Seattle Schools Community Forum

The Board will be having the Operations Committee meeting on Thursday, the 17th, from 4-7:15 pm.  Why such a lengthy committee meeting?  For one, it's a packed agenda but there are a couple of high profile issues that could take some time. They are: - Approval of the Student Assignment Plan for 2017-18 (F. Herndon) - Transportation service standards and contract (P. McEvoy) As well, there will be a COW (Committee of the Whole) session for Special Education Placement Update.  That they want the entire Board at this meeting must mean something.  (Frankly, it would be great if the entire Board was there to hear about the other two big issues as well.) I have not read thru the SAP info but reader Lynn has:

Update : KIRO is reporting that the district says about 5,000 students walked out.  As well, apparently other districts - Highline, Lake Washington are two - had student walkouts as well. End of update I received a press release this morning about the high school student walk-out.

From OSPI:

Wonderful celebration of cultures at Chief Sealth International High School - these photos make this event look like it was a fantastic one.  All photos by Leda Costa for the West Seattle Blog .

From SPS Communications: The Alliance for Education and Seattle Public Schools today announced a multi-year agreement to sustain the International Baccalaureate (IB) program at Rainier Beach High School, which has been at risk of being discontinued at the end of the current academic year due to lack of funds. The Alliance for Education has pledged $50,000 per year in philanthropic funds for each of the next three school years – 2016-2017, 2017-2018, and 2018-2019 – for a total of $150,000. This pledge has been made possible through the early support of the Thomas B. Foster Endowment and the John Stanford Fund. Seattle Public Schools will fund the remaining costs of the program and will be examining mechanisms to sustain the program beyond the 2018-2019 school year.

I missed it but there it was reported by the Times yesterday that there was an 18-year old girl at Chief Sealth High School who reportedly had a gun on campus.  Police arrested her off-campus at a nearby shopping center. The police did not find a gun but the Times says "they arrested her for investigation of a firearms violation."  (I asked SPD and they said the arrest was made because of credible information about the gun issue and her "status" at CSIHS.) SPS had briefly put both Denny and Sealth on a shelter-in-place.  Apparently a group of students - not related to the incident - ran from police when confronted.

From the West Seattle blog; Two eighth-grader girls from Denny International Middle School say older boys/men “grabbed and pushed” them on Monday. That’s according to this letter just sent to Denny and Chief Sealth International High School families by Denny principal Jeff Clark (who shared it with WSB) and Sealth principal Aida Fraser-Hammer :

From the West Seattle Blog: Our area’s most-renowned music educator has announced he’s leaving for a new career direction, in another school district. Multiple award winner Marcus Pimpleton has told the Denny International Middle School and Chief Sealth International High School communities about his departure; he’s staying with the summertime Seattle Public Schools -wide All-City Band program, but otherwise, he is moving into a school-administration role in the Bellevue district.

I see that Ballard High School is celebrating two big sports wins. The girls Fastpitch team took the Metro championship beating West Seattle. The boys soccer team took the Metro championship, beating Roosevelt. As well, the Chief Sealth girls track team members of the 4x100 won first in the Metro-All City Track meet yesterday. Update: Nathan Hale's girls varsity Ultimate team took the Metro championship beating Franklin. Good job to all who the students who worked so hard and competed.

From SPS: The Office of Advanced Learning is collaborating with school and community members to develop a Highly Capable Cohort pathway for students in West Seattle. That is, when the pathway is established, students identified as Highly Capable could eventually be served from kindergarten through 12th grade in HC classrooms at schools located in West Seattle. We are forming a Focus Group to provide an opportunity for school leaders and community members to collaborate on implementing new HC services at Madison Middle School and West Seattle High School. If you are interested in joining the Focus Group, application forms will be made available by mid-April on the Advanced Learning website www.seattleschools.org/advlearning . The pathway will take time to develop and will not be fully in place by next school year, but we want to help families understand their options for this fall:

I titled this thread "Early Warning" because I believe we are starting to see the signs of some major upheaval. First, I'd like to just take a pulse about opting out.   If you feel comfortable, could you comment if you are opting your child(ren) out of the SBAC and at what school (or, if not the school, the region - NE, NW, Central, WS, SW or SE)?  You don't have to give grade level, gender or names, of course.   As well, let us know if this is a source of open discussion or quiet discussion and if you are getting pushback from staff. Next, I believe the Charter Commission will be releasing a statement soon - probably in the next couple of days - that they will either be suspending First Place Scholars ' charter or closing it down entirely.  This will be sad but my impression is that the new Board/Director at First Place have not been able to meet the requirements set out by the Charter Commission when FP was placed on probation.  Lastly, below is ...

 Update: I realize my original headline that did contain ("no thanks to the district") and  was not fair.  The district DID create the IB programs at Ingraham, Chief Sealth and now Rainier Beach.  It just that they don't support them in the way those programs should be supported if they expect them to thrive.  Again, the district creates programs they do not support (like IB and dual-language.) end of update The Times owns up to something good happening in Seattle Public Schools (without charters or a state turnaround order).  Tangled in bureaucracy and tradition, public schools need years — often the better part of a decade — for real turnaround, so skeptics may wave off the spike in graduation rates at Rainier Beach High as a mere blip. Or ignore its ballooning enrollment. Or shrug at the dozens of students on track to leave with college credit for advanced studies. No marker is more stunning than Beach’s 25-point increase in graduation r...

