tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post739774203138095743..comments2024-03-27T20:01:11.889-07:00Comments on Seattle Schools Community Forum: Highland Park Elementary DiscussionMelissa Westbrookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17179994245880629080noreply@blogger.comBlogger31125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-68096378631596741822014-12-17T15:11:26.108-08:002014-12-17T15:11:26.108-08:00I thought NCLB allowed for parents to receive NCLB...I thought NCLB allowed for parents to receive NCLB funds directly that can be used for out side services for struggling students? <br /><br />Parents have the option of transferring their child to a non-failing school. Failing schools will be required to offer tutoring to eligible students. <br /><br />So are failing SPS school offering the tutoring?<br /><br />--MichaelAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-25262781673796198232014-08-21T11:30:07.125-07:002014-08-21T11:30:07.125-07:00Hey Fed up Parent
You have described Denny perfec...Hey Fed up Parent<br /><br />You have described Denny perfectly, I have been trying to get them to listen for the last few years and NOTHING. It is absolutely disgusting the way that school is run. Clark is a JOKE and none of the students respect him in any way. Vela just tells you what you want to hear just as all the administrators do, smile and nod! Well it wont be so funny when someone is seriously hurt and that is what it will come to!Ranting Parenthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02507483781648760825noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-91056961916759227932014-08-19T13:51:08.733-07:002014-08-19T13:51:08.733-07:00@Melanie,
As far as I know, the plan is to have s...@Melanie,<br /><br />As far as I know, the plan is to have some sort of shared-use arrangement of the Cedar Park playground, adjacent to the school building. I think there may be plans to have an additional small play space adjacent to the kindergarten classrooms.<br /><br />From what I've heard, the public is supposed to have access to the park during non-recess times. I don't know how they plan to orchestrate that.<br /><br />The parks department (or parks district, whatever it is now called) currently leases the park space from SPS. The park was built by a huge neighborhood effort several years ago, and has a multi-age play structure, a basketball area, and a grassy field with walking path. The playground equipment is being upgraded/replaced, and ADA improvements are in the works as part of the parks levy improvements.<br /><br />- North-end MomAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-25192270837901201612014-08-19T13:49:42.676-07:002014-08-19T13:49:42.676-07:00HP Mom,
I will be working on your behalf, given t...HP Mom,<br /><br />I will be working on your behalf, given the opportunity. My child's EEU instructor long ago is now an HPE parent. She told me about the dearth of leadership last May. Vela was very weak in his response to my queries (probably wouldn't have said a word except I cc:d his boss). I find it disturbing that the Shadow district officials in City Hall were there to lend their BS presence.<br /><br />In any case, please keep us informed as to developments. I will gladly help.mirmac1https://www.blogger.com/profile/10183460709639638172noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-48038356586660551202014-08-19T13:42:05.244-07:002014-08-19T13:42:05.244-07:00Techniques cover things like walk-to's and pul...Techniques cover things like walk-to's and pull-outs. you've never heard about district schools that use those methods? <br /><br />Roberta, he's a teacher. I'm pretty sure he has.<br /><br />In fact, pull-outs used to be big in the early '90s but guess what? Parents and teachers both complained. The parents because they thought the kids leaving the classroom were getting something better AND it was too obvious to the kids who remained behind. The teachers complained about chopping up lessons.<br /><br />There is no perfect way to handle differentiation.<br /><br />North-end Mom, good analysis. I don't support how Cedar Park is being set up or rolled out. <br /><br />Good for you, HP Mom.Melissa Westbrookhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17179994245880629080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-25370986493095883482014-08-19T13:34:27.583-07:002014-08-19T13:34:27.583-07:00Thank you, Melissa, for highlighting this meeting ...Thank you, Melissa, for highlighting this meeting and for including: "...the good news is that the community wants to support it and help move it in a positive direction." I am focusing my comments on that emphasis from your post. <br /><br />As a Highland Park neighborhood resident I want to throw a huge "thank you" out to those who organized the meeting (HPAC and HPES PTA) and those who attended. There are obviously many, many challenges to be dealt with at HPES. This meeting was one small step toward finding some solutions. I feel the meeting was important in two major ways:<br /><br />1) Letting the district (and city) know that there are people who care about this school and they are now raising their voices. I think this group is going to grow in numbers and in strength. Just because of this one meeting, the awareness in the wider district community of HPES's challenges has increased hugely.