Seattle Schools Community Forum

One is an opt-out letter to refuse for your child to do state testing . Parents may have many reasons to opt their student out and it is allowed by law in Washington State to do so. The other item is a webinar from the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy; Join us on Monday, May 6 at 8 PM ET; 7 PM CT; 6PM MT. Find out how you can ensure your children's personal data including their test scores are NOT sold by the College Board or ACT. Here's a registration link.

 The Seattle School Board will have their regularly schedule Board meeting tonight, starting at 4:15 pm. Agenda Public Testimony It appears the majority of comments will be coming from Muslim students who are unhappy that Cleveland High School's graduation is scheduled on a Muslim holiday, Eid al-Adha. I'm a little surprised that staff didn't check this. The only available date to switch would be with Ballard HS which is the only graduation scheduled before June 17th.  There are several speakers on ELL and equity. One is City of SeaTac Councilmember, James W. Lovell. There are 12 people on the waitlist, the majority wanting to speak about the graduation date.    Consent Agenda - acceptance of about $1.5M from the Department of Education to help pilot a new program for Special Education students, Charting My Path for Future Success. The piloting would take place at Rainier Beach HS, Ingraham HS, Cleveland HS, and Chief Sealth International HS. The study is to "determin

 From a reader comment: Desperate parent here trying to connect with others in the same boat.   Is no one going to talk about the school choice waitlist for next year?   Why is this school admin a joke? I'm thinking this reader meant the district administration but waitlists are a continuing issue for many parents.  It appears that it never seems clear to parents how they work, do schools have any autonomy over them (I suspect they do) and why it has to be so byzantine?    A comment on Facebook: The language on the website is changed to now suggest that if you want to go to your pathway school that you have to choose it during school choice (whereas with my older it was an automatic assignment from pathway elementary to pathway middle). I tried to get clarification but got no response, so I just went ahead and did school choice to get my current pathway elementary to pathway middle, so I don't know if my kid wouldn't have been assigned had I not done that. But I have

 Update 2: Footage from the West Seattle blog on the West Seattle HS walkout which they number at 50.  The comments are equal between "good for the kids speaking out" and "the kids are being led astray by terrorists."  From KOMO-tv, they note that multiple times, kids tried to block the cameras.  The Seattle Times put the crowd at about 150. They had this which I think is a valid comment from a Garfield High student: Leo McKenna, a 16-year-old Garfield sophomore, said he was there for a simple reason: "I decided to show up because I think that civilians dying is bad." "I support neither Hamas nor the Israeli government,” he said. “I don't want civilians to die. That's it. I am pro-civilian." Amen to that. Anyone have news from their student's high school? Update: A statement from Seattle Schools spokeperson, Bev Redmond: We have received several reports of Seattle Public Schools students planning to take part in a statewide

 I am going to sit in on the brief Board "special meeting" today on the process of curriculum adoption in Washington State. I did ask about any attached documentation but I received no answer and there is still nothing there. But I did want to note something that came up rather quickly - one day's notice - of an "Open House" on the renovation of Memorial Stadium. I first saw this in a tweet and was surprised I had not seen it at the district's calendar. But the Board office sends out THEIR calendar and an update was sent out on the 16th for this open house and a possible quorum of directors attending. The link the Board office provided is just a general website about the renovation with no scheduled events. As well, this event was not on Seattle Center's calendar. However, it does say under Community Engagement: Initial outreach began in 2022 with student and cultural groups, Seattle Center staff and resident organizations, tribal representatives, Vet

I see the Board has a curious "special meeting" for tomorrow. It's a half-hour meeting about: Board Development 4:30 p.m.* • Overview of Curriculum Adoption Process in Washington State Adjourn 5:00 p.m. There is no documentation attached.  I'm thinking, due to the brevity of this meeting, this is just some kind of legally required overview for the benefit of all the newbies on the Board. Curriculum adoption is a lot more complex than a half-hour meeting. It's a little sad that the Board is giving this topic so little when, if they did it right, it would be a good time for parents, students and the public to understand this process. And remember the real discourse over the last science adoption? It was pretty rough and tumble but it was meaty and everything was laid out on the table. Under the Student Outcome Focused Governance, you will never see that again.    Holy Smokes! Real facilities issues at Franklin High School. From KOMO News: Broken down bathrooms,