Seattle Schools Community Forum

Some sad news on two fronts. One item is this from Ravenna Next Door on Sunday: My daughter and her friends were playing at Bryant this morning when they texted me with concern about glass and jewelry, and "gun powder" on the playground. I walked over to see for myself and sure enough there were empty beer cans, stolen jewelry and a pile of white powder with a razor blade, etc. I called the police who came surprisingly quickly and confirmed the white substance was Meth. Ugh. They took it to the station for evidence but left the jewelry and glass suggesting that I call the parks to come and clean it up. A very surprising site to say the least. Still researching who to call for clean up. The second item is about a beloved staff member at Cascadia: Allen Greenberg, beloved recess monitor at Cascadia Elementary in Seattle, passed away unexpectedly.  Allen spent his life giving to others - always looking out for the less fortunate.  He often stopped by Solid ...

Update: another parent wrote AL and asked this question about taking the SBAC or MAP as a requirement: "And what if a parent has opted their students out of those tests?" AL: I believe that this year only, we will offer achievement testing to students who do not have district administered achievement scores but have CogAT scores in the qualifying range. It is my understanding that in the future, opting out of district achievement testing may constitute opting out of Advanced Learning.  

I have heard from parents that assessments have started for some elementary students.  But naturally, parents aren't being informed about this. Seattle Opt-Out. Here's a link to the K-8 assessments. Here's a link to the high school assessments. Some schools still use MAP (except in high school)and some will use Amplify.  One parent said she was told that Amplify was being used for "instructional differentiation."  From the Soup for Teachers page via Erin Kinsells Klones: MAP can potentially be administered three times a year: Sept. 21-Oct. 30, Jan 4-29 and May 9-June 10.  WaKIDS can also be administered, in buildings that have all-day state-funded K, Aug. 1-Oct. 29, Oct. 30-Feb. 14 and Feb. 15-July 31.  This information is available on the District website.  Now the tricky part, the part that concerns us greatly: parents may or may not be informed. Crazy, we know, but that is part of the work we're doing. School admin at your buildin...

Update:  Packed auditorium with SEA members with lobby nearly filled as well. Kudos to Washington Middle School volunteers - big applause. Following by big tension after Bernardo Ruiz finished his presentation on the annual Education and Racial Equity.  A man stood up and shouted at Bernardo to tell the truth about Middle College.  He wouldn't stop and President Carr said she would clear the room if need be.  He shouted, "*** you!" to the Board and left in a fury. As for the transfers of money, I note that the presentation on the movement of money from the Capital Budget to Operations budget changed and asked Ken Gotsch about him.  He knew nothing and seemed confused. I am VERY suspicious of what is going on with these dollars for the Interfund loan and the Operations and Capital budgets. end of update  Tonight's School Board meeting looks to have one of the longest agendas I have ever seen (and therefore, possibly one of the longest meetings ev...

Seen the new district website ?  I haven't used it yet but I think it looks much better.  (I do think their Facebook/Twitter/Instagram section is too big and too prominent.  Also,  the district calendar is way too hard to find. And again, why do they call Enrollment "Admissions?") Monday, June 1 Community Meeting with Director McLaren from 6-7 pm at the Southwest branch Library. Tuesday, June 2nd BTA IV Capital Levy Community Meeting from 6:30-8:30 pm at the JSCEE. This is likely the ONLY community meeting until the fall so try to make it if you want to give input.  I suspect that after the meeting we will know the preliminary ideas for this levy.  My stand will be if more than one-third is for technology, I'm not supporting it.  You will likely be asked - after their draft plan is presented - to weigh in via e-mail.  I'll get that info for you later this week. Wednesday, June 3 Board meeting starting at 4:15 pm at the JSCEE.  (T...

Good News It is very pleasing to see different high schools do well with programs at their schools.  Ballard excels with video production, Roosevelt and Garfield with jazz bands and now Ingraham is doing great with their Rocket Club. Last Saturday, Ingraham participated in the Team America Rocketry Challenge in Virginia, coming in third.  Over 700 teams competed.  There were three Ingraham teams with Foxtrot winning 3rd and $1,000 for the school.  Each team had to create and build an under-two pound rocket by themselves.  They were judged on how close they came to their predicted trajectory and landing their rocket in less than 60 seconds. Foxtrot was just one foot off the 800-foot target and landed about 48 seconds after liftoff.  Team Foxtrot's first score of 1.0 was the best single flight score in the history of the competition.   Speaking of Ballard filmmakers , SPS Communications is reporting that Ballard was the ONLY school to w...

Monday, May 11th Curriculum&Instruction Policy Committee meeting from 4:30-6:30 pm.  Agenda The agenda is a long list of items, some policy issues (like student fees, student rights and responsibilities handbook) and a couple of very serious items.  (To note, each BAR usually has a list of supporting documents at the end of the BAR.  In the past, each supporting document had a live link.  I now see - with help from the Board office - that instead of making each listed document a live link, those documents now follow the listing of the documents.  I do not know when this changed.) One is the movement of Special Education from the Revised Comprehensive Corrective Action Plan to a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Office of Superintendent Public Instruction (OSPI). OSPI has listed the School Board as an approver on the draft MOU.  Fiscal impact to this action will be $3,000,000 in federal Individuals wit...

Reader N provided this news about Amplify's tablet division via Diane Ravitch's blog. Bloomberg News reports that Rupert Murdoch’s effort to cash in on education is “riddled with failures.”  “The education effort has been riddled with technology failures, fragile equipment, a disconnect between tablet marketers and content developers, and an underestimation of how difficult it would be to win market share from entrenched rivals such as Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Co. in the kindergarten to high school education market. “Amplify’s experience shows how even the most deep-pocketed new players find it challenging to change the way children are taught. Billionaires such as Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates and real estate and insurance investor Eli Broad have expressed frustration their philanthropy hasn’t done more to improve student achievement. Murdoch is discovering his own challenges as he seeks to make a profit from overhauling education — as have other educat...

Do hedge funder managers and big investors like the Koch brothers and others invest just for the heck of it?  No, they want to make money and lots of it.  Public education is just that mother lode. From Education Week : It's already been a banner year for ed-tech startups , and we've only closed the first quarter. Ninety-nine startups in education have raised more than $500 million , a record in the past five years, according to TechCrunch , citing statistics from its  CrunchBase  database of technology companies, people, and investors. That compares to 20 companies raising more than $64 million during the same period five years ago.  However, it's not the greatest number of companies to be funded in a given quarter. Over the past five years, that happened in the second quarter of 2013, when 120 companies raised a total of $319 million. (There's an interactive map in the article.  In Seattle, there's a company called Actively Learn - ...