From the West Seattle Blog: Police are investigating three incidents reported in this letter going home to families of students at Chief Sealth International High School and Denny International Middle School . From SPD: We have had 3 incidents involving middle school to high school age victims today ; from the descriptions t hese are not related to the earlier robberies, the last of which occurred a week ago today. We are going to continue the early-morning emphasis patrol where we are bringing additional officers that are assigned to this problem, and CPT officers will be the lead on working on the stairwell at 26th and Trenton SW, where one of today’s incidents occurred. I will update you as things progress, this is a different series with a different suspect or suspect(s). In this series young female students are the victims , so whenever possible please have them walk together with friends so that they are less vulnerable, and if they have a cell phone have the...

Updated from Sunday morning, 1/11, with two Tuesday, Jan. 13th events. Monday, Jan. 12th Financial Aid Event: College Goal Washington Financial Aid Event for Seniors at Franklin High School from 5-7 pm. Curriculum & Instruction Committee Meeting from 4:30-6:30 pm. Agenda A seemingly brief agenda for a two-hour meeting.  The total items seems to clock in at about an hour but two items, Special Education RC-CAP (Jessee/Clancy/Hanson) MTSS (Heath/Dysart) would seem to need a lot longer than 10 minutes each. 

The Shoreline School district is currently in lockdown.  A staff member at Meridian Park Elementary reported seeing a man with a gun. Students on buses currently enroute to school have been rerouted to Spartan Rec Center where parents with ID may pick them up.  The district is asking parents to NOT send their kids to school today.  Also today, Hoquiam School District, Taholah School District on the Quinalt Reservation, Aberdeen School District and South Bend School district - all of these are closed today because of the landslides and flooding in their area. Please send out some good karma/prayers for all these districts and their students and staffs.

Good News 3-D Lego making at Cleveland High's STEM program. Chief Sealth wins gold in the Youth Division for their video, Riffing on a Dream at the Social Justice Film Festival. In the film, inspired by a project called  Question Bridge , 13 students sat down in front of a camera and gave their unscripted answers to questions from classmates to prompt racial dialogue within their school. The SPS story does not name the young filmmakers but you know their names, please let me know.  Monday, Nov. 24th No school for elementary and K-8 for parent/teacher conferences. Work Session two-parter from 4:30pm-8:30 pm Part One - Evaluation of the Superintendent (open session) - 1 hour Part Two - Evaluation of a public employee (closed session) - 3 hours  I would urge you to write to the the Board at schoolboard@seattleschools.org with the subject line "Superintendent review" and let the Board know what you think.  I think Nyland is an experienced administrator ...

The reporting on the School Board meeting will be in two parts as there was major discussion around the Gates grant for a preschool at Bailey-Gatzert and discussion around funding a downtown school building. Part One. It was an evening of back-and-forth about the Gates Foundation grant for a preschool at SPS, curious claims on room at that school (for preschool AND for downtown kids) and not one, but two, mariachi performances.  Director Blanford was not present for the majority of the meeting (but came in later).

The majority of high schools, comprehensive and alternative, will start at 7:50 am (ten minutes earlier than last year) and end at 2:20 pm.  This includes Cleveland STEM, World School and South Lake. The outliers are Center School (8:30 am-3:10 pm), Chief Sealth (8:40 am- 3:10 pm), Hale (8:40 am-3:10 pm) and Nova (8:30 am - 3:00 pm).  So Center School I get because of its location.  Sealth because it's a joint campus with Denny and the district promised to not have the middle school and high school kids come to school at the same time.  Nova?  Well, it is a project-based alternative school so I get that. But Hale? It lives a charmed life and has been able to keep their late start for years (and to this day).   (I personally have never seen any advocacy from Hale's administration for this kind of benefit for other high schools. ) Also, how is that it's okay for Nova, Hale and Sealth all to deliver 10 minutes less a day to students than other high sch...

From the West Seattle Blog : "12:51 PM: We just checked out a report that Chief Sealth International High School students were asked to “shelter in place” – and here’s what Seattle Police spokesperson Det. Mark Jamieson tells us: There was a report of “somebody with a weapon at Roxhill Park area – someone on the walking path that ends at the bus stop on SW Barton, and 10 males in a group, allegedly somebody had a shotgun. The group was looking at the gun, not brandishing it or anything, somebody called it in,” and police responded. They reportedly have found who they were looking for. No shots were reported fired, no one hurt; police say Roxhill Elementary also was in “shelter in place” mode. It appears this incident is wrapping up but that’s all the information we have for now – we’ll be checking back later about possible arrest(s). 1:14 PM: Our crew circled back around to Sealth a few minutes ago and confirmed the “shelter in place” has been lifted. Sam...

Wow.  Listen to this less-than-3 minute video of noted teacher evaluation expert, Charlotte Danielson , talk about teacher evaluation.  My favorite line?  "You can't fire your way to Finland."   Should be required viewing for every school district administrator.   Next favorite line? "What can count as evidence and how can that be attributed to an individual teacher?"   She also says, at the end, "No one on the planet has figured out how to do that."   Boom! Shout out to the Chief Sealth Marching Band who appeared in yesterday's Macy's Holiday Parade.  Good job, kids! In bad news , apparently, in some parts of the country you can get arrested for picking your kids up at school...on foot. (And yes, I am going to address the Times' editorial column on parents and schools but that'll be a separate thread.) To note, there are no Director Community meetings tomorrow.   What's on your mind?