<br /><br />2) This was a neighborhood coming together to support its school. Most of the people in attendance didn't even have kids at the school--or even kids at all! These people want to be a part of strengthening their neighborhood--and recognize that the school is an integral part of that neighborhood. Melissa, you wrote, "I know that activists in the Central Area are putting together just such a forum about how neighborhoods can give more support to schools AND involve schools in their neighborhood planning." These kinds of grassroots community/school partnerships are exciting--I feel that they are a key to positive outcomes for our schools--and, most importantly, our kids!<br /><br />HP MomAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-58316527200977816672014-08-19T13:27:21.622-07:002014-08-19T13:27:21.622-07:00Hey North End Mom:
Where's the playground at ...Hey North End Mom:<br /><br />Where's the playground at Cedar Park?Melanienoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-21598509086341481332014-08-19T12:44:53.037-07:002014-08-19T12:44:53.037-07:00Vela is simply a flak catcher and has no idea abou...Vela is simply a flak catcher and has no idea about security personnel. He (as well as the other Ed Directors) is a creature of the thin air in the Executive Wing to whom much is given and little is expected. <br /><br />Paid to say whatever changes the subject.<br /><br />Its the state of "Waldo's" legacy.Ednoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-10378881128921670212014-08-19T12:43:28.937-07:002014-08-19T12:43:28.937-07:00SPS is setting themselves up for the North-end ver...SPS is setting themselves up for the North-end version of Highland Park with the 2017 opening of Cedar Park as a neighborhood school. Pretty much every low-income and immigrant housing area in Lake City (both East and West of Lake City Way) will be drawn into the Cedar Park attendance area. This includes the Little Brook neighborhood (currently in the Olympic Hills attendance area) and Lake City Court (80-something units of low-income family housing - currently served by John Rogers).<br /><br />Olympic Hills is getting a brand-new building, complete with a health clinic, but the poorest families will be drawn out of Olympic Hills and assigned to Cedar Park.<br /><br />The Growth Boundaries Plan called for a target enrollment of 400 at Cedar Park. This is with the addition of 8 "modular" classrooms to augment what is a very, very small landmarked building (only 12 classroom-sized spaces, but with no space set-aside for a library).<br /><br />Even with the 8 portables, to get 400 kids at Cedar Park they essentially have to chose between having space for computers, a library, or a SpEd room. Preschool? Not room for that or much-needed before and after school care, either.<br /><br />There are some more-affluent areas within the Cedar Park attendance area, and I would love to think that Cedar Park residents will support their neighborhood school, but I think many will continue to chose nearby Shoreline Schools, or option schools like Hazel Wolf K-8, rather than have their children attend a very high FRL school, which will, in turn make Cedar Park an even higher-needs school.<br /><br />- North-end Mom<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-20083061532069837642014-08-19T12:35:38.178-07:002014-08-19T12:35:38.178-07:00by your math, pulling out the six advanced would b...by your math, pulling out the six advanced would bring in, statistically, three more of the average and three more of the more time-consuming to teach. so that helps you the teacher? The kids?<br />Techniques cover things like walk-to's and pull-outs. you've never heard about district schools that use those methods? Training can also help teachers as well as administration to understand the gifted student. It's really about knowing what kids need and finding a way to do it. if self-contained is effective and doesn't harm other students... but that's an important and hard to quantify question. By your math of an (average?) classroom, things could be a lot worse for the remaining students after the removal of the gifted ones.<br />robertaAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-66082420609731496612014-08-19T10:57:51.366-07:002014-08-19T10:57:51.366-07:00Getting off topic here, but Roberta says:
