Seattle Schools Community Forum

From Beacon Hill parents: On Monday, June 8th, Lester "Flip" Herndon from Seattle Public Schools came to Kimball to let us know that SPS staff will now recommend to the School Board that Kimball-area kids stay assigned to Mercer Middle School for the foreseeable future, instead of Washington Middle School.

Monday, December 17th Capacity Management meeting for the NE area from 6:30-8 p.m. at Olympic Hills cafeteria, 13018 20th Avenue Tuesday, December 18th Audit&Finance Quarterly Audit Meeting from 4-7 p.m.  Agenda .  Much of this is the higher-level work of this committee - internal audit, external audit, risk management.  The last hour of this committee is just for committee members to discuss labor negotiations. Superintendent Meeting with Pacific Islander Community from 6-8 p.m. at RBHS Wednesday, December 19th Enrollment Services close at noon. Board Work Session on International Education/Wallace Grant update from 4-5:30 p.m.  (The Wallace Grant is an arts grant that the district worked very hard to get.  I believe it's in its second year.  I'll check but I think it was a planning grant and not an implemented one.)  Here's what we had at the blog in April 2012 when this grant was first announced: Seattle Public Schools was recen...

I will say at the outset that there has to be something the Board can do to make Work Sessions work better.  Staff takes took much time explaining their lengthy presentations. President DeBell said at the beginning the Board should only ask clarifying questions during the presentation and leave big questions for the discussion at the end. As usual, though,  they ran out of time as the staff couldn't get to thru the presentation in the time allotted.   9I know staff wants to explain but they waste time at the beginning going over what the Board already knows.  It's fine to have a longer written presentation but that doesn't mean going over every page during the presentation.)  There was also this document, Service Area Analysis. The community meeting next week on BEX/Capacity Management on Tuesday the 11th was noted.  We were told there would be some way to listen to the meeting via computer but I'll have to get details on how that will work.

Monday, December 3rd Community Meeting with Director McLaren from 6-8 p.m. at High Point Center, 6400 Sylvan Way SW Wednesday, December 5th Board Work Session On Capacity Management and NSAP/Transition from 4:00 -5:30 p.m.  No agenda yet available. I will note a few items related to these issues that may come up at the Work  Session that were discussed at the Operations Ctm meeting on November 15th. Tracy Libros noted that there may be potential impacts from "scheduled/approved sunsetting of transportation if students return to attendance area schools.   There are about 1800 students this could affect.  Hard to know if this would be a major impact as many parents might not choose to change schools for their student once they are established.  However, with the capacity crunch the district has, almost any number in the wrong place could be a problem.  One key spot is West Seattle Elementary where 109 students at other schools could possibly chose ...

I attended the press conference today about the 2012-2013 Transition Plan and short-term capacity management options.   (I also listened to the public input from the Board meeting about this issue.) It was actually a full house of reporters so look for something on the tv news.  There was nothing new but here are some of the highlights:

Prior to last week's Board meeting, there was a Board Work Session on the 2012-2013 Student Assignment Plan (vis a vis capacity management).  Highlights: they will be trying to link schools with fewer ELL services to those with more to provide more access to students who need those services they will be starting the new " World School " for SBOC at Meany.  I'm not sure exactly what this entails for Special Ed , they are going to try to do the same linking idea as for ELL students.  for Advanced Learning , they want to try to figure out what is a "real" ALO and what guidelines are given for schools that want ALOs.  Good question but you'd think AL would be able to answer that one right now.  Kay said she wants to see consistency in ALOs.  Tracy said the IB process at RBHS is moving along well. for International Education , they have feeder patterns set up except for needed two more elementaries for Denny.  The Superintendent said these woul...

FYI, the next FACMAC meeting is this Friday, Dec. 2nd from 10-noon at the Stanford Center, Room 3802.   I am sorry to say this but I think there is a lot of confusion still and frankly, this meeting only served to exacerbate it.  That's my impression.

