Seattle Schools Community Forum

Central Mom let us know about this latest school assault, this time on a Cleveland teacher by a 15-year old student. From the PI : "A Cleveland High School teacher had to get four stitches at Swedish Hospital earlier this week after a student beat him, police said. School staff called the student's father to pick him up, but didn't immediately report the alleged assault to police, a police report shows. The assault happened about 9 a.m. Monday after the teacher told the student to complete his work. The student refused and began to rip up papers. The student, 15, tried to remove the teacher's laptop and without warning slapped the teacher in the face, police said." The teen allegedly admitted hitting the teacher because he wanted the instructor "out of his personal space." As I have said before, there are probably low-grade incidents of aggression at many SPS high schools and middle schools every week. This is not one of those. What is interesting...

( Update : Charlie and others discuss the meeting on the thread I wrote about the Transition Plan vote. Check there for more.) I have not finished watching my tape of the School Board meeting. There was an article in the Times this morning about it. Apparently the Transition Plan passed, 6-1 (with Betty Patu voting against). Both Director Martin-Morris' amendment for Thorton Creek and Director Carr's amendment for JSIS passed. And, South Shore got its own Geographic Zone amendment for next year. Nice. So here's an open thread for the meeting. Here are my notes: I must have missed it but apparently Kaaren Andrews of Madrona is leaving mid-year for Interagency. There were several speakers about this including many children. This mid-year stuff strikes me as hard on everyone and particularly for the poor principal coming in. A good point was made when one speaker said that Ruth Medsker, the middle school director, told a parent that "it was in the best inte...

Sorry so late but I just saw this at the West Seattle blog: Start the New Year off right by attending the next Madison PTSA meeting, to be held on Wednesday, January 13, 2010. We will be holding a panel for parents, guardians and students called “ High School Choices for Your Tween .” At this PTSA meeting from 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm, come and hear from various high schools in the areas about their school and the programs it has to offer. High schools who will be attending thus far include: West Seattle, Cleveland, and Chief Sealth. There will also be time at the end for Q & A (questions and answers)! The PTSA is looking forward to seeing you and your child at this meeting! We’ll also have time to discuss the early dismissals and its impact on this school year 2009-2010, as well as next year’s schedule & early dismissals for 2010-2011! If you have questions or concerns, feel free to contact Kim Early at ann8726@aol.com or 206-328-9335. Note that Cleveland will be there. This comes ...

I listened to most of the STEM discussion last night. (I missed the first 10 minutes because of a recording error so help me out if you can. I note that many readers also listened in and had good comments under my thread about the Board meeting. So repeat the same info in the Comments section if you like because I read many valid points.) I had questioned the costs for the "upgrade" for a 2nd computer lab. There are two pots of money in the BTA III levy for Cleveland. One is capital and one is technology. The one for technology is for $1.1M. The one for capital is for $1.6M is stated as "Academics- Curriculum review and any capital work to facilitate STEM school implementation." The company, Project Lead the Way, that is providing the engineering curriculum clearly told me they asked for nothing more than a wired classroom. Cleveland is new building and is fully wired. That would be the technology money going for either computer stations or laptops. ...

From the NY Times, a great article about computer science careers that are about being a "cool geek". Basically it is saying that there are careers of all kinds based off from a degree in computer science. (And given this is true from many other degrees, it seems obvious but many people still think computer scientists sit in a basement and write code.) It starts with a photo of Dr. John Halamka, the CIO at Harvard Medical School, with yes, the geekiest of childhood photos. "Dr. Halamka grew up to be something of a cool nerd, with a career that combines his deep interests in medicine and computing, and downtime that involves rock climbing and kayaking. Now 47, Dr. Halamka is the chief information officer at the Harvard Medical School, a practicing emergency-ward physician and an adviser to the Obama administration on electronic health records." It also highlights a graduate student from the UW Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Kira Lehtomaki, who no...

Great article in the Seattle Weekly about STEM. What is most amazing is that (1) she got teachers to talk to her (as I said to her in an e-mail, I would have thought they would be muzzled) and (2) they were quite frank in their comments. Here's what they had to say: David Fisher, teacher "I've been here for 15 years and every other year we do this," says math teacher David Fisher, referring to a long string of ballyhooed overhauls that the Beacon Hill school has embarked on at the behest of the district." Glenn Bafia, SEA/Susan Enfield, CAO The staff probably won't change much. The district's contract with the teachers union allows it to move people out, according to Glenn Bafia, executive director of Seattle Education Association. But, in a meeting last week with Cleveland staff, district Chief Academic Officer Susan Enfield downplayed that and instead asked people "to look deep in their souls and decide if they want to stay," recounts Bafia...

