Seattle Schools Community Forum

From SPS Communications: Seattle Public Schools (SPS) is excited to announce that starting in fall 2016-17, families will be supported with expanded childcare options in West Seattle. SPS in partnership with Seattle Parks and Recreation will be providing new childcare options in the Schmitz Park building as well as in the Genesee Hill and Lafayette Elementary buildings.

From the West Seattle Blog: Seattle Public Schools just announced that another elementary principal from West Seattle is being promoted to management downtown – this time Lafayette’s newest principal Shauna Heath , after just a few months. From the district: Today I’m announcing a leadership change at Lafayette. Your principal, Shauna Heath, has been appointed Executive Director for Curriculum and Instruction. In her new role, Ms. Heath will oversee Early Learning, College and Career Readiness and core content areas. I know Lafayette staff and families went through a principal search process last summer, and I understand it is a hardship to have a leadership change mid-year. But we need Ms. Heath’s leadership to help all of our nearly 50,000 students. Congratulations to Ms. Heath, and I know she will be missed at Lafayette. Birgit McShane has been appointed interim principal. This is effective Jan. 7, and Ms. Heath will be available to ensure a smooth transitio...

  Update: a simple and beautiful tribute by Town Hall to Gloria Leonidas (the woman killed there last week during the rampage).  Ms. Leonidas' profession was lighting design.  I thought it worthy of posting.  Thank you to the Stranger Slog for their posting of it. The story of the killer's saga in West Seattle just goes on.  The West Seattle Blog is reporting that the blueberry plant he picked up at the West Seattle Nursery went to a former teacher he had at Summit K-12 more than 25 years ago.  Unbelievable.   He did not leave a note so she had no idea who had left it until she read about it.  She does not know why he reached out to her and turned everything over to the police. One comment says: The reason that I find this new update extremely alarming is that it confirms that this killer was in the neighborhood of Schmitz Park, Lafayette, Madison and West Seattle High, possibly even as the security precautions were lifted around 2...

From Dr. Enfield, I am pleased to announce the appointment of Shauna Heath as your new principal, effective July 1. Ms. Heath comes to Lafayette from the Kent School District, where she served as principal of Sunrise Elementary for the past two years. Ms. Heath is not only a great educator, but she lives in West Seattle and will be an excellent fit for the Lafayette community. Ms. Heath started her career as a special education teacher in King Salmon, Alaska and then as a special education teacher for the Shelton School District in Washington. She was the assistant principal for Tillicum Middle School in Bellevue from 1998-2002, served as an elementary school principal in Clinton, Tennessee, and was a middle school principal in Riverdale, Georgia. Before moving back to Washington state, she was the pre-kindergarten through 5th Grade Instructional Services Director for City Schools of Decatur, Georgia. Ms. Heath holds a Washington State Administrative Certification from the Universit...

A very carefully worded investigation "report" from Paul Apostle to Susan Enfield about the Lafayette incident  and investigation report from Safety and Security was released today.  Also, a letter was sent to parents, also carefully worded, from Ex Director, Aurora Lora.  (I can't seem to create a link but I will get it up as soon as I can.)   A story is also in the Times and it, too, is carefully written and leaves out a lot.  No link to the investigation at all.  You have to wonder why all this tiptoeing is happening.  (And thanks to the Times for leaving out that we here broke the story - something to keep in mind in the future.)  Clearly, this is story many people don't want to tell. The Times leaves out that while the investigation didn't violate school district policy (i.e. Board policy), it left out the Superintendent's own procedures which are very clear on what is to happen if there is a sexual complaint.  Mum's the word...

I had learned of a serious situation at Lafayette. Charlie and I both felt it better to say nothing (it is not our place nor could we do much). I did let a few senior SPS people know that I knew and that it was vital for them to give the situation their notice and best effort. As the situation has played out, I did not see that happening. Not from the principal, not from the Executive Director and not from SPS administration. Some of them are now saying they knew nothing about it and that is virtually impossible to believe. But it has now been leaked to the media and I believe will become front page news in the next day or so. I will try to fully explain this when I get home from the Board meeting.  I am sorry to see another scandal to try to explain but I will say that the district had better get principals better training NOW before a lawsuit drags this district down. There is no excuse for this to happen at this point.  Unless, of course, principals saw the h...

