Seattle Schools Community Forum

Did anyone attend DeBell's or Sundquist's community meeting yesterday? I attended Harium's. I was quite surprised that it turned out to be just 3 parents. One was an Eastlake parent and one was a Hale parent. I would have thought from posts here that more parents had issues and questions especially about the NSAP. I first brought Harium up-to-date on the issue of me being able to ask questions at the press conference. (I had received an odd e-mail from Communications that was written for the press.) I asked Harium if the Board had a policy on media access. He said no and he didn't think they needed one but the district should have a procedure. I agreed. It seems apparent that the district has no policy and was flying by the seat of their pants with me and just made it up as they went along. I don't want to drag this out but I do want to make clear: The press conference started late even though all the speakers were there. I was told, five minutes befor...

The School Board has a meeting this Wednesday, Feb. 3, at 6 p.m. The agenda is quite full. Among the items: approval of the NTN contract for STEM for $800,000. As has been widely discussed here, there are some troubling aspects of this contract with the bottom line being that it might not be the best and most cost-effective way to set up STEM at Cleveland. The Board has pushed back a lot and now we will see if they stand by their objections or not. From the agenda item: "The funding source for this project will be a combination of Learning Assistance Program (LAP), Building Excellence (BEX), and Cleveland High School budget dollars. Federal and private grant opportunities are also being pursued. " Which BEX and how much from each source? It's this kind of vagueness that always comes back to bite the Board. High school LA arts adoption. The 2010-2011 schedule is being introduced on Wednesday night.September 8th will be the first day of school and June 21 (!) the...

I found these when I had gone to The Source . (Are they on the News and Calendars page? No and why not? I think any time they have an on-going survey process on any subject, it should be on the homepage or News and Calendar page.) Anyway, here's a link to the LA Adoption page. On the righthand side are links for both the parent and student surveys. You get to see the reading lists for all 4 grades for high school and make comments on the lists, see additional books they are considering and offer new books. Honestly, I was a little underwhelmed. A lot of the usual suspects except too heavy on the Shakespeare (love the work but there are other great playwrights and I think some kids get sick of it), a little light on classics in 9th grade and, overall, I think the booklists are too short for both students and teachers. For the students, I feel like they need more choice and for the teachers the ability to have a wider choice of books that they may have already taught. Take ...