Seattle Schools Community Forum

Help Keep Lowell's APP community intact Meeting at Lincoln, Monday June 27 at 7 p.m. The predicted overcrowding of Lowell next fall has prompted the district to address capacity at the school. That's good news. But the solution the district has proposed so far -- and it's not a done deal -- is to send only the 4th and 5th APP grades to Lincoln High School in Wallingford, leaving APP grades 1-3, ALO and SPED at Lowell. Splitting Lowell's APP community for the second time in two years is not a sound solution. So let's help the district make a better plan. WHAT YOU CAN DO: Come to the meeting on Monday evening at Lincoln. District representatives will be there to hear from the community. From Executive Director Nancy Coogan: We would like your feedback on this option. Please join us at a Lowell community meeting: Date: Monday, June 27, 2011 Time: 7 p.m. Where: Lincoln School auditorium 4400 Interlake Avenue N. Seattle, WA 98103 If you have any q...

I didn't complete my thread on Lowell because of the reaction to the first part.  But one of the issues at Lowell that has some parents frantic is the moving of the Special Education services around the building with them getting less room in inconvenient spaces.  What would happen to these fragile Special Ed students with so many new students coming in this fall?  It would worry you if it were your child. According to my sources, teachers at Lowell were packing up all of today in order to accommodate those space changes (and to allow for construction of new walls to create more classroom space).  Abruptly they were all called to a staff meeting by Principal King. He announced that they should stop packing and that this fall's 4th and 5th graders were going to be going to Lincoln.  The new principal would go with them. Apparently parents have not received notification of this change.  Maybe they received robo-calls or e-mails tonight.  Maybe so...

I have been made aware that in addition to the concerns over the quick growth at Lowell, that there are tensions within the community.  Most of the tension seems to be coming from actions by the Principal Greg King and both teachers and parents are very unhappy.  It may all come to a head before school lets out but this is no way to end a school year and go into new year. I cannot say I know the complete story but I am fairly sure of what issues have arisen. clashes between the principal and staff over passing out and collection of staff surveys.  Apparently some staff felt it was not handled properly and the principal called out a couple of teachers (SEA) who were sitting together.  I know that SEA has gotten involved as there are strict rules over who can handle the surveys and they apply to principals as well as teachers. the BLT (Building Leadership Team).   Apparently the principal dissolved the duly elected BLT and reconstituted it without...

Not a big crowd for the School Board meeting last week but traffic was lousy and it's the end of the school year.

Looks like the assistant principal at TOPS, Jeanne Kuban, is moving to be the assistant principal at Kimball.  The new assistant principal at TOPS will be Sarah Morningstar who was an assistant principal at RBHS.  I know Kimball is fairly large but I didn't know they needed an assistant principal.  So there's Bryant and Kimball with K-5s with assistant principals.  Does Lowell?  Any movement at your school?

I have no doubt that the district's first choice to ease the overcrowding is to move the APP students to one school, say Ingraham, or just say, go to the high school that is your attendance one, we'll have AP for everyone there. Maybe that would be the easiest and fairest thing to do - just send kids to their neighborhood high schools. So "Anonymous" wrote this questions which I thought were good (but Anonymous, give yourself a name - no anonymous posts here). 1) How did the district decide that IB and AP are equitable options? Are they not 2 completely different teaching styles of advanced academics? Yes, both can provide quality accelerated acadmics, BUT aren't they very different philosphical / learning models? What if you have a north end student that does not want to follow the IB model? What if they prefer AP option? Will Ingraham be adding more AP classes for these kids to choose from? I don't know that I think the district thinks they are e...

To JSIS principal, Kelly Armaki, who won the 2010 Milken Educator Award for Washington with a $25,000 cash prize. Good for him and good for JSIS. (One slightly sad note: the OSPI website story says that he works to connect Spanish immersion students with native Spanish speaking ELL students. This is great but if you will recall from the NSAP discussions, fewer native speakers will be able to go to JSIS because it is an attendance area school, not an option school.) As well a shout-out to Lowell Elementary, Stevens Elementary 2nd grade and South Shore Elementary for creating altars for Dia de Muertos at Seattle Center. I'm sure that was a great project for kids, both interesting and educational. There will be altars at the Center House and a candlelight procession from the Center House to the International Fountain at 7 p.m. on Saturday. As well, there are other activities on both Saturday and Sunday. For those who may not know, Dia de Muertos (Day of the Dead) is a tradi...

Did anyone attend either Director Smith-Blum's meeting or Director Patu's meeting yesterday? I heard from one attendee to Smith-Blum's that there were about 40 people (including KIRO tv, interesting). Tracy Libros from Enrollment and Nancy Coogan the Central Regional Executive Director were also there. Two-thirds of the discussion was around issues at Garfield. Kay and Tracy apparently said there could be some future redrawing of boundaries. Why aren't their comparable quality AP classes at all high schools? (Interesting question but I'm not sure what they mean? Better teachers? Better AP course topics?) Teacher from Schmitz Park came and noted how well they were doing using Singapore math and that he felt all elementaries should be free to choose their materials. Good for him. Science curriculum at Garfield was also a topic (and needs a separate thread). Lack of college counseling at Garfield (Kay said she had to work with her own kids.) Nancy Coogan spok...

