This and That, April 27, 2026
Update:
I want to note the passing of Kylie Kypreos, a beloved teacher at Blaine K-8 for 27 years. Sympathies to the entire Blaine community. Via the Catharine Blaine PTA Facebook page:
Our Blaine community is grieving today. We lost a beloved teacher, Kylie Kypreos, after 27 years of dedication to our students and school. The PTA stands with our families, staff, and students during this difficult time.
end of update
The Board has a couple of committee meetings this week but the ones on Wednesday, April 29th is quite interesting.
First, there's the Policy Committee meeting from 2-4 pm at JSCEE, agenda here. Then, that is followed by a "Special Meeting" for the entire Board at 4:30 pm and that is followed by an executive session that night from 7:30-8:30 pm. I think the executive session is set for later that night because, per the agenda for the Special Meeting, they have a lot of ground to cover.
The Policy Committee meeting will be reviewing updates to drafted policy (not sure which policy) as well as "review of new legal verbiage." That's followed by discussion of their work plan, grants policy, and calendar planning. They only have two more meetings this school year.
The Special Meeting will find a discussion on "goals and guardrails" as well as "student cellphone use." They will also intro an item on closing Middle College at Seattle Central College next school year. I note in the materials that Schuldiner states he has now visited 90 schools. That's quite a lot so good for him.
This meeting sure does feel a lot like a Work Session.
The Guardrails Recap is interesting because it strikes previous SOFG language that stated "Superintendent shall not..." to "The district, led by the superintendent, shall work towards..."
Here's the proposed "One North Star:"
Make SPS the best urban school system in America — where any family can confidently enroll any student and expect a district that is top five in performance within five years, with performance visible across every student group.
Wow, that's quite the goal of what Shuldiner hopes to do.
He sets academic goals and then moves on to organizational goals. There are data charts following these goals.
- He hopes to raise enrollment from 48,957 to 52,500 by 2030.
- There is also to be an attendance goal but no target given because "tbd pending attendance audit."
- As well, instead of being in the hole to the tune of $72M b the end of FY2031, the district will have $100M+ by the end of FY31.
Talk about aiming high but good for him. If he even gets the district out of the hole, that would be great.
As for the cellphone policy, it appears this is the thinking for SPS:
Establish districtwide procedure in which cellphones are not accessible during daily instruction, with defined exceptions.I find the last item for this Special Meeting- about Middle College - a bit odd because although it doesn't involve a vote, after this introduction, its next appearance will be on a regular Board meeting agenda to stand for a vote. This is not generally the path for Intro items.
It appears they want the "instructional site" of Middle College to leave Seattle Central College and have North Seattle College as its sole location . If any incoming 9th graders or rising 10th graders do not want to do that, they will be enrolled at any other high school. Given that Seattle Central is, well, centrally located, I wonder if this will be a hardship for students who can't go the distance to the north location.
Rising 11th and 12th grade students can continue their Running Start classes at Seattle Central.
This is likely to incur some teacher reductions for this program.
From the BAR:
Middle College has experienced two recent relocations of their sites. At the end of the 2023-24 school year, the District was informed that the space provided at Seattle University was needed by the university and would no longer be available. The site was then co-located with Sugiyama. During that transition, enrollment dropped from 60 to 42 students. For the 2025-26 academic year, the program was relocated for a second time to Seattle Central, and during that transition enrollment dropped from 42 to 36 students.
Middle College has maintained the same space at North Seattle College for the past five years when it was relocated from the University of Washington. During this period enrollment has increased from 22 students when the site relocated from the University of Washington in 2021 to a current enrollment of 56. Closing the Seattle Central location will provide an opportunity to align our resources at North Seattle – a location that is enthusiastically supported by the North Seattle College administration and can support future program growth.
There is also an Operations Committee meeting on Thursday, April 30th. I see some interesting items on the agenda but there is no documentation attached. I hope it becomes attached because I hate to have to ask over and over for these items.
It appears the district is selling a parking lot at Franklin HS and well as a property at 3020 East Yesler. That Yesler property comes up as a small house. Hmm - did someone will this to the district and they just don't need the property? I seem to remember that. It's just down the street from Leschi Elementary.
There will also be a discussion of student assignment "objectives, processes, and documents." The committee will also discuss items internal to their work but the one item left is "asset prevention program report." Intriguing.
Neither KUOW nor The Seattle Times have had a story on proposed practice fields for Lincoln High School. I don't blame them because you need to look at a variety of sources/groups involved to do this topic justice.
I did ask - on the Lincoln Alumni page on Facebook - about what those alums used for practice fields. It was Lower Woodland and they had to walk/run there. As well, they sometimes had PE classes there. I believe they mean the area right by the corner of North 50th and East Green Lake Way N. They laughed when I asked if they were bused.
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