Seattle Schools Community Forum

Update:   a couple of corrections. Sue Peters is, of course, the Chair of the Audit&Finance Committee (which I attributed to Director Harris.)  Director Peters had asked Harris to chair the meeting since Peters was unable to be physically present. As well, I attributed a statement to Peters that was Geary's about how Director Blanford felt the $11M should be spent. end of update As I previously reported, the Board was having an Audit&Finance Committee Meeting of the Whole and then had an Executive Committee Meeting of the Whole and then a Work Session on the 2016-2017 Budget to figure out to do with this $11M underspend that was found.

 In the "grrrr" edition of Open Thread: In Jurupa Valley (a small city near Irvine, California), s chool officials apologized to parents of high school Sped students because, as part of a "functional skills program," the schools had them dig through trash for items that could be recycled for money.  The Superintendent carefully phrased his apology: “I personally apologize to any students who may have been humiliated,” but also said: Duchon said Tuesday that “this is standard curriculum” for the program’s students, who routinely collected recyclables such as cans and bottles. “Up to last week, there has not been one complaint,” he said. Gee, I wonder why students didn't feel they could stand up to their teachers over this nonsense. (It was discovered after complaints appeared on Facebook.) Their Sped ex director said it was a common project to teach life skills. Next, remember that HUGE planned iPad buy for Los Angeles Unified School District...

Interesting six-part series on math in the NY Times, Me, Myself and Math . Oh those kids! Looks like LA high school students found it quite easy to hack into their new school-issued iPads. One week after students started receiving their iPads, students attending at least three Los Angeles high schools had figured out how to disarm a built-in security lock that was supposed to limit what they could do with the devices. This freed them to use the iPads to surf the Internet, send tweets, socialize on Facebook, stream music through Pandora, and who knows what else besides homework and school assignments.  Student access to social networks and tweets will of course invalidate any of the online exams. All the students had to do to trick the system was to delete their personal profile information and then they were free to use the iPads any way they wanted to.  Last Growth Boundaries meeting at Ballard tonight.  Anyone going?   Update: Stephan Blanf...

 Thanks to Mirmac 1 for this update. The Daily Kos had a story about one woman's story about Apple's program to have customers donate old iPads to TFA teachers.  Her story of getting passed around at Apple corporate reminds me of my efforts to figure this out.  From the story: After being passed around on the phone from one corporate office to another, I finally asked Jerry in marketing if Apple knew that Teach for America recruits weren't really teachers -- that their claim of "Teach for America takes well-trained teachers—referred to as "corps  members"— was completely false, and that the campaign was deceptive.  I said it would be great if Apple  were offering donated iPads to real teachers, but the company is misleading donors when it tells them their donation will go to a Teach for America "teacher." The marketing guy then said this.  "We paint with a broad brush when we use the term teacher ."  He said he considered hi...

Federal Way Schools , the other new TFA district, renegotiated their contract so that they could reduce the number of hires they were required to make.  They are trying to find a donor to cover the $3k per year per teacher TFA fee (as opposed to the Seattle fee of $4k per year per teacher) but haven't yet so they cannot afford to hire the 10 they originally planned for.  They will be hiring 4 but currently have hired only 3.  It appears they are all math or science majors.  The TFA/Apple connection?  Steve Jobs wife is on the TFA board. TFA has a new website and boy, is it interesting. New mission statement: Teach for America is growing the movement of leaders who work to ensure that kids growing up in poverty get an excellent education. You'll note it says nothing about teachers.  You'll note that it says nothing about shortages or filling gaps.   There have this at their Mission page:  We can provide an excellent education for kids i...

As I previously reported, I called Apple and TFA about this iPad partnership.  Apple was very nice but said they knew nothing about it and to ask TFA.   TFA didn't return either of my phone calls or my e-mail.  I can't find any other info via Google, either. They want people to donate but they don't want people, even those donating the iPad, to know where it will go.  What is a big question is if TFA is giving the iPad to a school where a TFA recruit is assigned or to the TFA recruit? Because thenwhat happens when the TFA recruit leaves the school?  Does he/she leave the iPad behind?  Take it? I'd be troubled to know that I donated an iPad to a TFA recruit and not a needy classroom.  Which leads to the question of why Apple wouldn't eliminate the middleman (TFA) and just donate to needy schools in the cities where Apple stores are created.  A quick phone call to a district "Could you use some donated iPads in your classroom?"  and ...

For some reason, Apple is having a campaign where you can "donate" your old iPad to Apple and Apple in turn will give it to TFA who will give it (hopefully) to a TFA recruit in a high-needs school who knows how to use it for a class lesson.  (That was a mouthful.)  Now Apple's media line is they really have no info on this program so ask TFA.  Naturally, mum's the word over at TFA.  So if this is such a great idea, why isn't anyone talking about it? My read is that there's a TFA alum/tribble up the foodchain over at Apple who believes this is a great idea.  (It's got lots o'problems starting with how can you be sure it goes to a high-needs classroom?  What if that TFA recruit leaves?  Where does the iPad go then?  And, why wouldn't Apple eliminate the middle-man (TFA) and just tell people to donate their iPad to their nearest school district?) But hey, let's ask the man himself - Steve Jobs.   The rumor is that he does indeed answe...

Teach for America and Walmart - it kind of says it all, no?

If you wish to speak on the Board agenda on Wednesday, the 6th, be sure to call 252-0040 and leave your name, phone number, e-mail address and topic you wish to speak on. The agenda has several interesting items of note.  one is a renewal of an agreement with Microsoft for software.   There is one puzzling item which I'm sure someone here can explain to me.  "Allows District staff access to the most current version of MS Office for home use."   Does that mean so they can take it home?  Work from home?   a huge item - approval of the budgets.   General Fund for $577,741,503; ASB for $4.4M; Debt Service fund for $85M and Capital Projects fund for $101M.  Adding all those up you get roughly $770M.  That's a lot of dough. Final vote on the attendance policy. The change I see is this: This motion has been discussed at the 5/23/2011 and 6/27/2011 meetings of the Curriculum & Instruction Policy Committee. On 5/236/27/2011, after ...