"t...Getting off topic here, but Roberta says:<br /><br /><i>"the academic achievement of self-contained classrooms can be replicated in mixed classrooms with proper techniques and skills."</i><br /><br />I assume you're talking about the ideas collected under the "differentiated instruction" aegis, right? I would love to hear from you the proper techniques and skills that would allow a classroom teacher to meet the needs of all 32 students, when about six are dealing with IEP and 504 designations, probably another six COULD have that designation, and six are sufficiently advanced that normal pacing bores the crud out of them, leaving a dozen or so "average" students.<br /><br />Lay it on me! I'm always looking for instruction in how to improve my teaching! Josh Hayeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17242600011474990770noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-22711404055628262962014-08-19T09:35:48.779-07:002014-08-19T09:35:48.779-07:00I can't speak to why it is difficult to get su...I can't speak to why it is difficult to get substitutes at all southwest/southeast schools but as a a Denny MS parent I can tell you what I have heard and experienced. Subs have said discipline is the biggest issue with one stating she would never return to the school and another saying she would never send her child to the school. My child regularly hears students telling teachers to "f*** off", kids are afraid to use the bathrooms, a report of an assault on a teacher was mysteriously changed to disruptive behavior on the report to the district (Mr. Vela explained to parents that "sometimes safety personnel are confused about the proper verbiage to use in reports" I find that hard to believe but I am a skeptic). Students are regularly shoved and tripped in hallways, bullying is rampant (with one student being told by teachers there was nothing they could do to help him), kids roam the halls unsupervised, pot smoking happens in the bathrooms and on campus. In a number of my child's classes it is normal to spend 30 minutes of every class period dealing with discipline issues.Parents have met with Jeff Clark and with Israel Vela an investigation was done with the conclusion that Jeff Clark is doing a great job. I also a parent of a Center School graduate and lived through the Jon Greenberg botched investigation. I don't think the district can be trusted to investigate anything properly. <br /><br />Fed up parentAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-85268288880890398822014-08-19T09:13:09.424-07:002014-08-19T09:13:09.424-07:00I'd like this thread to get back to discussing...I'd like this thread to get back to discussing what's the best way to help Highland Park students. The time and energy that went into the K-5 STEM experiment could have just as well made HPE a magnet school. Yet again political "reformy" decisions downtown leave others in the dust.mirmac1https://www.blogger.com/profile/10183460709639638172noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-87911610890714960872014-08-19T08:44:14.779-07:002014-08-19T08:44:14.779-07:00"I don't want a Spectrum program - or an ..."I don't want a Spectrum program - or an APP program - that causes the other classes to have less or be less than they should."<br /><br />And there's a big fallacy. APP/Spectrum kids are not getting more than other classrooms. You'd have to show me that proof because it was not my experience nor have I heard parents say it is a current experience.<br /><br />ALink, I will write a separate thread with that link.<br /><br />Melissa Westbrookhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17179994245880629080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-71071463052526671242014-08-19T08:01:42.147-07:002014-08-19T08:01:42.147-07:00Transparency Please
could you provide a link to ...Transparency Please <br /><br />could you provide a link to your information? I think it is critical, and, I know my audiences will want proof - thanks for <br /><br />ALinkAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-55041724902589921332014-08-19T07:22:19.660-07:002014-08-19T07:22:19.660-07:00Yes, that's how it should be. It's been a...Yes, that's how it should be. It's been argued that it's too hard to do that. One solution is to move your kid into a classroom with other similar kids. But where does that leave the other kids? Still in a situation where it's "too hard" to differentiate to serve them? Then your program serves your kid but fails the others.<br /><br />Gen Ed MomAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-78379628871697678162014-08-19T06:55:57.284-07:002014-08-19T06:55:57.284-07:00Oops, realized that I didn't sign my 8-18-14 1...Oops, realized that I didn't sign my 8-18-14 11:27 pm post.<br /><br />Momof2Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-60239222630939293372014-08-19T06:55:13.145-07:002014-08-19T06:55:13.145-07:00Gen Ed Mom,
