Seattle Schools Community Forum

From SPS: The Office of Advanced Learning is collaborating with school and community members to develop a Highly Capable Cohort pathway for students in West Seattle. That is, when the pathway is established, students identified as Highly Capable could eventually be served from kindergarten through 12th grade in HC classrooms at schools located in West Seattle. We are forming a Focus Group to provide an opportunity for school leaders and community members to collaborate on implementing new HC services at Madison Middle School and West Seattle High School. If you are interested in joining the Focus Group, application forms will be made available by mid-April on the Advanced Learning website www.seattleschools.org/advlearning . The pathway will take time to develop and will not be fully in place by next school year, but we want to help families understand their options for this fall:

The Times had a brief article last night when the news broke about the one-week extension for public input on the appointment of Superintendent Nyland to be the permanent superintendent which has now expanded and there are some very interesting quotes. The action slated for a special meeting of the board on December 10 at 4:30 p.m.  The Times says the Board hasn't decided if they will allow comments. - apparently there will be discussion at the Board meeting Wenesday when this is introduced.  (Normally, the discussion at Intro is limited so we'll have to see.) - The district has this e-mail for "interested parties" to weigh in - SchoolBoard@seattleschools.org . - The Times notes that Nyland came from Marysville, serving nine years there.  I'm finding some very telling stories out of Marysville that may be clues to the kind of superintendent he may be. - Peaslee said the board usually introduces and votes on superintendent job offers in the same meeting...

Overview Schmitz Park Elementary is one of many schools that will be affected by new enrollment boundaries that were agreed on in 2013 but now will affect the school differently given the huge and continuing growth in SPS. Meaning, what was agreed to before is not going to play out as thought. Schmitz Park has been trying, very hard, to explain to district staff what is happening (and what will get worse).  This subject of enactment of these new boundaries came up at the Executive Committee meeting yesterday.  This is what my notes reflect: Flip Herndon said they were "between a rock and hard place."  He said there was no space at Alki for portables.  He said SP had space but not "infrastructure."  The interim director, Brent (something) said, "We really need to make these changes."    Director McLaren was there but said nothing. Here's what Schmitz Park sent to parents and has told the district (bold mine):

Tuesday, Sept. 2nd Superintendent Nyland will have a press conference at JAMS followed by a ribbon-cutting for the renovated school at noon.  He will also be at the ribbon-cutting for Fairmount Park Elementary at 2:45 pm.  (I'm taking ideas for questions to ask Superintendent Nyland.) Wednesday, Sept. 3rd -    First Day of School Superintendent Nyland will be visiting several schools that day including Rainier View Elementary from 9-10:30 am, then the World School from 11-11:30 am.  He will join World School students for lunch. School Board meeting starting at 4:15 pm.  Agenda I note that the family of the Garfield field trip victim is organizing a rally before the meeting and I expect a fair number of people to again press the Board to do more.

Went to the BEX Oversight Committee meeting this morning. In terms of notable people at the meeting, Director Sharon Peaslee was there, Lead Counsel Ron English was not. Issues mentioned/discussed - Seems to be some kind of portable placement issue for Blaine and Laurelhurst .  No specifics given. - Only $1M for technology left in BEX IV .  Head of Technology, Carmen Rahm, gave a presentation where he noted that 75% of SPS schools don't have wireless.  But he repeated, again and again, that for the here and now, you still need "wired" buildings for all kinds of reasons.  Meaning, to have a totally "wireless" building for technology is not the desired outcome. There was this interesting back-and-forth with Director Peaslee and Mr. Rahm over smartboards.  She was under the impression that they were $10K apiece.  He said no, you could get 5-6 of them for $10K.  I looked this up and it really depends on what you want to spend.  But the total ...

Friday, July 11 BEX Oversight Committee meeting , 8:30 am-10:30 am. Unfortunately, whoever runs this group does not put up the agenda nor past minutes in a timely manner so I can't tell you what will be discussed.  I've asked if that could happen and told it would but it doesn't.  The last minutes are from the meeting in April and have some curious notations.

Many updates on Advanced Learning via the Superintendent's Friday update (thanks to Mirmac 1 for finding this).  It is a litany of woes about many issues affecting AL (some of their own making and some the district.  One of them, lack of cooperation from schools, needs some attention from someone.)  Emphasis mine: From Advanced Learning: The most important update continues to be the changes that occurred in April 2013 to the Washington Administrative Code (WAC 392-170) regarding Highly Capable Learners. After speaking with OSPI and colleagues around the state, most districts are making adjustments to their Highly Capable programs in response to the changes. During this transition year, OSPI is providing some lee-way in their annual consolidated program review to allow the districts to adjust.  The new WACs regarding Highly Capable Learners requires that changes be made to our current program delivery model. State law now re...

