Seattle Schools Community Forum

Well, whoops - it appears that thousands of Northshore students, grades 7-12,  were accidentally sent spam emails that contained porn.  This was not a hacking issue.  The Times reports that the district's tech department was able to block anymore e-mails from coming in and shut down the students' Gmail accounts temporarily. Also on the subject of Northshore, I had written how that district was going to revamp their long-standing highly capable program despite parents' displeasure.  Apparently the parents won the day as their board voted to keep the program the same. Good story from KUOW about music in Seattle Schools via Seattle Music Partners.  The story covers students at Bailey Gatzert, Leschi, Madrona and Lowell.

I am trying to get an update on the Cleveland students involved in that two-car crash yesterday on I-5S.  The Times is reporting that two of the six are in critical condition and the other four are in satisfactory condition. Director Betty Patu has a Community meeting tomorrow from 10 am to 11:30 am at Cafe Vita. From SPS Technology: Seattle Public Schools will begin changing to a new website at 10 p.m., Sunday, May 31. The new site will look slightly different. Thank you for your patience during the transition. Should you experience any concerns, please email webmaster@seattleschools.org . More information can be found here: webinfo.www.seattleschools.org .

Second update via SPS Communications: This was one of two days of late start at CHS for EOC exams. All we have confirmed is that at least 4 of the 6 are juniors.  End of second update Update via KOMO news: Six teens were injured - three of them seriously - in a two-car crash that sent one of the vehicles plunging through a guardrail and over an embankment Thursday morning on Interstate 5 near mid-Boeing Field, emergency officials said. Witnesses said the teens in both cars were driving erratically before the crash. Arriving at the scene, they found one of the cars about 60 to 70 feet down an embankment. Four people were in the car, and three of them were seriously injured - including one with a serious back injury. The fourth sustained moderate injuries, but was able to crawl out of the car and back up to the freeway.

I didn't attend the Board meeting last night but watched the first hour or so on tv.  (President Carr wasn't there so Director Peaslee filled in but I never heard why Carr was not there.) Highlights ( updated and complete ):

I am sorry to report that a Cleveland high senior, Robert Robinson, Jr., was killed Sunday afternoon by a drive-by shooter.  He was shot walking thru his neighborhood around 4 pm. The deepest of condolences to his family, friends and school staff.  (I am more than a little surprised to see no notice of this at the SPS webpage. Cleveland's principal, George Breland, did send out a letter to his community.) Police are asking anyone with information about the shooting to call 206-233-5000. Update: SPS is reporting this event: Remembering Robert Robinson: students/staff to hold school-community-only, open mic vigil on Thurs 6:30 pm. 

Last night's Board meeting saw the honoring of four (!) SPS basketball championship teams.  (My apologies to Garfield's boys basketball team - I managed to flub my photos of them.) Ballard High School Beavers -Special Olympics Unified Basketball Team Cleveland High School Lady Eagles- 3A State Champs Rainier Beach Vikings - 3A State Champions The Superintendent in a demonstration of how much a middle school student would have to carry w/o a locker. Later Start protesters before the meeting Ballard High Video by Will Erstad, Aurore Bouriot and Side Johnson about needing more sleep.

 Update: Congratulations to the Cleveland High School girls basketball team - now the 3A state champions !  They beat Bishop Blanchet High School, 54-45. Congratulations to Garfield High School's  boys basketball team for winning the 4A state title overland Richland, 68-59! Congratulations to Rainier Beach High School's boys basketball team for winning the 3A state title over Eastside Catholic, 47-45!  It is RBHS' third straight state title.   No other team in state history has won three titles in a row. End of update. All three Seattle schools won their basketball game last night and are playing in championship games today. Good job and best wishes to the Cleveland girls basketball team, the Rainier Beach HS boys basketball team and the Garfield boys basketball team! (The Garfield game went off without any incident from either side.  There had been concern about the issue of racially-charged tweets by a few ignorant Issaquah High students.)

Garfield High School's basketball team is on its way to start playing at the state finals.  (So is Cleveland's girls basketball team. )   My Northwest is reporting that after the school's third meet-up with Issaquah's basketball team, things took a nasty turn after tweets were sent saying racially disrespectful things about team members and cheerleaders.

