Seattle Schools Community Forum

A bit of a slow week at SPS, probably because of the MLK, Jr. day off.  It's a good day to reflect on issues around race relations and our district, our city, our state and our country.  Maybe a good day to go see Selma.  (I read that one student - at a sponsored viewing of the movie - had said thank you to the producers for making it because he finally learned what "MLK" stood for - meaning, the actual letters, not the man. Amazing.) Looking over the Board agenda for the school board meeting on Wednesday, I found a compare and contrast moment.  The Times had a good story about the Creative Advance Initiative - arts in the schools program - and it's highly successful launch.  The Creative Advantage Initiative, a program paid for by the city of Seattle, Seattle Public Schools and the private Seattle Foundation, this school year helped 1,659 students in about 12 schools — mostly in the central part of the city — who wouldn’t otherwise have ...

Monday, June 9th Curriculum and Instruction Policy Committee Meeting , 4:30-6:30 pm.  Agenda A large agenda for various policies and includes an update on Creative Approach schools, Advanced Learning update, the BARs for the Highly Capable Program Annual Plan and Seattle Teacher Residency.  At the end of the agenda, just added - Math Adoption Update. If you do one extra thing this week (besides writing to the Board/your principal about your thoughts on the math adoption), try to attend this meeting from about 5:45-6:30 pm .  If that small Board conference room was packed with parents/community, it would send a powerful message to all in the room.  Even if you had to stand in the hall and try to listen, it would be worth it. Wednesday, June 11th Executive Committee Meeting, 8:30-10:00 am.  Agenda Among the items is "public access to district records- policy 4040", review of annual required reports (which is a funny one considering how - according to Cha...

I just got back from a news conference where it was announced that the City of Seattle will be investing $500,000 in arts education in Seattle Public Schools.   This will advance the already established partnership between the City and SPS called The Creative Advantage. (That's Mayor McGinn's mom, Joyce, looking at students' artwork.  The boy to her right is McGinn's brother, Kevin.  McGinn is the boy hiding at her left side.) The goal is one hour of music and one hour of visual arts per week for every single student in SPS by 2020. The investment dollars came from something of a surprising source - admission tax revenue from the Great Wheel on the waterfront and the Chihuly Garden and Glass museum was higher than expected.  So thank you tourists for those dollars.  The $500k will be invested over the next two years to start rolling out the planning done under the $1M Wallace Foundation grant.  The Central district will be the first to see some doll...