This and That, October 3, 2025
The Seattle Times has a story this morning on the final resolution to high school lunches:
Starting Monday, Oct. 6, all SPS high schools will have two lunch periods, except on Wednesdays, when students can share one schoolwide 30-minute lunch period.
The change will “preserve time for students to connect, join clubs, or explore other interests,” wrote SPS interim superintendent Fred Podesta and associate superintendent Rocky Torres-Morales in an email sent to impacted high schools Thursday afternoon. “This gives students time for whole-school community building, while still supporting a safer and more manageable lunch experience on other days.”
The decision to implement a one-lunch Wednesday will be made by each school principal and individual school community. Schools will provide exact details about their schedules by the end of the week.
As I posted in the Comments:
"The decision to implement a one-lunch Wednesday will be made by each school principal and individual school community."
Does that mean some principals can say no? Because if it was just HOW it gets implemented, that's one thing but "decision to implement" implies a choice.
From The Seattle Times, announcement of the National Merit Scholarship Corporation's semi-finalists for Washington State. There are over 350 semifinalists.
Bellevue SD dwarfs all others with 59.
There are four students from Ballard High School, one from Cleveland HS, five from Garfield HS, one from Ingraham, thirteen (!) from Lincoln HS, and one from West Seattle HS. That makes 25 students by my count.
Congrats to all these SPS academic achievers!
From KUOW, a story on a new sales tax on services that may hit SPS.
Over the summer, the Department of Revenue hosted listening sessions with affected businesses. Over 90,000 businesses are expected to pay under the law.
Republicans universally opposed this Democratic-backed package of new and increased taxes and fees.
All of these proceeds go into the state’s operating budget, which funds the bulk of Washington’s state government programs and services.
However under this law, it looks likely that SPS would have to pay the full retail sales tax on its security services. In Seattle, both state and city sales tax rates combined are 10.35%. That would surely add to the cost for SEOs in high schools.
But there seems to be universal unhappiness with this tax and it is being challenged in court. Stay tuned.
Seattle Schools has a very good page on safe roadways for students.
The Board was to have a Special Meeting today but it has been cancelled.
Comments
I wasn't sitting close enough to look at Oliver's phone to read over his shoulder, but we've all been in rooms where two people are texting each other and you can tell when that's happening. It looked really obvious to me that's what was happening, and raises the concern that Oliver was texting answers to Kathleen.
Kathleen has been very unimpressive in other forums I've seen her in when she doesn't have a phone handy. She doesn't really understand SPS issues well. So it would not surprise me if she was relying on Oliver to text her answers so she puts on a better performance.
Oliver Miska used to work with Tracy Castro-Gill at Washington Ethnic Studies Now, and is also very close to Liza Rankin.
Columbia City Parent