Seattle Schools Community Forum

One big thing that did happen when Seattle Schools' teachers went on strike in 2015 was the organic creation of the group, Soup for Teachers. From Seattle Magazine: During the strike, groups of parents used social media to coordinate food, coffee and support for the teachers’ six days on the picket line. Some even joined the picket lines, citing common interests, such as a guarantee that students would get recess.   In terms of galvanizing parents, the strike did its job. Part of its success came from the slew of attention it drew; after all, Seattle teachers had not gone on strike since the 1980s. What’s more, picketing teachers hit on hot-button issues in education. The Huffington Post, National Public Radio, The New York Times and other media covered the strike, drawing the attention of more disengaged parents. But parents specifically mentioned the teachers’ push for recess as one of the reasons they were drawn to support the strike.   “[The teachers] weren’t out here just...

I have not one, not two, but three budget analyses about SPS' budget. Finance is not my forte so I am very grateful for this in the weeds, in-depth work. First to note is parent Albert Wong (and new advisor for the Board's Finance Committee) who has his own section on Reddit.  He has two threads of interest there. One is his " SPS Simulator: Who or What Would You Axe (in the SPS budget)? You TOO can DOGE the world. Cut the Superintendent first! Or just cut electricity. What you'll find is that you can cut nearly ALL of central staff and only just start closing the budget deficit. You can do a little "better" if you just ignore the fact that our Economic Stablization Account is 0. Or you can disable the budget fill and just continue our dive into bankruptcy at the current rate. Whatever you want! The key point: we clearly have bloat . But our deficit is HUGE. We need to pressure to remove the bloat, not just cause of money but cause it causes problems and is ...

  Via The Seattle Times : The Seattle teachers union voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike late Wednesday, setting the stage for a potential delayed start of the school year. If a tentative agreement is not reached with Seattle Public Schools by the end of the day Tuesday, the strike could begin the next day, on Sept. 2, the district’s planned first day of school. The vote to authorize a strike does not guarantee that it will actually happen. The bargaining team — representatives from the union and SPS — will keep negotiating “around the clock” until the contract ends Aug. 31, union representatives said. Bargaining can continue even on Sept. 1 — and if an agreement is reached that day, the strike will be called off, union spokesperson Julie Popper said. Over 90% of their membership in attendance voted to authorize the strike if needed.     As of Wednesday afternoon, the union and the district still had 50 items they had not reached tentative agreements on, accordi...

  David Horsey in The Seattle Times gives this story a good wrap-up (including talking about those Meta AI glasses ). Facebook, Instagram and Meta’s other platforms were intentionally designed to hook users through algorithms that invade their brains and keep them scrolling for hours at a time. This addictive design was found to have caused harm to children in a case brought in New Mexico where Meta was ordered to pay a $942 million penalty.   Meta has now been hit with a far bigger penalty in a lawsuit brought by 29 state attorneys general who sought to punish Meta for flagrantly disregarding the health and safety of teenagers.     Numerous ex-Meta employees were ready to testify that the company was eager to turn teens into screen addicts, which may be why Zuckerberg chose to settle the case and pay a whopping $18 billion fine. (Washington state will receive $237 million in a landmark legal settlement.)   “For years, Meta intentionally deceived the public ab...

In case you didn't know, this from The Dollywood Foundation: The Dollywood Foundation  was created in 1988 by  Dolly Parton  to inspire the children in her home county to achieve educational success. Initial efforts focused on decreasing the drop out rate in the county’s high school.  In the early 90’s  Dolly  promised every 7th-grade and 8th-grade student she would personally give them $500 if they graduated from high school. Each student had to pick a buddy and each supported the other. This effort, called the  Buddy Program,  reduced the drop out rate for these two classes from 35% to 6%. More importantly, the program catalyzed the community to provide additional resources to sustain this improvement in the drop out rate. In 1995, the  Foundation  implemented  Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library  in Sevier County, Tennessee. This monthly book gifting program for children under five focused on inspiring a love of books and rea...