Didn't want these good news items to get lost in the Open Thread section. Lafayette is putting on the musical The Music Man.   Here's an article (and cute-as-a-button photo) from the West Seattle Herald. From the Times , Denny International Middle School principal, Jeff Clark, has won the Thomas B. Foster Award for outstanding leadership.  This comes from the Alliance for Education and he will receive a $50k grant.   Clark said he plans to use the $50,000 prize to buy one book for every student to recognize their hard work, to purchase musical instruments, and to start an endowment fund that can be used to help pay field-trip or other fees. I heard Clark speak the other night at the 34th District Democrats meeting.  He said, "I have my dream job."  It got a big round of applause.  He was there to explain how important the Families and Education levy is to his school.  He is one of the best principals this district has and he des...

The West Seattle blog reports the installation of a new double portable at Lafayette Elementary. I didn't know that besides Lafayette, both Gatewood and Schmitz Park will also be getting portables. I think the district believes this overcrowding will ease up in the next 3-4 years but I can see where parents caught in the thick of it are probably not happy. Also, this from the West Seattle blog in one of their forums about the current crisis: Gulp! It's getting harder and harder to defend our School Board and District administrators. Apparently the "Save Seattle Schools" crew have been right about the District's lax accounting and oversight, though I must say I don't care for the way they've presented some of their arguments. I wish I could talk to this person. Tell me the better way. Honestly, I think I have tried every way I know how to relay this information or make an argument. When Charlie and I get testy or blunt, please keep in mind this has...

From the Wallyhood blog (the blog of Wallingford where B.F. Day, JSIS and McDonald are located), a post on the school reports. The blog points out the differences in scoring between JSIS (a 4) and B.F. Day (a 2) as well as the number of free/reduced lunch students at B.F. Day versus JSIS. Here's an interesting stat from the blog entry: While many folks don’t think about B.F. Day as a Wallingford school since it sits on the other side of Aurora, last year 23% of B.F. Day’s students were from Wallingford, and that number more than doubled to 48% this year due to the New Student Assignment Plan. They also provide a link to an interesting study that I forgot about from 2000 of parent involvement at JSIS and its outcomes. What is fascinating is how quickly the comments got vicious (and it points out a big issue of how parents feel about their school versus the data on its performance). One parent spoke of how he/she felt that B.F. Day gets a bad rap versus JSIS when it comes to ...

There is a two-hour work session before this Wednesday's Board meeting with the topic of District scorecard and School Reports communication plan ." This is apparently a topic of some concern to the district because of the pending date of release set for November 9th. It is part of the Strategic Plan. From the district's website : The first annual school reports will be released by Seattle Public Schools (SPS) on November 9th 2010 , which will provide a snapshot of school performance on common academic measures. SPS wants parents, students, and the community to know how each individual school is doing – from test scores to absence rates to student proficiency – so we all can learn from and act on the information to make our schools better. In order to ensure excellence for all, the district needs to know how each school is currently performing and make improvement plans based upon that information. To be successful, we will need the community’s help. These school repor...

Thanks to Speducator for the alert about the article in the West Seattle Herald about the district adding classes to Lafayette and Schmitz Park. From the article: "Schmitz Park will add a third kindergarten class and Lafayette will add a third class at the kindergarten and first grade levels. According to Seattle School District spokesperson David Tucker, enrollment needs have increased this year, forcing the district to provide more seats in West Seattle schools. Parents at both schools are concerned that the schools will not have enough space or administrative resources for the added classrooms. "I was surprised like everyone else,” said Geoff Patterson, a parent with two children at Lafayette Elementary. “It struck me as odd that one of the biggest elementary would be getting two more classrooms." There was also concern over movement (within the building) of Lafayette's autism program. The students from Cooper's program had to go somewhere. Some may be...