This and That, May 7, 2026

Local News

If you haven't been to the SPS website lately, you may have missed their "Regional News Roundup" feature. In this case, "regional" means regions within SPS borders. 

As well, there is the SPS Shout Outs! where you can read about students and their achievements. 

It is uplifting reading about the good things happening in Seattle Schools. 

On May 4th, the SPS Student Cellphone Procedure started. 

For students in grades K–8, phones will be off and stored away for the entire school day.

For high school students in grades 9–12, phones will not be accessible during instructional time, though students will have access during lunch and passing periods — an approach that supports student independence and digital citizenship while maintaining the core expectation that phones stay away during class.

What Families Need to Know

This procedure is about supporting learning and well-being. The goal is to create learning environments where students can fully engage, academically and socially. Families who need to reach their child during the school day can always do so through the school office. District-issued devices will continue to be used for instruction as directed by teachers and are not affected by this procedure. 

The Board had a Work Session yesterday on the next budget and on community engagement. I did not watch it but it is available to view. I'll try to do separate posts on both the presentation materials at the Work Session as well as what was said during the presentation. 

There is one last Community Engagement meeting on Tuesday, May 19th at Mercer Middle School. Unfortunately, I do not see it on the district calendar so I can't say what time it starts. 

To note, there was just a KUOW story about next year's budget and Superintendent Shuldiner told them the district could be insolvent in a year if big changes don't happen. I don't see a link yet at KUOW. 

Gird your loins and fasten your seatbelts. 

State News

OSPI released a list of schools from their Washington School Recognition Program. These are schools recognized for "their work in closing opportunity gaps and supporting students' growth and academic achievement during the 2024-25 school year."

Seattle schools named are Queen Anne Elementary, Whittier Elementary, James Baldwin Elementary, Roxhill Elementary, Maple Elementary School, Bryant Elementary School, Greenwood Elementary, Thurgood Marshall School, Greenwood Elementary School, Decatur Elementary School, Coe Elementary School, Blaine K-8, John Stanford International School, McDonald International School, Montlake Elementary School, Dearborn Park International School, Middle College High School, Cascadia Elementary, Alki Elementary School, MLK, Jr. Elementary School, and Seattle World School. 

National News

From the Associated Press:

The U.S. State Department will begin revoking the U.S. passports of thousands of parents who owe a significant amount of unpaid child support. 

The department told The Associated Press on Thursday that the revocations would begin Friday and be focused on those who owe $100,000 or more. That would apply to about 2,700 American passport holders, according to figures supplied to the State Department by the Department of Health and Human Services. 

The revocation program, plans for which were first reported by the AP in February, soon will be greatly expanded to cover parents who owe more than $2,500 in unpaid child support — the threshold set by a little-enforced 1996 law, the State Department said. 

It was not clear on Thursday how many passport holders owe more than $2,500 because HHS is still collecting data from state agencies that track the figures, but it could encompass many more thousands of people, officials said. 

Until this week, only those who applied to renew their passports were subject to the penalty. Under the new policy, HHS will inform the State Department of all past-due payments of more than $2,500 and parents in that group with passports will have their documents revoked, the department said.

To be clear, it's not just those who apply for a new or renewal of their passport - it's everyone who owes more than $2500, including those with a valid passport. It's unclear if a parent does pay up if they will get their passport back. 

Of course, I'm all for people paying their child support but it's just more churn in this country. 

Via the Los Angeles Times:

A story about Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on his belief about abandoning sunscreen and embracing the sun.

Kennedy’s action comes at a time when many adherents of his Make America Healthy Again movement have adopted regular sun exposure as a core principle of wellness, with social media influencers encouraging followers to abandon sunscreen and build up their “solar callus,” or sun tolerance, instead. 

The trend has frustrated many dermatologists, who warn that the damage of frequent sunburns and tans accumulates over a lifetime, and those acquired early in life appear to play a disproportionate role in later risk of skin cancer. The Skin Cancer Foundation notes also that you cannot build up a tolerance to sun exposure and “there is no such thing as a ‘solar callus.'”

He's also pro-tanning beds, even for teens. 

The UVA radiation in a tanning bed is roughly 15 times that found anywhere on the surface of the planet. The World Health Organization counts UV-emitting tanning beds as a Group 1 carcinogen, alongside other known human carcinogens like tobacco cigarettes and asbestos.

Interesting story from ProPublica on their suit against the Department of Education over public records requests.