I just wanted to note one thing from this thread about the recent Management Letter from the SAO to the district.  It covered quite a few items like a mysterious $50K salary increase to the Native American program director (now gone) and raises for all the upper management in HR (still no explanation).  There was also an issue about a couple of schools that appear to have allowed events at their school but did not charge for use of the building and, in one case, tried to make it appear like it was a school function.  This may have been to build goodwill in the community and/or make some money for the school.  (When a building is rented, the money goes to the district, not the school.)  It is unclear in either case whether the school actually got any funds but it is clear the district DID lose money. The main culprit seemed to be Cleveland STEM which allowed a couple of basketball tournaments to be at the school as well as a basketball league being allowed t...

Tuesday, June 4th The Board will be evaluating the Superintendent in an Executive Session.  I would think that he would get a pretty favorable evaluation given that he has filled some key posts.  As well, at yesterday's Board retreat, various people were thanking others.  Director Carr said, about Banda's efforts on the Strategic Plan, that she appreciated his collaborative attitude as compared to the previous SP which she labeled "top-down." Wednesday, June 5th Board Meeting , starting at 4:15 pm.   Agenda . I regret to inform you that, once again, the school calendar for next year has been pulled off the agenda by the Superintendent.  I would assume this is about the teachers contract but this is now getting very late for next year's calendar.   Cleveland High School will name its library after a teacher who taught there for 25 years, Edward Landon, and was beloved by students. The district is getting a grant from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundat...

U.S. Department of Ed official to visit Cleveland High School today to promote "transformation efforts."  From SPS: Brenda Dann-Messier, who heads the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Vocational and Adult Education, will visit Seattle’s Cleveland STEM High School on Tuesday, April 30, spotlighting the school’s transformation efforts aimed at promoting educational excellence for its students. As previewed in President Obama’s State of the Union address, the administration is proposing $300 million for a new High School Redesign program, which would fund competitive grants to districts partnering with postsecondary institutions, businesses and non-profits to help ensure that all students graduate from high school with college credit and career-related experience.   The irony here is that Cleveland was not created to be self-sustaining (because it got rolled out too quickly because of MGJ's ego) and the school actually needs the very kind of grant th...

The Vikings took the 3A state championship for the second year in a row over Lakeside.  It is the second back-to-back championship in a decade for RBHS.   They won in overtime 62-59. With the new IB program coming on-line this fall, RBHS is poised to be a changed school over the next several years.  School pride comes in all shapes and sizes. The Lady Eagles won 45-43 against Seattle Prep.  Cleveland has won this title for the second time in four years.  Congrats to both these great teams! Update: a little odd.  Seattle Times doesn't have this on their digital headlines under Sports.  A Husky game, a Mariner game but two Seattle high schools win state championships against private schools and it's no big thing.  Nice job there, Times.

A short week due to the Thanksgiving holiday.   No school for elementary and K-8 students for Parent-Teacher conferences (really? three whole days).  Enrollment Services close at noon on Wednesday and one-hour early dismissal on Wednesday for all students.   Community meeting with Director Patu on Saturday the 24th from 10 am to noon at Caffe Vita, 5028 Wilson Avenue S. I missed this but the district received in October- via the UW Office of Minority Affairs and Diversity - a new Upward Bound Math-Science grant from the DOE.  The five-year, $1.25 million grant is designed to help low-income and first-generation students succeed in high school and pursue post-secondary degrees, especially in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields. UBMS will serve 65 students at Seattle’s Chief Sealth, Cleveland and Franklin high schools and is a sister program to OMA&D’s existing Upward Bound program that assists nearly 80 students at t...

 This week has a large number of Executive Sessions (closed to the public) for the Board.  Most are on " Evaluate a complaint against a public employee ."  I suspect some of these may be about schools in the news over the last several months who had principal issues.  Wednesday, June 6th School Board Meeting - Agenda Our first Board meeting that starts at 4:15 p.m. with the Speakers List at 5:00 p.m .  Please remember to give testimony, you should call/write tomorrow morning starting at 8 am -  252-0040 or boardagenda@seattleschools.org. The Board will run through the Consent agenda, student presentation, and superintendent comments by 5 p.m.  Then there is Public Testimony, Board comments and then Business Action Items. The agenda has some interesting items.  To note:

