Seattle Schools Community Forum

From the Times . Apparently this WILL prevent a shutdown of the state government on July 1.   No details have yet been provided.  The Governor's office has apparently been instrumental in getting both sides to the table.  "They're definitely forcing closure, which is a great thing, (Ross) Hunger said, referring to the Governor's office.  I would be willing to bet that the teachers don't get much of a raise that that I-1351 is mostly on-hold (something like I-728).  From the Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk blog , Class Size: The Common Sense Bus doesn't stop on School Reform Blvd.

Thread to come: the Washington Middle School meeting on Spectrum .  Pretty interesting stuff but again, what does it all mean? From the Washington Post, doing some building work on an Oklahoma high school, contractors uncovered chalkboards - intact with lessons - from almost 100 years ago.  What is truly fascinating is one board has a technique to teach multiplication tables that was new to the principal (it's some kind of circle table).  From King5, Renton High votes transgendered teen as their prom queen.  There was also a good story on KUOW on the issue of transgendered children .  Legislative News:

From Publicola , the most recent Elway poll:  "Voters "aren't having" the fact that both the Democratic and Republican proposals don't fully fund I-1351, last year's $1.4 billion (when you account for the overlap with the McCleary mandate) smaller class size initiative . The poll also found that 48 percent of voters (versus 43 percent) would take a second vote on the initiative with a funding source—and 60 percent of those people would vote yes. No specific tax proposal got polled, though."

Class size matters so let them know YOUR child's class size(s).  Do it today. As it says at the Class Size Counts webpage; Washington State's class size is ranked 47th out of 50 states.