Long ago, I used to say that having a great school is like a three-legged stool partnership with teachers/staff and parents and principal.  After my personal experience and years of listening to parents' experiences at other schools, I revised that because the biggest leg really is the principal. I feel that way because the principal sets the tone, the focus and usually has a lot of ability in creating a staff for the school.  Many successful principals, like many successful schools, appear to get more leeway because of their abilities.  (This harkens back to former Superintendent Olfchefske's "tight/loose" theory that if a school is doing well, loosen up that grip, if not, tighten up.)  This ability for some principals to have greater control certainty looks true in a column at the Times about one reporter who about to become a Seattle schools' parent. 

I attended the Growth Boundaries meeting hosted by Director McLaren this morning and two themes stood out. One came from the District and the other from the community. The District's theme was mystery. There is simply no telling who would make the decisions about schools and buildings, no clue about how they would make these decisions, no sense of what data or criteria would be the basis for the decisions, or even when the decisions would be made. Nevertheless we got a very strong message about what the decision would be: K-5 STEM placed at Schmitz Park in 2016. This is the pre-ordained choice, despite the fact that this is probably the worst option of them all. The theme from the community was primarily frustration. That frustration was directed a bit at the mystery - the decisions are made by a secret committee using a secret process and secret criteria - but mostly at the trainwreck of a decision.

Over at the West Seattle Blog, they have a story about the K-5 STEM location debate, complete with links to two "viable" proposals.  More good reading on this subject.

Here's a brilliant story from the West Seattle Blog about Director McLaren's community meeting in West Seattle.

Great story (with photos) from the West Seattle Blog on the progress of the new K-5 STEM school at Boren.  Looks good. Lots of window for natural light.  Because it had been used by older students, it has lockers (and cubbies from preschool days), computer lab  and science labs.  They also have a climbing wall in the gym.  Very nice.  And, somehow, they found money for a Smartboard for every classroom.  Hmmm.  On her horizon – the renovation of Fairmount Park Elementary, expected to reopen in West Seattle within the next few years, shuttered for five years, and getting a new roof right now, because, she says, the old one couldn’t wait any longer to be replaced. Number of students at our new STEM school? We asked SPS how many students are enrolled; no final count yet, the district says, but the building is being made ready to hold up to 250. From one commenter: The 250 limit has already been met per info we have received from th...

I did post this previously about this week's meeting but wanted to put it up again due to the interest in the Lowell situation. Work Session on Capacity Management from 5-6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, the 29th Here is the agenda with links to the presentations.  It appears that one part will be about creating a system to manage capacity management and the other part is about projections for the future.  (They do have one interesting map showing Boren opening in 2012, Hughes in 2013 and Fairmount Park in 2014 but I don't know who they would putting in those buildings.) To note, this seems like a mammoth amount to cover so I don't expect them to cover it all.  It is unlikely they will discuss Lowell in specific but anything is possible.  Also, the meeting is open to the public but you cannot ask questions nor make comments.  There is a meeting previous to it so when you open the door, don't be surprised to see a meeting already in progress. 

The District is dragging out a number of decisions that should have been made already. In most cases they should just make the decision because they have only a single viable option. There's no decision to be made. 1. Re-open John Marshall as an elementary option school and the site of north-end elementary APP. They need to bring north-end APP up north and there is no other building that will hold the 500 students in the program. John Marshall would allow space for the APP students and a small general education program as well. That would help to relieve some of the overcrowding in the northeast. Enrollment in the general education program should be by choice only. That would bring a lot of advantages. It would give preference to APP siblings and keep families together. It would allow the District to cap the enrollment of the gen ed program so they aren't guaranteeing enrollment to two different groups. It would evade any need to alter the attendance area boundaries. If the ...

Lots of interesting information from this meeting of the BEX Oversight Committee on June 10th. Highlights: They still don't have the Committee Charge draft to open up applications for this Committee.  They really need new members as their numbers have been dwindling.  At some point this will be sent to the Operations Committee who will forward it onto the full Board for approval.  I'm thinking the earliest that information will be available will be sometime in August.  I am hoping that if you know someone who might like to serve, that you will forward the information to them.  We need more community members who know the district on the Committee.    The Committee, as constituted, as good input from construction professionals but they also need community to balance it out.  Asking this Committee to provide accountability when the only information they get is from staff is not plausible.  Barbara Kelley, an SPS parent, had a good idea about ...