I've read your story months ago a...Gen Ed Mom,<br /><br />I've read your story months ago and I agree - the situation with your daughter and her school was handled very badly. But just because one Spectrum program had a serious problem does not mean that all Spectrum should be eliminated. Fix the problem and make it work for all students.<br />I don't want a Spectrum program - or an APP program - that causes the other classes to have less or be less than they should. Most Spectrum and APP parents I know work for the improvement of their whole school (of course you can find exceptions, like with any other group).<br />But don't say that having Spectrum classes is having "better" classes. It should be just teaching the kids at the level they are ready for, just like all classes try to be.<br />Momof2Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-54287494452509100382014-08-19T06:35:14.182-07:002014-08-19T06:35:14.182-07:00And sometimes in schools with Spectrum, Gen Ed kid...And sometimes in schools with Spectrum, Gen Ed kids get left behind learning nothing except that school is terrible and boring. Happened to my kid.<br /><br />Gen Ed MomAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-34868645479334924432014-08-18T23:27:37.502-07:002014-08-18T23:27:37.502-07:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-11175682723954340182014-08-18T22:40:17.398-07:002014-08-18T22:40:17.398-07:00Since you brought it up,Ms. Westbrook,,Spectrum is...Since you brought it up,Ms. Westbrook,,Spectrum is a sailed ship and we need to get ALL schools up to serving high and low kids as well as everyone in between. Is it going to be optimal for every kid, for any kid? probably not,but the academic achievement of self-contained classrooms can be replicated in mixed classrooms with proper techniques and skills.<br />Let's see what Mr. Cronas does with his new school. Since he knows the psyche of the more affluent Seattle parents, he may be just the man for the job of getting more neighborhood kids to go to Highland.<br />RobertaAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-33544113223296925362014-08-18T20:37:42.753-07:002014-08-18T20:37:42.753-07:00What IS a Strategic Advisor? Is that like a Flappe...What IS a Strategic Advisor? Is that like a Flapper in Lilliput, who flaps the Director's mouth when it's strategic to talk?seattle citizenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16724175257161649500noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-47582423420575098092014-08-18T20:34:17.579-07:002014-08-18T20:34:17.579-07:00How come all those management positions pay twice ...How come all those management positions pay twice as much as the top pay of a teacher? Really? A "Strategic Advisor" works twice as hard as a teacher?seattle citizenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16724175257161649500noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-58757717009870216802014-08-18T20:19:57.656-07:002014-08-18T20:19:57.656-07:00I'm sorry for breaking the topic. I"d in...I'm sorry for breaking the topic. I"d intended to put the above post on a different page and I don't know how to delete.transparency Pleasenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-62800192793082468902014-08-18T19:13:58.640-07:002014-08-18T19:13:58.640-07:00The city's preschool plan calls for hiring the...The city's preschool plan calls for hiring the following administrators:<br /><br />PfaDirector $200K, Assistant Director $170K, Financial Administrator $170K, Financial Manager $156K, Senkor Financial Analyst $115K, Contract Manager Supervisor, Contract Specialist, Data and Evaluation Manager $169K, Database Administrator, Data Analyst $156K, Management systems analyst, community and outreach coordinator $156K, Quality assurance manager $156K, Strategic Advisor $144K, Operations Manager $156K, Human services coordinator, early ed. specilists, planning and delivery specialist,Permit specialists, Policy Planning Manager,, planning and development specialist,Administrtive staff, Administrative Specialist, Personnel supervisor $156K.<br /><br />Total administrative costs are approximately $3M per year. Very generous salaries. <br /><br />The City of Seattle is expecting to collect dollars from taxpayers, Head Start, State and other entities. SPS needs to maintain support to their core function of K-12.Transparency Pleasenoreply@blogger.com