Seattle Schools Community Forum

I am going to attempt to slog through all my notes but I expect Charlie, Kellie and Meg to chime in here as we were all sitting at the back taking notes.  (And, I had to take a phone call during part of the APP middle school discussion.)  Staff has done an incredible job in creating the various plans.  No one can truly know how long it must have taken and the tedious but important job of determining walk zones, ripple effects (if this, then that) and all the other issues they had to take into account. So why so messy and why so much confusion? My view (not shared by Kellie) is that the main flaw WAS the public engagement.  Kellie believes the problem was never truly expressed so the answers were always to be confusing and flawed.  I believe that I think I know what staff problem staff was trying to solve but that they never engaged their stakeholders correctly in the first place and so, never had real buy-in AND created mistrust. The old set-up for these...

I started this in Charlie's thread's comment section but it got too long. So, to add to the discussion, here are my notes (I left as Charlie arrived). From my notes: -the Board office has two new hires so both Joan Dingfield and Pam Oakes are gone. I'll miss them; they are nice people. One new thing; the addition of the first 5+ people on the waitlist to the agenda so you can get an idea of where you might be on the waitlist -Lots of energy from TOPS parents who very calmly and clearly explained their issue about transportation. Over 50% of their students will lose their transportation, mostly from the southend. They are asking for a community stop model for buses so their students can continue on. Their hope is for the district to fulfill this request for 3 years. (This time request has something to do with a promise the district made, I believe.) - it was pointed out that a member of the BEX Oversight Committee is doing business with the district and this has not...