Seattle Schools Community Forum

I view the City Council races in two ways. One, public education in Seattle.  I want people on the Council who know where the line is between the district running itself and the City's role in supporting that effort. Two, livability in Seattle (which I think is becoming an issue as our growth shoots up like a firecracker.) I want progressives on the City Council so my choices are:

The Board has now smushed today's Executive Committee of the Whole together with the Work Session.  Agenda here . Kids Not Cuts is planning to listen in, hoping the Board may talk about the current staffing issues.  The meeting starts at 4:30 pm so be there by 4:15 pm if you want to sit with the group.  To the meeting topics: - P reschool - there is some delusion out there that City's pre-K program is both going to expand in SPS as well as trump before-after school program space.  Given the two classrooms that are City-enrolled and way under capacity, I find it hard to understand how the district could choose to take on more. - Alliance for Education.   This should be interesting, given how bad the relationship has been for the past year.

Some irony in the story in the Times recently about teaching math in colleges/universities .  The story is about how a Central Washington professor, Dominic Klyve, has been given a grant (shared with six other higher ed institutions) to study using "primary sources" to help students grasp math concepts. What primary sources?  People like Euclid and Archimedes.  The idea is that students understand not just how to solve an equation but how the method to solve the problem was developed. I do like this "back to basics" idea (at least in trying to help students see math as a journey and not just a single endpoint of solving problems) but it's a bit of a clash with what K-12 students are learning via Common Core math.  My understanding of how Common Core math is taught does not match up with what this professor (and others) are trying to find out for how college students should be taught math.

 I'm first going to say that this is all complete nonsense that NO board in its right mind would agree to.   Second, I had a pretty long public ed day (Watching entire Dorn press conference on SBAC, interview with Dorn, attending Governor press conference in Sea-Tac and going to Highland Park Elementary.)  It ended with me attending a Town Hall at Highland Park Elementary over their status as an "intervention" school.  (HUGE shout-out to the parents and teachers - in a full library - who showed up on a hot August night. More on this to come.) However, to the point of this thread, there were a couple of City Council members there; Tom Rasmussen (who no one but me seemed to recognize) and Tim Burgess (the so-called Godfather of Preschool). Want to know what Burgess said?   Well, first, it was "sorry to run" but he stayed long enough to tout the F&E levy and all the great things that Highland Park is getting (and that's true but he left out one thing...

I'll lead with this - I urge you to write to the Seattle School Board and tell them to say NO to the agreement witht he City's preschool plan at Wednesday night's Board meeting.  SPSDirectors@seattleschools.org I'll say right now that if this is approved, the district will rue the day they signed onto it.  It is NOT in the best interests of the district and gives the City much more power and control than is necessary.

This is the last week of real downtime for the District.  Next week sees the Board and staff with several meetings.  However, some calendar items are at Marty McLaren's campaign website and not at SPS.  Given some of them are next week, I'm trying to get clarification.  I'm also hoping that agendas will be available soon.

The Times had big news this morning that preschoolers can learn math but nobody in preschool teaching ever knew this before. Naturally, I'm being facetious as most parents do know this (even if they don't know the best way to teach their own children).  As well, I would think most bonafide preschools do know this (and I certainly know Montessori and Waldorf do). This article seems a bit of a cheerleading piece for the City's preschool but then, the City extended the deadline for parents to enroll so maybe they need the help.

Below is a letter I dropped off today - in person - to each City Council member.  It details what I believe is a pattern for the Mayor - via his Department of Education and Early Learning (Families and Education levy and the City Preschool Program and, more recently, the HALA report on housing, in trying to insinuate the City more and more into the workings of Seattle Public Schools. Dear City Council Members,