Seattle Schools Community Forum

A reader with background in planning and with much knowledge/background on the district and facilities offers these thoughts on what may be coming for high schools and growth.   ( Gray areas are my thoughts as we go along and the rest is the reader's.) To understand: coming up fast is the possibility of very overcrowded high schools.  Not 5, 10 years out but probably three years.  But a three-year plan may be all that is possible at this point especially since the needs/growth is very different for each region of the district. And guess what?  Nearly out of inventory.  Where will everyone go?  Will the district go to shifts (and they have done this in the past)?  Portables?  The reader's basic thoughts: get this out to the Seattle legislators.  We need help. get high school on the table now.  High schools are high stakes for students and parents. fix the worst of the BEX mistakes.  There were many but all of the stuf...

SPS Communications explained this about the technology issues on the first day of school: We needed to make the switch from our old computer system to Power Schools as the old system was failing. It began failing more quickly than we anticipated, so what was supposed to be an 18-month transition was compressed into six months. Our Department of Technology staff has been working around the clock all summer to get this done. We did transition to Power Schools on Aug. 26, two weeks later than initially planned due to some technical issues with the transfer. What this meant was, when staff came back to their schools in August, they had very little time for training. We are still trying to pinpoint the reasons for the problems people are having, but some appears to be a result of people not being familiar with the system. There are also more technical issues involved as well – for example, our Dept. of Technology staff have run numerous tests showing that students names that...

I attended the Growth Boundaries meeting hosted by Director McLaren this morning and two themes stood out. One came from the District and the other from the community. The District's theme was mystery. There is simply no telling who would make the decisions about schools and buildings, no clue about how they would make these decisions, no sense of what data or criteria would be the basis for the decisions, or even when the decisions would be made. Nevertheless we got a very strong message about what the decision would be: K-5 STEM placed at Schmitz Park in 2016. This is the pre-ordained choice, despite the fact that this is probably the worst option of them all. The theme from the community was primarily frustration. That frustration was directed a bit at the mystery - the decisions are made by a secret committee using a secret process and secret criteria - but mostly at the trainwreck of a decision.

Monday, April 29th Special meeting of Audit& Finance .  One single thing on the agenda - potential RIF presentation by HR head, Paul Apostle. Also, if you wish to speak at the School Board meeting on Wednesday, you can start calling/writing at 8 am on Monday. Tuesday, April 30th Charter Commission Meeting in Bellevue from 10 am - 5 p.m. at the Bellevue Arts Museum.  Agenda .  Open to the public (and people do come and go). They will be having an Executive Session first thing until 10:40 am.  They will then have a presentation about "charter school research findings" from the CRPE's Robin Lake.  (I have heard Ms. Lake speak before and she's a charter cheerleader. I'll be interested to see what the reaction is from the members.) Public Comment is at noon.  They are electing officers and any bets that Steve Sundquist won't be chair?  Mayoral forum from 6:30-9:00 pm at Garfield High School.  

From SPS:  Dear South Seattle Middle College and K-5 STEM at Boren families: As you know, our South Seattle Middle College program lost its classroom space at South Seattle Community College for the 2012-13 school year and we were planning to co-locate the program on the K-5 STEM at Boren campus. I’m pleased to announce that we have secured classrooms for South Seattle Middle College at the High Point Center Building located at 6400 Sylvan Way SW in West Seattle. As a result, the Middle College and K-5 Stem programs will remain on separate campuses. The space at the High Point Center is well-suited for our small Middle College Program and is conveniently located with easy bus line access for our high school students. We appreciate the feedback from our families, and we worked very closely with the Middle College Principal,Cindy Nash, as we developed a solution we believe will benefit both our Middle College and K-STEM families. We look forward to seeing all of you at t...

Great story (with photos) from the West Seattle Blog on the progress of the new K-5 STEM school at Boren.  Looks good. Lots of window for natural light.  Because it had been used by older students, it has lockers (and cubbies from preschool days), computer lab  and science labs.  They also have a climbing wall in the gym.  Very nice.  And, somehow, they found money for a Smartboard for every classroom.  Hmmm.  On her horizon – the renovation of Fairmount Park Elementary, expected to reopen in West Seattle within the next few years, shuttered for five years, and getting a new roof right now, because, she says, the old one couldn’t wait any longer to be replaced. Number of students at our new STEM school? We asked SPS how many students are enrolled; no final count yet, the district says, but the building is being made ready to hold up to 250. From one commenter: The 250 limit has already been met per info we have received from th...