 Monday, April 30th  Seattle Council PTSA meeting: Navigating SPS: Steps for Positive Advocacy JSCEE from 7-8:30 p.m. Speakers: Ron McGlone, SPS Ombudsman, Adie Simmons, State of Washington Ombudsman, Bernardo Ruiz, SPS manager of Family and Community Engagement Tuesday, May 1 Community Conversations with ELL and Special Education Directors  6-7:30 p.m. at Jane Addams K-8, 11051 34th Ave NE Please join Veronica Gallardo, Director of ELL and International Programs, and Becky Clifford Interim Executive Director for Special Education at one of their upcoming Community Conversation hours. Wednesday, May 2nd Board Work Session on International Education from 4-5:10 p.m. at JSCEE School Board meeting from 6-9 p.m. Agenda .  This is one of the last meetings at 6 p.m. as on June 6th, Board meetings will start at 4:15 p.m. with public testimony at 5 p.m. Announcement of an offer to a superintendent candidate with a final approval - if accepted by the...

Friday, April 13th Swing Fling 2012 at Rainier Beach High School Swing Dance Party (with lessons!) Lessons at 6 p.m., Dance at 7 p.m. Crawford Court Rainier Beach High School, 8815 Seward Park Avenue S. RBHS collaborated with The Center School's graphic design program to develop the posters for this event.  The RBHS Jazz Combo will be your dance masters for the evening.  There's will be a photo booth and a raffle.  Among the prizes are tickets from the 5th Avenue Theatre and the Seattle Theatre Group (Paramount, Moore and Neptune Theaters) for Rent and Cats, respectively.   More info, contact Director of Music Brian Dyson, 252-6414 Saturday, April 28th Washington State TIOS Mini-Conference @ ACT 700 Union Street The Washington State TIOS Mini-Conference will connect classroom teachers with theatre companies, teaching artists, and arts organizations.  Keynote speakers will inspire, and breakout sessions will provide opportunities for each gro...

As if to only reinforce the idea that the real action of the district is at committee meetings, there was the Audit&Finance committee meeting yesterday. On the upside, I think this district has made tremendous strides in bringing in some bright and capable people as district staff.  Duggan Harmon, head of Finance, Richard Staudt, Risk Management, and Andrew Medina, Internal Auditor, and Ronic Lirio, also in Finance, all come across as quite knowledgeable about their area of expertise within the district.  I think they are all capable of laying out the facts clearly to the Board.  I do not hear the hedging that I used to with, say, Don Kennedy, the former COO/CFO. There was an update of First AME and their compliance with the contract wording for the sale of MLK, Jr. building to them.  There were members of the First AME board on-hand to listen.  District staff went through a chart that showed areas of compliance for use for youth-centered activities for...

I attended the C&I meeting on Monday.  There were some interesting discussions.  Sadly, I missed the one on innovation schools as I misheard and thought it was struck from the agenda.  Turns out it was moved to the end of the agenda and there is an MOU between the SEA and SPS that I will write a separate thread on at a later time.

Just heading out the door to the FACMAC meeting, I reviewed the Board agenda .  It has changed somewhat (and there are still open slots on the Speakers List, 252-0040). The renewal of the MAP contract through the Northwest Evaluation Association has been taking off the Action items and postponed until the November 16th meeting per a Steve Sundquist request.  They are late on this subscription renewal (having overlooked it) and now they are waiting?  Hmmm, I wonder why.   Also, the Intro Item on the exemption they are seeking from OSPI for the number of instructional hours for Cleveland High School has been radically rewritten.  It's almost like someone realized that there was a WAC attached to this kind of action and they needed more evidence to prove what they were doing.  I'm thinking this was the doing of some "activist" type person who knew the WAC and pointed this out to staff (but it sure wasn't me).    What is interesting is t...

This is a bit early but I happened to be at the district website and decided to check the agenda for this Wednesday's Board meeting. I'm a bit perplexed. One item is the district asking OSPI for a waiver for Cleveland High to be exempt from the 150-hour state requirement.  It is now an ALE (alternative learning experience) school versus a traditional school.  Under OSPI an ALE school does not meet the 150-hour requirement and so only gets 90% of funding that traditional schools receive.  The district wants Cleveland to get that extra 10% (about 300k) for this year.  What's perplexing is that they explain how they created Cleveland two years ago with a block schedule.  They knew the block schedule would mean less class time and yet they went ahead.  Now, they are unhappy they don't get full funding. OSPI recognizes that block schedules cannot meet the 150 hour/credit requirement, and therefore is willing to grant waivers for schools doing a block sch...