Seattle Schools Community Forum

Talk about fast and furious - there's no end to public ed news in the summer. In the "wish we had more School Board members who do this," there are two City Council candidates, Mike O'Brien and Catherine Weatbrook who ask the hard questions (sadly, in the same district - # 6).  Publicola has an article about the HALA report and Councilman O'Brien's pushback to the Mayor on some of the data.

I just came across an article in the Capitol Hill Times (thank you former Board member, Kay Smith-Blum) about arts in Seattle Schools. You may recall that the district had received a Wallace Foundation grant to develop a district-wide vision for arts in Seattle Schools.  It was for $1M of planning which was great but the district didn't receive the follow-up grant from the Foundation for the implementation .  But I know this didn't stop Carri Campbell, the director of School and Community Partnerships at SPS and so, with the City's Office of Arts and Culture and the Seattle Foundation, the District started the Creative Advantage partnership.  They are also partnering with groups like the Seattle Art Museum, Arts Corps, Arts Impact, EMP and others.