beg or borrow to get the IB program off the ground.  Sadly, Mr. Pierce is no longer at RBHS; I'm not sure where he is now and the op-ed doesn't say.  This op-ed could have been more about what Pierce did to secure IB to RBHS and what he said to get kids to sign up. But instead, Ms. Rowe wrote: “Mostly, it consists of testing elementary school children for membership in the “Highly Capable Cohort,” where students remain with the same group of smarty-pants kids through middle school. Then, as teenagers, they funnel into Advanced Placement courses, which exist in greater numbers at some high schools than others." Why the derision for these students,...

As I previously reported, the Board is having a "special meeting" on Tuesday, August 26th at 4:30 pm at the JSCEE (also live-streamed). This meeting is for the directors to hear from Hazard, Young and Attea (HYA) the search firm the Board is using. Agenda. HYA will be presenting the "leadership profile " created from all the input gathered from staff, communities, students, etc.  Also of interest (but a bit of a mystery to me) is a "Civics Update." It just says "presentation." Plus... an "Enrollment Update . " THAT should be quite interesting.    Just before the regular board meeting on August 27th at 4:30 pm at the JSCEE, there will also be another "special meeting at 3:30 pm . The purpose of the meeting is to give the oath of office to the student board members. There are two new ones - Josephine Mangelsen and Isabelle Massoudi - and one returning member, Sabi Yoon.    As for the regular board meeting, here's the agenda.  I...

The Seattle Times reviews what's new from the new SEA contract created in June. Because of the district's issues, teachers agreed to something of a carryover contract until a full 3-year contract is negotiated next year. It does feel like this is hitting a pause button and next year's negotiations may have fireworks. The two sides did not open up the full agreement for bargaining. Instead, the union sought changes to staffing, leave, and compensation. It didn't get everything it asked for. The one-year contracts will cost the district $18M, nearly $7M of which is unfunded in the district's general fund, according to the district's analysis. The union asked for higher raises for support works like instructional aides, secretaries, and paraprofessionals. They will see a 2.5% pay raise. What else? - More safety safeguards.  This section has some wins for teachers and staff who were concerned about building safety, student discipline, and classroom disruptions.  Pri...

Recently, I found out that Director Brandon Hersey knows the HYA lead guiding the Board's search for finding a new superintendent. That lead's name is Micah Ali.  In April, there were a couple of Superintendent Search meetings that the Board had to do the work. At one of them, Director Hersey told his fellow board members that he knew a colleague who worked as a consultant at HYA. This is fine. However, I didn't know at the time how much deeper the relationship between Hersey and Ali is. Hersey told the Board that Ali was a "colleague" but Hersey has described Ali on Instagram as his "mentor." That's very different from just a colleague.  Two things.  One, I think that Hersey should have stated this relationship when he voted for HYA to get the contract. THAT was the time , not in some meeting that very few people would know about. The public has a right to know about that relationship because, of course, it may color how Hersey thinking on finding a...

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 FYI

Superintendent Search Watch The Board will be having a "special meeting" on Tuesday, August 26th at 4 pm at the JSCEE. No agenda yet available. According to HYA rep Micah Ali, the "leadership profile" will be shared at that meeting. - Then, from September 1-15, it would be shared with communities. - The application process for candidates will end on September 15th. - September 17th, final update to the Board. - September 26th, slate of candidates presented to Board. This is unlikely to be something the public will have access to as it's a longer list and some candidates may still be at other districts. - October 9-10th, Board picks final candidates. I believe this means those candidates will be announced to the public. - October 13th, Board discussion (so that means a Board meeting) with a pick made between October 15-22nd and the Board making an offer to that candidate. As has been previously stated, even if the candidate who gets the offer then accepts ...

Update One bit of commentary from me. Look at that schedule; it goes on for over a month. The district RARELY stretches out public engagement that long. Maybe because it will be the beginning of the school year and not fair to parents to have meetings all in one week? But to stretch it out like this is interesting. Maybe they are really trying harder on public engagement.   Via SPS email to families: Dear SPS families and staff, Seattle Public Schools (SPS) is excited to invite you to a series of upcoming engagement sessions this fall! These gatherings are a chance for families, staff, students, and community members to come together, share ideas, and help shape the future of Highly Capable services in SPS. The district is especially thrilled to introduce Dr. Paula Montgomery, the new Director of Highly Capable Services. Come meet Dr. Montgomery and be part of the conversation as we work to create more equitable, enriching learning experiences for all students. Your voice matters, ...