Seattle Schools Community Forum

Apparently, some students at Jane Addams Middle School walked out of school just before noon and joined with students from Nathan Hale High School who were also walking out in protest.

Update: coverage from the West Seattle blog about the opening of Fairmount Park.   end of update I attended the press conference and ribbon-cutting at Jane Addams Middle School today.  Quite eye-opening. First, it's a good thing that Hale and JAMS don't start at the same time.  I note that 35th Avenue NE is closed south from Hale for about two blocks.  And, Seattle Public Utilities appears to be doing work along NE110th, right in front of Hale.  Two guys told me, yes, they'll be back tomorrow. Press conference I was a little surprised at the number of media who didn't show up, given the start of a new year and a new superintendent.  But they may have thought that they would get some canned answers and sadly, that's what Superintendent delivered.

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 ...