The district loves to do an end-of-school-year flurry of activities.  It's like parents are just about out the door and the district says "have a good summer and oh, we are changing XYZ". Bryant's long-time child-care provider (17 years)  is getting the boot (but can reapply but good luck).  Parents are rightly suspicious as the answers they are receiving on why this is happening don't quite mesh.  The district says it is compliance issues but it seems that may not be the issue (the provider's license is fine).  Their PTA had no notification this was coming and the Bryant administration does not favor the decision.  Over in West Seattle, it suddenly got announced that the Middle College program that has been at South Seattle Community College for nearly 20 years is getting the boot because SSCC needs the space.  Interestingly, the district has never paid a cent of rent to SSCC and it might have been that with tight times, they asked for some mone...

Rainier Beach High School is having an Open House and several school tour dates: Thursday, January 19th - School Tour from 8-9:30 am and Open House from 6:30-8p.m. Thursday, , February 9th - Tour from 8-9:30 am Thursday, February 16th - Open House from 6:30-8:30 pm Thursday, March 1st - School Tour from 8-9:30 am Thursday, March 8th - School Tour from 8-9:30 am For more info, please contact the Main Office at 206-252-6350. Also from SPS Communications: In response to strong enrollment growth in West Seattle, Seattle Public Schools will be opening a new elementary program for fall 2012: K-5 STEM at Boren. The new STEM program will be housed in the Louisa Boren Building (5950 Delridge Way SW). It will be a K-5 option program and will open with all six grades in September 2012. Family Information & Input Night: There will be a K-5 STEM at Boren information meeting on Wednesday, February 15 from 7:00-8:30 PM at Schmitz Park Elementary (5000 SW Spokane Street). I...

From the West Seattle Blog :  Thank you to all the West Seattle (and other) people who have joined the dialogue about short term solutions for overcrowding in our elementary schools.

The District Staff has recommended to the Board a short-term capacity management plan for West Seattle that calls for a fleet of portables and a new option school located (at least at first) at Boren. The community is calling for a new neighborhood school located in West Seattle, not an option school. The staff says that they prefer an option school because they can see that they are going to have to change the attendance area boundaries, but they are going to do it next year, not this year, and they only want to do it once. All of these boundaries, they explain, are seriously interconnected. That sounds pretty reasonable, until you remember that West Seattle is on a peninsula and is completely dis-connected from the rest of the District. The District can change the West Seattle attendance area boundaries this year and change the boundaries for the rest of the district next year. There won't be any problem caused by the inter-connectedness of the boundaries because they are n...

I attended the press conference today about the 2012-2013 Transition Plan and short-term capacity management options.   (I also listened to the public input from the Board meeting about this issue.) It was actually a full house of reporters so look for something on the tv news.  There was nothing new but here are some of the highlights:

Issue #2: The urgent need for additional elementary capacity in West Seattle. Possible Solution A: Two new elementary schools eventually located at Fairmount Park and at the Denny site. The programs will meet at the Boren site until the buildings are ready. I, personally, think this is the best path. Possible Solution B: Two new elementary schools eventually located at Fairmount Park or Genesee Hill or E.C. Hughes or the Denny site. The programs will meet at the Boren site until the buildings are ready. I, personally, think this is the best path. Important variations: The two new schools in West Seattle may not necessarily be attendance area schools. They could be option schools and they could host a variety of programs including Spectrum, language immersion, Montessori, an alternative pedagogy, or a conventional pedagogy. I, personally, think it would be best if both of the new schools used option enrollment and had language immersion and Spectrum in one building and Montes...

FYI, the next FACMAC meeting is this Friday, Dec. 2nd from 10-noon at the Stanford Center, Room 3802.   I am sorry to say this but I think there is a lot of confusion still and frankly, this meeting only served to exacerbate it.  That's my impression.

I did post this previously about this week's meeting but wanted to put it up again due to the interest in the Lowell situation. Work Session on Capacity Management from 5-6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, the 29th Here is the agenda with links to the presentations.  It appears that one part will be about creating a system to manage capacity management and the other part is about projections for the future.  (They do have one interesting map showing Boren opening in 2012, Hughes in 2013 and Fairmount Park in 2014 but I don't know who they would putting in those buildings.) To note, this seems like a mammoth amount to cover so I don't expect them to cover it all.  It is unlikely they will discuss Lowell in specific but anything is possible.  Also, the meeting is open to the public but you cannot ask questions nor make comments.  There is a meeting previous to it so when you open the door, don't be surprised to see a meeting already in progress.