Please discuss the suggestion of relocating north-end elementary APP to a north-end location on this thread rather than on the Program Placement thread. Does anyone intend to submit a program placement proposal for it?

Lowell was broken into last night. From the PI: "A burglar hit Lowell Elementary School early Thursday morning in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood. Police arrived just after midnight after a burglar alarm went off. A male suspect was seen running away into a neighborhood. A search by officers and a police dog couldn't find him. A police dog and SWAT team were used to make sure no more suspects were in the school in the 1000 block of East Mercer Street." Nothing on the district website. Also from the PI about the SPS and the swine flu , there was an article today. Unfortunately, the only thing it really said about SPS was : "Seattle Public Schools are stocking up on surgical masks, revamping their health curriculum, and preparing for a flu pandemic." I'm hoping the district will send home in the first day packets next week a sheet on what parents should do and what the district will do. I wonder if teachers will add hand sanitizer to the list of t...

The new start time proposal that will be presented at the School Board meeting tomorrow night not only returns to the 8:00 am middle school/high school/K-8 start time and the 9:15 am elementary school start time, but it also includes a return to some very vague language about which schools are impacted. The proposal says: Designated Elementary and K-8 Schools 8:00 AM to 2:30 PM Middle Schools 8:00 AM to 2:30 PM Elementary Schools 9:15 AM to 3:25 PM (With individual exceptions to accommodate shared school bus service) So does that mean that Lowell and Thurgood Marshall are back on the early start time list? Or are some other unsuspecting elementary schools going to be added? And which K-8 schools had enough influence with Ruth Medsker to get off the early start time list? And how about this interesting tidbit: "Individual schools may request a waiver from these times provided that the requesting school funds any additional transportation cost." So if your PTSA can rai...

I am not able to attend the Lowell meeting tonight so if there are attendees, could you let us know how it goes?

A friend said that she might get a chance to meet with a Board member about the proposed APP split and asked me if I could sketch out the reasons that the split should not go forward at this time. I'm a habitual self-plagerizer, so once having written something I cannot resist the temptation to re-use it. Here is what I sent as reasons that the District should not move forward with the split. At the elementary level the primary reason that APP should not be split as part of the Capacity Management plan is the simple fact that the idea represents really poor capacity management. The plan tries to get 434 students, the number the District wants to put into Thurgood Marshall (see Appendix H, page 80) into a school that can only hold 366, the functional capacity of Thurgood Marshall (according to this report). That just isn't sound Capacity Managment. I suppose that they will manage somehow. They will probably repurpose an art room or a music room as a classroom. Ironically, in th...

Again, I'm confused. If Montlake is now part of the Lowell package and Lowell's building isn't closing, shouldn't the closed building (Montlake) have the public hearing? Or are both ideas still on the table (close Lowell building and disperse the students to two other sites OR close Montlake, move them to Lowell and take half of Lowell's population to one other site)? Even if both are on the table, that would mean, legally, that the district couldn't close either building without the formal public hearing for each and yet I don't see one scheduled for Montlake? Montlake also has a nice " Save Montlake " site. Sadly, their school survey closed. It had some interesting questions especially the hypothetical one about whether parents would be willing to pitch in to pay for a new building (can they do that? That would be one for the record books).

The amount of change being proposed for the Central cluster is mind-boggling. By my count, 8 schools in the cluster are affected by the current proposal. And, on top of that, the proposed changes to the APP program, which affect students from all over the city, is part of the mix. Add in the couple of proposed changes to the Queen Anne/Magnolia cluster and the whole thing is messy. Out of the whole thing, I think the proposed closure of the Center School is the worst idea. With Summit either being closed or reduced to a K-8, the closure of the Center School would leave only Nova as an alternative school option for 9-12 graders. Not all students who want/need an alternative high school learning environment will do well in Nova's program. The Center School differs greatly from Nova and provides some students the small 9-12 alternative option they need. I don't know enough about all the other schools and programs (T.T. Minor, Bailey-Gazert, Thurgood Marshall, Montlake, Lowell...

The latest word (to my understanding) is this: Lowell to remain open. Montlake to close and move to Lowell with "northern" Lowell APP kids. Southern/central APP kids to Thurgood Marshall. So, indeedy. Three schools in three years for my to-be-second-grader. Thank you, Seattle Schools.

Thank you to Beth for inviting guest bloggers. I moved to Seattle in the summer of 2006 and enjoyed (cough) the project of enrolling my kindergarten-aged child in the public schools months after the school choice period. After weathering a mistaken placement, my daughter landed in the Montessori program at T.T. Minor. While we were happy with her experience with the program, and enjoyed being able to take her to a neighborhood school that we could walk to from home and work, we moved her to Lowell this fall to start first grade. So now both schools are slated for closure, and my daughter will perhaps be on to school #3. I am gathering from various discussions and blogs that this closure shuffle and the attendant displacement and displeasure is something of a biannual rite. At least, I suppose, I do not have to second-guess my decision to move her to one school from the other.