Seattle Schools Community Forum

As I previously mentioned, there is a School Board debate this Thursday, the 26th, put on by City Club and the so-called Our Schools Coalition.  Somehow I received two different e-mails with different information so here's the correct info: It's at the Vera Project at Seattle Center.  Doors open at 5:00 p.m. and there's an awards program and then the debate follows at 6 p.m.  It is free.  The debate is to be moderated and lead by high school students and one college student.  This is great.  When I asked the Communications person at  City Club whether the students had formulated their own questions and was told, absolutely.   But when I told her I had an e-mail saying they have been coached/schooled by a staff member of the Alliance for Education, she backpedaled.  When I asked about the coaching, I was told it was just to explain to the students about "governance" and how the School Board works.  I said that an e-mail fr...

The Seattle Times has a couple of interesting stories this morning. The first one is - big surprise - about state budget cuts. No new news here but they do have a poll going about what to cut. Currently, K-4 class size reduction money (14.8% of the vote), Initiative 728 (19.88%) and Initiative 732 (15.2%) are leading the cuts poll. The other story is great news for Bailey-Gatzert Elementary . Seattle University, which has provided tutoring for the last 20 years, is creating a project for $1M a year to help provide: more tutoring and after-school help, free legal aid to recent immigrants provided by the university's law school and free health assistance from the nursing school. The project aims to touch all aspects of the neighborhood's social, health and educational development, and will include assistance to Washington Middle School and Garfield High School. They are trying to model the services after the Harlem's Children's Zone in NYC. By working with the...