Seattle Schools Community Forum

Thursday, October 20th Operations Committee Meeting from 4:30-6:30 pm at JSCEE.  No agenda yet available. Again, I see that last Saturday, October 15th, there were four community meetings with directors and yet this week there are none.  It continues to puzzle me that the directors cannot try to space out meetings so that there is at least one per weekend.  To note: the Mayor and the Superintendent met to try to talk about a new high school at Seattle Center as the City thinks about revamping that area. 

From The Slog, news that Memorial Stadium will be used all three-days of Bumbershoot.  Here's hoping between allowing a women's soccer team, Reign FC,  to use the field and Bumbershoot, it's a shot of money that can be used to update that stadium.  Seattle's annual Labor Day arts festival Bumbershoot is moving its Mainstage from KeyArena to Memorial Stadium. Key had served that function for the last three years. Memorial Stadium's comeback comes with a new configuration.

Monday, January 20th No School in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Wednesday, January 22nd School Board Meeting , starting at 4:15 pm.  Agenda.   Note: there is to be an Executive Session after the Board meeting for 30 minutes. 

From Goldy over at The Slog (I had been wondering about this myself): Two-and-a-half years after promising to build a million-dollar playground in exchange for replacing a beloved kiddie amusement park with a for-profit glass "museum," gift shop, and catering hall , Seattle Center director Robert Nellams announced today they will begin seeking proposals from local design teams to build the "Artists at Play" children’s play area on three remaining acres of the former Fun Forest site. The playground is now scheduled to open in the summer of 2014. But according to Nellams, we should apparently be damn grateful for the generosity of its corporate sponsors. “I'd like to remind everyone that this is a donation from the Wright Family, from Chihuly," Nellams offered the council, unprompted. So if you're a local artist or designer interested in submitting a proposal, go to the Seattle Center website for details , and be sure to complete your sub...

Monday, April 29th Special meeting of Audit& Finance .  One single thing on the agenda - potential RIF presentation by HR head, Paul Apostle. Also, if you wish to speak at the School Board meeting on Wednesday, you can start calling/writing at 8 am on Monday. Tuesday, April 30th Charter Commission Meeting in Bellevue from 10 am - 5 p.m. at the Bellevue Arts Museum.  Agenda .  Open to the public (and people do come and go). They will be having an Executive Session first thing until 10:40 am.  They will then have a presentation about "charter school research findings" from the CRPE's Robin Lake.  (I have heard Ms. Lake speak before and she's a charter cheerleader. I'll be interested to see what the reaction is from the members.) Public Comment is at noon.  They are electing officers and any bets that Steve Sundquist won't be chair?  Mayoral forum from 6:30-9:00 pm at Garfield High School.  

It is always my intention to learn so I read whatever is handy.  So I was in a business office this past week and there was the Puget Sound Business Journal (which I don't regularly read).   So I'm reading this article about how the EMP wants a break on its rent.  (Apparently Paul Allen might not subsidize it forever.)  EMP agreed with the City that there would be rent increases every five years from the time it opened in 2000.  But now EMP is saying they are a non-profit (albeit fronted by one of the wealthiest men in the world) and they say they do lots of "cultural education" to local schoolchildren.  It is also mentioned in the artilce that EMP has an exclusive liquor license that means no new potential restaurants or bars at Seattle Center can serve liquor.  (Talk about a benefit.)  So the City did offer them a rent break in exchange for giving up that exclusivity but EMP said no.   (To which I would say, then sink or swim...

Earlier in the month the Board had a Work Session on BEX IV.  Here are some highlights and commentary. The beginning of the meeting saw staff go over the input from the BEX IV community meetings .  It was surprisingly thin.  All that was said was that there were 510 oral and written comments and that Option #2 received the most yes votes (although I later saw the numbers and it was close between #2 and #3).   Director Martin-Morris had to ask about how this informs the Board what the community is thinking on this issue.  Pegi McEvoy said that info in was in a Friday update that had been published two weeks prior.  Here's a link to the webpage on the community meetings for BEX IV. Head of Capital Building projects, Lucy Morello, said they would be carrying over some major maintenance from BTA III.  This puzzles me.  I thought we had a separation of BEX and BTA precisely so that each has its own discrete area.  This goes to the issu...

Wednesday, May 9th Executive Committee meeting, 8am-10am.  Agenda .  Highlights: Review of upcoming Board meetings Legislative session update Memorial Stadium (interesting because it is at this committee meeting and not Operations) community engagement (no idea what this might mean) redistricting Director district boundaries (I mentioned this previously; minor tweaks based on the legislative redistricting) transition issues (for our new superintendent) Director McLaren Community meeting - 12:30-2:30 p.m. at Southwest Library, 9010 35th Avenue SW Work Session: BEX IV from 4-5:30 p.m. Thursday, May 10th Audit&Finance Committee meeting from 4-6 p.m.  Agenda. Highlights: Lake City Lease termination Affirmative Action plan Policy 6882 - Leases and Sales of properties (I have never read this one so I don't know if it is new or a replacement.) Budget development update Friday, May 11th  BEX Oversight Committee meeting, from 8:30-10:30 am, Room...

(Update: Reader Dana let us know this meeting is not happening. See her post for details.) Monday the 14th - Eckstein's PTSA Parent Forum about inclusion in Spectrum classes. I will have to check if this is still going on; there is no information at the Eckstein website except the date. I'll probably pop up there to check it out if it is happening. Tuesday, the 15th, Board Curriculum and Instruction Committee meeting, 4:30-6:00 p.m. No details on the discussion here. Wednesday, the 16th, Steve Sundquist is having his Community Meeting from 10-11:30 am. I'm not sure where. Anyone? Also on Wednesday, the long-awaited Board Work Session on the Transition Plan from 4:30 -8:00 p.m. (It also says it is about the budget). I did write the Board and ask them to press for clarification on this "one-year transition rules" and what it means. Here's what I wrote: "Is the transition plan to be just for one year or is it a multi-year transition plan with a r...

According to an article in the Seattle Times, the deal between Seattle Public Schools and the City of Seattle over the Memorial Stadium acreage is just about done. I am honestly quite surprised as I thought the public would at least be given more than one option to consider and time to consider it. And, since this is a very busy time of year, it is quite convenient for both the City and the district to push this through without a lot of notice or question. (The article states that Ron English, the district lead on this one, OMG, says that the MOU is out there for all to see. Where?) There are two main issues to this problem. One, the district is in the driver's seat. They should NOT be greedy but considering their past issues with land usage and retention, they should proceed carefully and get the best deal possible. The citizens of Seattle are not the district's first priority - the students of SPS are. Two, how do we honor our war dead? That wall's purpose (and it's...

The Times has an article this morning about the City and the School Board making planning to tear down Memorial Stadium. This is wrong on several counts. First, to make clear the Seattle School District owns, outright, Memorial Stadium and the 9 prime acres of real estate it sits on. This is a very important piece of real estate if only because of the Memorial Wall. It is dedicated to those 700 Seattle high school students who went away to fight in WWII and did not come back. Some of their bodies were never found so that wall means a lot to their families. Moving away from the stadium really defeats the purpose. Now, has the district taken care of the wall properly? No. Have they really taken pains to make sure the athletes who use the stadium understand who came before them? No. They certainly can do better. Don't move the wall for design purposes. It is the home field for both football and soccer for at least 4 of the high schools and is used for graduations. I rec...