Seattle Schools Community Forum

One piece of pretty bad news, especially for high school students and parents, is that the Class Pages are going off-line on June 1.  Apparently the district's switchover to a new system, SharpSchool, cannot extend until the end of school (the district blames the vendor) and so neither you nor your student will be able to access any homework, grades, etc. SPS to teachers: Teachers, students, and families will not have access to class pages the last 2 weeks of schools. We are working on available alternatives to help minimize disruption to schools. Teachers will be receiving additional communication about options for sharing files and announcements during the last two weeks of school.  We apologize for this added inconvenience. We had truly hoped for an extension to beyond the end of the school year to help ease this transition for all of our students and families, as well as for all our staff, especially those in schools. All the functions of class pages will be unava...

Someone asked a question in the Friday Open Thread about a Special Ed program and that led to SpedPTA president, Mary Griffin, to say this (and she calls it a rant alert and warning but really, it's a huge district-wide issue): I am not a fan of data sharing, but I am a fan of useful data collection and accessibility within the district. The district right now is suffering greatly from the lack of usable, easily accessible data.   Not having good data means that the Director of Special Education needs to spend two weeks going through all the student records identifying which students receive Special Education services.   Not having good data means they can't get their ducks in a row to even fill out the forms to request $12 million dollars to fund Special Education.  Not having good data interferes with enrollment predictions for next year and hampers communication about the location of classrooms.  Not having good data means even though t...

I noted that at the strategic plan community meeting I attended at Hale, several parents said they (and some teachers) have frustrations with using The Source/Fusion. One reader replied: As an SPS teacher I would love to hear what parents like/dislike about the Source & Fusion. Is it limitations in the tool (and if so exactly what aspects)? Is it that teachers don't update the Source? With Fusion is it particular tools not working, limited teacher usage, inconsistent styles of teacher usage, errors in posts, etc? Some families may be able to make comparisons to tools in districts they've moved from and/or private schools they have their children in. At least the Source allows grades to be posted more timely than the traditional gradebooks. What else do parents want/need to see in the Source (this could help those of us who read the blog some be more aware of changes to lobby for in the future... well, if teachers ever truly had any input into district technology decisi...