Seattle Schools Community Forum

Update: of interest this week is the Board Work Session .  The topic? HR.  More on this in the thread, Seattle Schools This Week to come. end of update Neither Roosevelt nor Garfield placed in the top three for the Essentially Ellington competition in NYC but congrats to all these musicians for getting there and representing Seattle. The Times has two articles of note on Seattle Schools. One is about librarians and libraries in SPS.  A group of SPS librarians did their own research on funding for libraries and the fruit of their work is troubling.   For many libraries, the library fund is very dependent on the PTA.  From the article:

Judge George Finkle decided that the district's decision to dismiss Garfield choir teacher Carol Burton for procedure violations during a choir field trip to New Orleans was excessive. See the Seattle Times article here .

There's a story in the Seattle Times about Carol Burton, who lost her job for violating field trip procedures. The story outlines her argument but it leaves out her best one: when other teachers violated field trip procedures - in worse ways with worse consequences - they were not disciplined at all.

I like to listen to KUOW's Friday morning round-up of news.  It's generally lively and interesting. I only caught part of this morning's but the part I caught really bothered me because of what I heard. The discussion was about the alleged cheating by the Bellevue High football staff who were running a "diploma mill" for students they recruited for the football team.  It is alleged that those students were attending a private school that was being paid for by team boosters or someone else.  It does not appear the students went to real classes or even had teachers all the time.  Bellevue has had a winning football program for many years with, at one time, a 67-game winning streak. The pundits were asked about what should happen to the Bellevue program, given that Bellevue had won games with these students playing. ( I note KUOW also had the H.G. Bissinger, noted author of Friday Night Lights, about Texas high school football).  So in jumps Joni Balter who...

I went back and reviewed my notes and the public disclosure requests I made about this case. - Beryl Miller, the SPS staffer who was the Civil Rights/ Title IX Compliance Officer at the time of the incident is no longer in that position. She was the SPS Behavioral and Emotional Team Supervisor. Whether she still has that position within SPS, I don't know. - My question to SPS: B eryl Miller said she spoke with Student 1's doctor and psychologist but she only references notes about the call to the doctor. Are there any notes/documentation about Ms. Miller's call to the psychologist? (Please note: I know under FERPA/HIPPA I cannot have the notes or documentation. I am ONLY asking if they exist - meaning did she call both Student 1's doctor and psychologist?) SPS Answer: Ms. Miller has confirmed that no additional documents exist beyond the email records provided as exhibits to the investigative report (see pg 54-57 of the previously provided “GHS Exhibits Final...

From SPS Communications:

Reader Lynn sent me the link from the Times with this announcement.

I am troubled by my dilemma of putting a link to the Investigation report and/or naming the chaperones and their statements to the investigator.  I know these are public documents but it does give me pause.  However, someone already put a link to the report so I will as well.  Report document.   If you do read it, understand that "identifier" means the private school - which we all believe to be Blanchet High School - "student 1" is the male student in question and students 8 and 9 are the girls who were groped.  None of the students nor the male student's mother is named.  All of the chaperones are named.

 Update:   according to a comment in this thread, this rally is timed for when Ms. Burton is meeting with Dr. Nyland today. I have requested the District's investigation report and was told I could have it on June 22nd. The District put out a press release on the report right as the Garfield students and Friend of Garfield Choir were rising up to support Ms. Burton.  A tease of a press release is NOT the full report and to act as though everyone should go "oh well, never mind, move along, nothing to see here" is a wrong assumption on the part of the District.