Looks like another long one. I was at home and I got worn out at 2.5 hours. There were a few laughs (thanks Chris Jackins - he made a joke about the Superintendent's bonus being a math lesson because it's $5,280 which is a mile in feet. ) We finally heard from our two new Board members - interesting. So the community speakers spoke on several topics including the MLK,Jr bldg as a community meeting site for Madison Valley, several different speakers on the need for Career Center counselors in our high schools, grandfathering siblings, the Superintendent's bonus and several student speakers. (Those kids from Nova always make me smile. So committed, articulate and wonderful. There was also a young man from Ingraham, in a sport jacket and tie, saying how they need their Career Counselor.) There was a really long report from the Family Engagment team. This is a wonderful diverse group of people working hard on outreach as well as figuring out ways to do new and better out...

I attended the Cleveland STEM Community Meeting on December 4 with my wife and 8th grade daughter. First, the important parts. My daughter is excited about the program. To her it looks like a good mix of the academic challenge of Garfield with the more personalized instruction (and project-based learning) of NOVA. She got most excited when she saw a list of the possible classes in the Global Health Academy. My wife and I are much more confident about the probability that the program will actually be there and that it will be something like what has been advertised. There was a pretty good crowd of people there - I'd say about forty to fifty (not counting staff). The folks from Cleveland who were there are excited about the program and have a very clear picture of the idea - the project-based learning, the integration of technology, the alignment between classes, the extended school day and accelerated schedule, etc. The STEM program looks real and, to us, it looks good. They still ...

The Board has voted to make Cleveland High School an option school next year with a STEM focus. STEM stands for S cience T echnology E ngineering and M ath. Beyond that announcement, however, there is nothing very much determined about the school, what it will offer, or how it will function. There are a lot of questions that haven't been answered. This year's freshmen will be part of the STEM school, but this year's sophomores, juniors, and seniors will not. I'm not sure what will happen to them. It is unclear what classes Cleveland will offer that will reflect the STEM focus. Will Cleveland have more or different math and science classes than other Seattle high schools? Will it have any math or science classes other than those available at Garfield and Roosevelt? What will be the Technology classes? What will be the Engineering classes? No one knows. Will Cleveland have CTE courses or programs that reflect the STEM focus. I have heard people suggest that Cleveland dupl...

So a reader here innocently asked what I knew about STEM, the program coming to Cleveland High. Well, I knew it stood for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. And, I made a very bad assumption, based on a throwaway line Director Maier said to me at the Eckstein BTA levy meeting. He said the district didn't think it up but that it has been done nationally. Well, he is kind of right. I made the assumption that this is an established program. It isn't. It is an established direction that the feds want to go in (see the National Science Foundation website for details or the STEM caucus in Congress website ). As well, over in the Tri-cities, a new foundation has been created, Washington State STEM Education Foundation. They have a factsheet in their discussion area that lays out what they say STEM is and is not. The STEM school over there is Delta High School, organized by the districts in Kennewick, Pasco and Richland. From their website: Delta High Scho...

What is the District hoping to accomplish with this change? Are they hoping to draw more students to the building or meet some unmet demand? I am troubled by the decision to move forward with the STEM program at Cleveland without an assessment for the demand for a STEM program at Cleveland. Who wants this? Who will enroll in this school? Will the enrollment be greater or less than the current enrollment (706)? Are they hoping to improve the quality of education for the students at Cleveland? If there isn't any significant overlap between the students in the proposed STEM program and the students now enrolled at the school, then how does the introduction of this program help the current Cleveland students? Are they trying to balance capacity management? I'm concerned about how the new student assignment plan will work in southeast Seattle if Cleveland is an option school. There are 1,812 high school students (Fall 2006 data) who live closer to Rainier Beach than any other high s...

So I missed the annual Alliance for Education breakfast yesterday. According to an op-ed in the Times, there were 900 people which is a great turnout for public education. Not content with just an op-ed, there was also a Times editorial touting it. Do not get me wrong; I think the revamped Alliance for Education is doing some good things and is being a lot better run than it used to be. So I am not here to say I don't like the Alliance. However, they do tend to fall into the same cheerleading camp as the Seattle Council PTSA (another group I like). And that's okay except that I truly believe it would help if the district heard some hard truths from both groups occasionally. But that never happens publicly and frankly, that's where it would count. So the editorial was all a-glow. Here's why: "Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson gave a compelling outline of the system's successes, including improved test scores. But the spotlight, and proof of her words, rested ...