Public Education News Round-Up - January 7, 2025
A student reporter from the Garfield Messenger (GHS' school newspaper) had an interview with incoming superintendent Ben Shuldiner. The reporter, Rafael Brewer, asked some very good questions.
I loved this blunt question:
As a cis white male, how do you plan on understanding the community that you’re serving and what is your full plan for community engagement?
I think that any good Superintendent who’s coming from the outside wants to spend as much time as possible in the communities that they’re going to be serving. I have, maybe it’s an audacious plan, I don’t know, but I’d like to visit every single school in Seattle within 100 days.
The other thing that we’re planning on doing is having community meetings in each of the seven districts, because school board directors each represent one of seven districts. The idea is that we’re going to try to have community meetings in each of the seven districts, at least once before the 100 days are up.
So much of the feedback that I’ve gotten about Seattle is that there seems to be a disconnect between the school district and the people we’re purporting to serve: students, families, the community. One of the things I’m really trying to do, as much as I can, is to be out in the community, but also to bring other people with me. It’s not just about me, it’ll be me and directors, me and senior staff. We have to do this as a collective. It’s not just about one person. It’s about all of us together.
He also said this which I take as an early canary in the coal mine:
I’d like to understand how in 1964, there were 100,000 kids and 100 schools, and now in 2025, there’s half that many students and still almost the same number of schools. How did that happen? What’s going on?
He also said:
And if it’s just because ‘it’s the way it’s always been’, that’s not an answer. ‘It’s the way it’s always been’ is not what a school district should say.
An intriguing story from The Goldendale Sentinel, Microschools, similar programs on the rise in state.
Customizing education to the needs of individual students is not new. Research has shown for decades that every child requires a slightly different path to academic success. But most schools find it easier to talk about than to actually do in large classes during short class periods.
Issaquah’s microschool program is just one notable example where a Washington school is working hard to overcome those obstacles. Creativity in educational programs appears to be growing again in these post-pandemic years. Microschools are one option.
Some consider microschools, which are more popular on the East Coast, a leftover from the pandemic. Some families, who felt online learning wasn’t working, formed their own learning “pods,” where students could both quarantine and learn.
The Maywood program doesn’t exactly fit the microschool model, because it’s not an all-day, standalone program. But it has many of the elements: It is small (50 total students in two classes) and has a focus on personalized learning.
From The Columbian, a story that asks hard questions about sending some Special Education students out of state:
“Vancouver Public Schools will spend $270,000 to send one student to a residential treatment center in Utah for the academic year. The state will reimburse the district."
During the 2020-21 school year, Washington school districts placed 80 students in out-of-state facilities. That’s nearly four times as many Washington kids sent out of state as during the 2016-17 school year, according to data included in a 2022 InvestigateWest article.
I wonder what the rate is in SPS. From an editorial in The Columbian:
According to a 2022 report from media outlet InvestigateWest, the state reimbursed school districts nearly $13 million in the previous school year for sending 80 students to out-of-state facilities.
For another thing, this leads to questions about why students from Washington are sent to Utah or Kansas or Massachusetts for adequate services. As one advocate told InvestigateWest: “This signals loud and clear that we need to spend more time thinking about solutions that are here, so that families aren’t in crisis, kids aren’t in crisis, and we’re not separating them during this time.”
From The NY Times,
As Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point Pushes Into High Schools, Dissension Follows
Since Mr. Kirk’s death, chapters of his organization’s affiliate for teenagers have more than doubled in number, aided by politicians who have said they won’t tolerate opposition.
All of this friction has surfaced in both liberal- and conservative-run states and in urban and rural districts, as teens and their parents grapple with the confrontational politics that were Mr. Kirk’s hallmark.
“People are outraged,” said Rachel Ortiz, a parent in Northern California. “There’s a reason Charlie Kirk didn’t debate high school kids. He did it with college kids, who are adults.”
But Mr. Kirk’s death supercharged the effort; the number of Club America chapters has more than doubled since then, rising to over 3,000 from about 1,200, Nick Cocca, the Club America enterprise director for Turning Point USA, said in an interview.
Under federal law, public secondary schools that allow any student-initiated extracurricular groups to meet on campus must allow all the same access, regardless of viewpoint.
But “student initiated” has become key to the debate.
“You will not convince me this was a child-started club,” Rebekah Huey, a parent in Northern California, said of Club America. “This is something that was put into motion by political figures.”
Anybody hear of a Turning Point Chapter in any SPS high school?
From KOMO News, an update on the Marty Jackson drug trafficking story:
Federal prosecutors have expanded the case against a Kent family that is accused of running a large drug trafficking ring to distribute fentanyl across western Washington.
Nine more defendants have been added to this case "as well as charges related to prostitution."
Marty Jackson ran the nonprofit group SE Network SafetyNet which had been given lucrative contracts to provide violence interruption in SPS and the South Seattle community.
According to the charges, Marty Jackson laundered money for the DTO, which was led by Marquis, as well as her husband, Mandel Jackson.
Over the course of the investigation, law enforcement seized more than 846,00 fentanyl pills, nearly seven kilograms of fentanyl powder, seven kilograms of cocaine, and 289 firearms.
All the defendants have pleaded not guilty but one.
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