Seattle Schools Community Forum

It would seem a simple enough premise - Mayor Murray cares about students in Seattle and wants to find new/effective/supportive ways to help students enrolled in Seattle Public Schools (heck, maybe even the kids in so-called charter schools but that's unclear.)  Here's what's been happening so far. The agenda was published this week.  (See below.)  The Summit is this Saturday, starting at 9:00 am.  T hey have moved it to Garfield High School's Commons due to popular demand.  ( I am a bit mystified about that location, despite it being in a central location.  The street Garfield is on - 23rd - has major construction going on and Garfield has very little of its own parking.  They are warning people about the traffic and have a list of parking lots for attendees to access.) They will be serving a free lunch. So the first half of the Summit is sitting and listing to a lot of people talk?  And why Michael Tolley and not Steve Nielsen or the Superi...

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...

Just an FYI, courtesy of the Stranger Slog. Next year, along with becoming council president, Harrell will chair the Education, Equity, and Governance Committee, a new spin on what's now called the Education and Governance Committee.  Bruce Harrell is the new president of the City Council AND will head the committee overseeing education.  The Vice-Chair is Lorena Gonzalez, Debora Juarez, Member and Tim Burgess, Alternate. That is not the line-up I would want to see if public education in Seattle is to continue operating independently, but in partnership with, the City. Harrell cares about public ed but between his new presidency and the fact he's not the most active City Councilman, I worry about who will really be directing that committee.  Given that the Vice-Chair is closely connected to the Mayor, I have to wonder. I also wanted to mention the conversation I had with the Mayor recently.  It was at a holiday event so it was not lengthy. 

There is a letter to the Seattle Times from the co-chairs of the Mayor's HALA Committee (on housing which put out a report recently with 65 recommendations). The Committee has not been happy with Seattle Times' columnist, Danny Westneat, who put out some advance news on their recommendations. The Mayor blamed the media for overblowing one recommendation that would change single family neighborhood zoning. Then, the Committee got really mad when Westneat exposed that all their meetings were held in private.  Westneat stated that the Mayor had the legal right to do this but for a committee making such major changes, it seems an odd thing to do.  Many, like state Rep Gerry Pollet said this in Westneat's column of July 31, 2015, "Had Murray set this up in a public fashion, it never would have imploded on him like this." "you would have had people watching and commenting throughout."   He noted that he thought "... people wouldn't have been tota...

We all know - from photos, tv, etc - what a pixel is.  It's a tiny picture element - a point - to a larger picture.  You can't tell from one pixel what the picture is. Lately, I have been seeing several notable series of pixels that seem to be gathering speed to create the big picture.  This is a profile of one of those pixels. The big picture that I see gathering speed is that this district is being set-up for a transformation.  I would say set up for a fall but mostly a picture seems to be forming so that the district can look like it's in very bad condition but, simultaneously, that it's nobody in senior leadership's fault.  (Yes, that's quite the feat but I think that's how it's going to get played). I believe our district is being set-up to be taken over, at some point, by the Mayor and others in power in the city.    I think - like Bill Gates - they are frustrated (and, in some cases, rightly so) with the pace of student academic gains in ...

An update if you were thinking of going to the COW meeting this afternoon which says it will be about the search firm for the selection of our next superintendent. There had been a notation on the agenda that it might not happen so I checked in with the ever-sunny Theresa Hale at the Board office. It seems that the Executive Session last night ran over three hours and, they didn't get finished.  (You may recall this was about a review of Superintendent Nyland which seems kind of soon given he just got here six months ago.) So the COW meeting won't happen until that Executive Session is finished.   Meaning, you could go down there, wait until the Executive Session is finished and hope that they then commence the COW meeting.  Or, you could go down and be disappointed if the Board takes longer, is exhausted and then postpones the COW meeting. I get all this except for one thing.  As it turns out, I am getting some very pronounced vibes - both from s...

Update : I note that neither the Mayor's Facebook nor Twitter account mention the State of the District event at all.  The Mayor sat there for an hour and a half with elected leaders in our city and it was not enough to note on either social media. End of update It was a packed, smallish room for this event.  There was nothing that happened in that room that could not have happen at JSCEE.  Alliance head, Sara Morris, introduced many of the notables in the room. There were a lot of district staff there (including PE teachers who saw their leader, Lori Dunn, speak about their work).  Elected officials included  Mayor Murray, City Councilman Burgess, Senator Pedersen, Rep. Carlyle, Rep. Walkinshaw, Rep. Pollet,  Directors Blanford, Peaslee, Patu, Martin-Morris and McLaren and Jonathan Knapp (SEA).  Ms. Morris also went out of her way to tie the event to John Stanford (which I'm pretty sure he didn't start).  I note that the Allianc...

You ask, the mayor answers during a live broadcast of Ask the Mayor , 7 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 22 , from Seattle City Hall, 600 Fourth Ave. Ask the Mayor’s format features a live audience and a topic of focus during the second half of the hour-long program. During the first half of the show, Mayor Ed Murray will join host Brian Callanan to discuss a range of city issues. Murray will answer questions posed by a live audience as well as viewer inquiries submitted via e-mail and social media.  In the second half of the program, Callanan and Mayor Murray will discuss his 2015-2016 budget proposal. Mayor Murray submitted a 2015-2016 budget that expands funding for priorities in education , worker protections, public safety and support for the homeless. The mayor is also proposing to bring new transparency to the city budget, including increased accountability for program outcomes and improved access to information on city finances. The City Council has begun their re...

In one of the most shameful and disrespectfully written editorials I've ever read in the Times, they urge the Mayor and the City Council to make taking over the majority of the Seattle School Board positions a top legislative priority. It's a funny thing because I JUST today wrote the Board about a couple of other issues but warned them of this.  Now we all know there is no love between me and the Times so no one gave me a heads up.  You could have seen this coming from the signs put out by Burgess and Murray a mile away. Here's what I just told the Board in an e-mail: No, I'm not clairvoyant - I just can see where Mayor Murray and Councilman Burgess are heading. This from the Seattle Times: But the value of a city department of education is diluted as long as the Seattle school board (sic) remains mired in dysfunction.  With the elected board whipsawed by ideologies and personalities, Seattle is now looking at its fifth superintendent in a decade.  It i...

Because I know that Sacajawea 's principal got notified last night, at the last possible minute, that the district had cut 1.0 FTE at the school.  "Decreased enrollment" was the reason but it has been suggested that many parents got spooked by no bus service outside the boundaries.  (And it's no picnic for those who live within the boundaries as it is an area without sidewalks.)  This may be happening at other schools so if you know families who have not yet enrolled a student, ask them to get it done soon.  Otherwise, you might wonder what happened to that teacher or staff member you liked so much at your school when you don't see that person in September.  It's not that the district doesn't have the right to do this but what about common decency?   I am reminded about morals and decency from attending the Mayor's announcement today of the Seattle Preschool Program campaign for a ballot measure to provide funding for Seattle's pre-schoolers....