Seattle Schools Community Forum

From Sped PTSA: Please be assured that the October Seattle Special Education PTSA meeting IS STILL BEING HELD on October 20th 7pm - 9pm at West Seattle High School (in the library).  Confirmed speakers are: Israel Vela Executive Director of Schools Southwest Region Seattle Public Schools And Mike Starosky, Chief of Schools. *Please Note - There is some confusion as our meeting was to originally be held directly after the Seattle School Districts SpEd Regional meeting.  The SPS SpEd Department cancelled their meeting. They have rescheduled their Regional Meeting to Nov. 10th. The Seattle SpEd PTSA has decided to keep our meeting as it was originally scheduled on Oct. 20th. Please help spread the word, and pass this information on! Thank you. We hope to see you there! Rainier Beach High School  RBHS is holding a transportation summit on Thursday, October 22nd around the number of kids at the school who have to walk there thru unsafe terr...

From SPS Communications: The Washington Art Education Association (WAEA) announced two Seattle Public Schools’ teachers as Educators of the Year for the elementary and middle school levels. Jennifer Lundgren of Montlake Elementary School and Jennifer Heller of Eckstein Middle School received the award based on their accomplished teaching.

I attended Director Martin-Morris' this morning and yes, it was all growth boundaries.  It was an interesting discussion because it was so specific in some cases (and rightly so - you look at the maps and the lines and have to wonder) and broader in others.  I was pleasantly surprised at some of what Director Martin-Morris said (and his tone).  Unfortunately, I can't recap right (no time) but I will try to do so soon. But I put this up as an open thread in case anyone went to Director DeBell's community meeting and would like to report back. Update: Meeting Minutes There were about 15 people there, all impatient to talk with Harium. Issues discussed:

 Updates: - there were full tables and most were about one school or area.  There was a Coe table, a Beacon Hill table (with some hard facts about the changes for that area), a TT Minor table, Montlake, etc. - I found these to be people who knew their facts and, if they didn't, wanted to find out more.  One man pushed back against the format, asking why staff couldn't explain who thought up the boundaries and explain them.  He was told they just wanted "comments and feedback."  I don't think many were satisfied with that answer. -Rep Jamie Pedersen was there and he spoke as a father of four (one in school).  I think he's getting a good picture of the issues. Takeaways : - this region HAS had a lot of push-pull from the district.  I honestly had not realized how bad it has been.   And, like other regions, the boundaries are NOT taking into account established "community boundaries or geographical features.  For example, one are...

Monday, September 30th Growth Boundaries meeting at Meany from 6:30-8:00 pm Tuesday, Oct 1st Special Education Advisory and Advocacy Council Meeting from 6:30-9:30 pm at JSCEE, room 2700 Growth Boundaries meeting at Ballard High School Commons from 6:30-8:00 pm Wednesday, Oct. 2nd School Board Meeting from 4:15 pm to 8:00 pm.  Agenda . It's quite a light agenda and this should be a fairly short meeting.  One item of note is acceptance of work performed for Montlake and Thornton Creek.  It's of interest because of the number of times the district performs upgrades to old buildings like Montlake and, if  you totaled all the money put into these buildings over the years, it would have been simpler and better to just rebuild.  Another item is the acceptance of all the portables purchased, moved and set-up for various school sites.  The costs is nearly $1M.  This part of the project will provide 25 classrooms for 10 schools.  (The o...

There was much of interest discussed at last week's Operations Committee meeting. I think the Capacity Management issue will be a bigger item of interest but as I stated previously, I'm still waiting for some documents to be on-line so that I can link to them. There were three documents related to Facilities (not including the monthly summary which is almost useless). Two were labeled "Annual Report" but I'm not sure anyone would think of them as reports. (One page, both sides? Considering all the work done in a year on facilities, how is that a report?) The first was was an annual report on " BTA Related Information ." It reviewed the work need to be done in seven weeks to get BTA projects done on Queen Anne, Rainier View and Viewlands. (The seven-week period was not specified so I don't know when they are talking about. Summer?) They point out that there are many unknowns in the work. Now look, I get that some of these b...

OSPI announced its list of 2010 Washington Achievement Award winners . There are several Seattle schools on the list (a couple notable for being named in two places) but there aren't many. From OSPI: The Washington Achievement Award: Is awarded collaboratively with the State Board of Education (SBE) and based on the Washington Achievement Index. Celebrates schools for overall excellence and special recognition in: language arts, math, science, graduation rate, improvement and closing achievement gaps. Honors schools at an annual ceremony hosted by the SBE and OSPI. OSPI uses statewide assessment data from the past three years to make their selections. OSPI wants to recognize the efforts of schools and their families into making good schools happen. So what SPS schools are on the list? Overall Excellence Bryant* - Concord Int'l* - Coe - Hay* - Loyal Heights* - McGilvra* - Montlake* - Schmitz Park - Mercer* - Blaine K-8 Language Arts Nova Math Loyal Heights - Schmitz Park Sc...

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...