Seattle Schools Community Forum

And here we are again.  I've written on the subject of sexual assault several times, both in K-12 and higher education. Here's a recent video asking young men and women "if you were guaranteed safety after dark, what would you do?" The women all say, "walk around, stay out late at a club or bar, walk in the park, etc."  Most of the men are puzzled because they say they feel safe already. Of course they do.    Yes, I am talking about the event at Cornell University.  I'll start out by saying what I tell young women going off to college/university.  1) Do not go to frat parties. Parties at frats are a brutal combination of alcohol and group think.  2) If you must go, take a friend. Stay together, even to go to the bathroom. Leave together.  3) Do NOT accept any drink that you did not open yourself. Get your own bottle of beer or can of soda and never leave it unattended. And NEVER drink that "magic punch" concoction.  Know what I would add t...

Why is the best known national public education leader (Randi Weingarten) and the new superintendent of the largest public school district in Washington State on a panel for selective regional private schools?  I am also hearing that members of the Board have been invited.  Is this a paid gig for Shuldiner?  Things that make you go, hmmmmmm  

 Readers, sorry about the cutoff from the last post. I'm having issues with Blogger. 

  What have we got on the good side? From his weekly Superintendent's Newsletter, dated September 27th: - Yesterday, more than 60 high school students came to the John Stanford Center for Educational Excellence (JSCEE) to spend their Saturday with me and other district leaders as part of this year's Student and Superintendent Advisory Board. I t was awesome. For an hour we discussed topics that were meaningful to our students. We talked about safety and security and the use and misuse of artificial intelligence, specifically large language models (LLMs) and generative AI. I heard students discuss their desire for more rigorous instruction, and I listened intently around the availability or lack of availability of programs and classes, as well as many other important topics. - I also want to talk about the "October Shuffle. " As many of you know and have experienced, the district has a history of moving teachers from one class to another in October to make up for enrol...

I am planning yet another post on technology, both for K-12 AND higher education. Here's a teaser headline: Columbia College Enforces First-Of-Its-Kind Technology Ban — Here's What We Know. I note this is Columbia College , not Columbia University. But wait, here's the other headline: Columbia bans devices in core classes as New York school moves to curb AI Yeah, that's  Columbia University . As laptops, phones, and artificial intelligence tools take up residence in classrooms, Columbia University is requiring students in its Literature Humanities and Contemporary Civilization courses to put devices away for the 2026-27 academic year. And yes, I am also going to write a separate post about the Nikole Hannah-Jones essay on how she let her daughter down by sending her to a nearly all-white school. This has ignited a firestorm of opinions about schooling and Black children.  National News Via The Guardian : As reading and math scores fall to their lowest point in the pas...

From KING-5 News last Wednesday: About 300 school bus drivers who transport Seattle Public Schools students have authorized a strike as contract negotiations with Zūm Services continue. Teamsters Local 174 , which represents the drivers, said Tuesday the dispute centers on retirement contributions and accuses Zūm of refusing to bargain in good faith.   No strike date has been announced. Zūm  is one of two companies that provide transportation services to SPS. If there is a strike, t he drivers are striking against  Zūm  but for all practical purposes, SPS students and families will feel it. The other company the district contracts with is First Student but  Zūm now covers a majority of routes. The union says the drivers are seeking retirement benefits required under Washington state law and argues that funding for those benefits is already provided through the state’s pupil transportation funding system.   House Bill 1248, which addresses pupil transportat...

Enrollment numbers are out for Washington State public schools as of September 2026. Overall, SPS has 47,196 students.  One interesting item in each chart is Male/Female/Non-Binary. I may have missed when that category was added. From SPS and here are some teased out data.  High Schools Ballard is at 1681; there's a significant drop off from freshman (452) to seniors (383). Cleveland STEM is at 889. It's still a weird thing to me that Cleveland has room and yet still has under 1,000 students. They also see a significant drop off from freshman (318) to seniors (138). And, there are many more boys (590) than girls (436). Franklin is at 902. They have an even spread from grade to grade. Garfield is at 1224. They have a fairly even spread from grade to grade. Lincoln is at a whopping 1732 (where do they fit all of them?) Their senior class is at 398 (the largest in the district) and yet the freshman class is at 494. Like Cleveland, they have more boys than girls (170 more boy...

From SPS Communications: Dear SPS Families and Staff,   Thank you to everyone who participated in the Superintendent Community Engagement Meetings during the 2025-26 school year. We are grateful to the students, families, staff, and community members who shared their experiences, perspectives, and ideas. Your thoughtful feedback helped shape important conversations across the district and continues to inform our work as we strive to better serve every student.  We’re excited to launch a new series of Community Engagement Meetings for the 2026-27 school year.   These meetings provide an opportunity for you to share feedback on the issues that matter most to our school communities.  Topics for discussion for our first meeting will include:  Academic Rigor  School Design (Neighborhood School, Option Schools, Dual Language, HC, etc.)  School Safety and Security  These topics were highlighted as priorities from last year. For each subsequent meeting, w...

  This segment is from the On the Road series on CBS News.  According to many of her senior classmates at Waunakee High School in Waunakee, Wisconsin, 18-year-old Molly Schafer was a loner. "I haven't talked to her in years," one student told CBS News. "Not a lot of kids did hang out with her," another said. That wasn't always the case. Back in elementary and middle school, before her social anxiety kicked in, Schafer said she was much more engaging. "There was a connection there, at some point," Schafer said. "... And, I don't know, I really wanted to just talk to them again, or be seen again." That longing for connection is a common high school lament. But what is really interesting is that Schafer didn't blame her peers. She didn't sulk. Instead, she took it upon herself to reconnect in a most unusual way. Just about every day, for hours a day, Schafer would climb to a loft in her garage and try to paint her way out o...

Here's the transcript from the School Board meeting on Wednesday, September 16, 2026.  This is what Superintendent Ben Shuldiner had to say on the subject of elementary school recess. In short, he is saying that schools need to show their work. Meaning, are you meeting state requirements for teaching time for subjects? I'll highlight pertinent sections. I really do want to thank everybody who has reached out to discuss some of the things that came up in my last week's newsletter and I'm happy to certainly pontificate on this a lot.   I had a really wonderful meeting in Magnolia.   We packed the house last night at a community meeting and really what I want to make sure people understand is that Our job is to make sure that our children are getting a holistic education and part of that is certainly recess, part of that is PE, part of that is lunch, but it's also of course English and math and science and social studies.   And what we did was we looked at the schedule...

Big news - Mayor Katie Wilson has signed "a New Approach to Reducing Gun Violence." This from the  Office of the Mayor . I'm highlighting the efforts that will help students.  I don't see in either the press release or plan any formal interaction with SPS but I would assume that to be the case.  Here are key points for SPS and its students: - The big item that is something of a surprise to me, given it's just one school.  New afterschool support: Invests over $600,000 in Rainier Beach High School to pilot a new  afterschool program for students and expand peer mentorships for teens at Rainier Beach  Community Center.  The 2027—2028 budget will fund two staff to support the afterschool program, increase funding for contracts with community-based organizations that offer services  to teens, and provide staffing and training to Seattle Parks and Recreation staff who work with  our teens. Maybe since it's a pilot, if it works, the City will expa...