Seattle Schools Community Forum

The Times had two items of note this weekend; one is an editorial and the other is an article. The article is about field trips and how difficult it is to write a comprehensive policy that everyone can understand and cover.  I feel like this commenter, Teresa A., at the Times: "Without clear guidelines, some teachers and parents say, districts and individual teachers open themselves up to liability." This is all that is really needed.  IF students know what the expectations are AND they know with absolute certainty that the teacher will check on them  and enforce those rules AND they know with absolute certainty that they will immediately be sent home (at their parents expense) if they violate the rules AND they know that no amount of whining will change the teachers mind, then 99% of the students will follow the rules with no problems.  That is all that any reasonable person can expect. Students are going to try and break the rules, t...

 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. 

It appears that a field trip this weekend for jazz vocal at Garfield (just over to Vashon), that had been approved by the principal and the district Risk Manager, got pulled by Michael Tolley and Sarah Pritchett (executive director for the region) at the last minute.  (The vocal teacher did get the paperwork in at the last minute because of the new policies but was told it was approved.) There was no explanation given and, despite Principal Howard's best efforts to contact anyone at JSCEE yesterday afternoon, he couldn't get ahold of anyone. There were to be 70 kids on this trip.  Some of the kids think it might be retaliation for the rally on Wednesday. If the district has a problem with a field trip, they need to make that clear BEFORE planning is done, chaperones gathered and money paid.