Seattle Schools Community Forum

I'm behind on my threads about work sessions and meetings so in playing catch up, I'm going to combine two alike topics.  (The Families and Education Work Session, however, was a combo with two other disparate topics but I will circle back as there is definitely a feeling of a consolidation of power that may signal a speeding up of, well, someone's agenda for public education in Seattle.)

Many interesting meetings this week.

Despite Cashel Toner's "this is how it's done," actually NO, this is not how grant agreements over $250K are done in SPS.  Why anyone on the Board took her word for it is beyond me. From the Superintendent's Friday Memo: At the board meeting on Wednesday you approved the $750,000 Gates grant for a Gatzert pre-school. Thank you, that will allow us to move forward on providing much needed and appreciated services for high need students at Gatzert.    Following the board meeting, you noted that the support materials for that agenda item included a copy of the contract between the Gates Foundation and the District. It was noted that I, as superintendent, had signed the grant in September which is much earlier than approved by the board.    In following up, I have confirmed that we did in fact receive the money from the Gates Foundation in October however, those funds were held and would not have been spent until Board approval was obtained. ...

 I applaud the SCPTSA for this stand and support it. Please, write to the Board and ask them to, politely, say no to this Gates Foundation grant, school board@seattleschools.org As the SCPTA says: the district should negotiate any partnership with the City on preschool BEFORE signing off on any other agreement about preschools any new City preschools must be borne by the LEVY dollars, not district dollars.  This grant would put the district on the hook after year three what are the demands on district resources - facilities, staff time, etc - on an already stretched district I would add: this grant application is vague Bailey-Gatzert, under BTA III, IS scheduled to get a preschool classroom.  This grant is not needed for that to happen. the application says SPS will "lead the work and design the program."  This is NOT what was said during the preschool campaign and again, the district needs a partnership FIRST, then any grants.  SCPTSA Letter to ...

Monday, November 17th  College Application Event , 2:20 PM - 5:30 PM at Franklin High School. State of the District Speech at Group Health headquarters from 4:30-6 pm (with a wine reception to follow the presentation).  RSVP only.  Put on by the Alliance for Education (although, oddly, no mention of it at their own website).  Tuesday, November 18th State of the District speech at  JSCEE at 4 pm.  It is a 20-minute presentation that will be broadcast live streaming and on Channel 26.  I don't think there will be a wine reception. I think of the two dueling speeches (and their location/format) as the Snobs versus the Slobs. (No disrespect to anyone but when a state of the district speech - the first one, the main one - is not at district headquarters, you have to wonder.) Work Session DistrictScorecard/Operations Data Dashboard from 4:30 pm to 6:00 pm.  Presentation  There are quite a few interesting stats in here but I may write...