The district now has its committee in place.  There are about 32 members.  It breaks down roughly like this: 2 each from the 7 director district regions (14) 2 each from the four special program areas (ELL, Spec. Ed, AL, Alts)  (8) 2 from the Seattle Council PTSA (2) 2 from the City of Seattle government (2) 2 at-large community reps with technical expertise (2) 2 student reps (2) 2 ad-hoc community reps ("for communications) (2) I do know that Kellie LaRue is on the Committee and this is great news as she knows her stuff and knows how to ask the hard questions.

District One Candidates were interviewed on KUOW yesterday on Weekday .  They were interviewed separately and each had different questions.  (I get this for incumbents versus challengers but overall, I'd like to see the answer from all to at least one question that is the same.) Sharon Peaslee was first up.  She came across to me as strong and confident with ready answers.   She was asked about her assertion that there was too much "top-down" governance and what she would change.  She said she would bring back site councils or strengthen BLTs, put the needs of students and schools first and allow math teachers to use whatever materials they needed to teach math.   She also mentioned replacing MAP testing with another called ALEX(?) which I couldn't find info on so if someone has a link, please let us know. Peter Maier was next and like all incumbents spoke well (although I felt he mumbled a bit and I was having a hard time understanding what he was s...

As I previously posted, yesterday's meetings got started late.  I had been there for 3 hours and they still had not gotten to the meat of the Work Session.   It was pretty frustrating but again, they ALWAYS believe they can get through work quickly.   I can only say that maybe if this district would quit getting poor audits then yes, they would have had more time at the Work Session.  Also, I knew from looking at the Powerpoint that there was no way to get through the information in an hour-and-a-half.  So what I heard from the first part of the Work Session is below.  I am hoping that others who attended and stayed longer can report back on the solutions portion of the meeting and, in particular, what the discussion was with the Board directors. It was Pegi McEvoy, Operations, and Bob Boesche, CFO, reporting to the Board.  They first went over the Demographic Task Force Report.   One theme here is communications.  Ever...

Here is the presentation from today's Work Session on the Strategic Plan with survey results.

Here's a link to the SPS webpage. The automatic enrollment/waitlist number is 252-0410 - you must have student's ID # and birthdate. (Thanks to all for the updates.)  

Our friends at the West Seattle blog have some good stories from West Seattle schools.

The information comes from the April 13th meeting of the Executive Committee.  The three Committee members - DeBell, Sundquist and Smith-Blum -  were in attendance.

From KUOW's The Conversation producer, David Hyde: We’re doing a show tomorrow that’s tentatively titled, “what are you doing to get your kid into K-12 school? (public or private).”  I’m looking for people who can tell us their personal stories on the air sometime between 12:40 and 1 pm tomorrow.  If you know anyone with an interesting story to tell please pass this on, and I can call in the morning to discuss it (between 9 and 10:30 am).  I would need two numbers:  the 12:40 and 1 pm number (land line).  And the morning / backup cell number. Or if any of your blog readers is interested, they can call our feedback line and leave a message (with contact information) @ 206 221 3663.   

Just to remind you that Open Enrollment ends this Friday, the 15th at  4 p.m .  Postmarks do NOT count.  Here's a link to the enrollment page for more info. Also, know an outstanding educator or education volunteer?  KCTS Channel 9 is accepting nominations for their Golden Apple Award .  Any person contributing time or services in Washington state schools from pre-K through grade 12 can be nominated. Nominations can be made online at KCTS9.org/goldenapple or you can request a nomination form by calling (800) 766-0900. Nomination forms must be postmarked by April 30.   The Good News - Washington Middle School student, Deanta Kelly, won the Regional Spelling Bee for King and Snohomish Counties and will advance to the Nationals (it appears there isn't a state championship).  It looks grueling with 3 rounds over 2 days in Washington, D.C. in June.   Deanta won on the word "obfuscatory." I can't spell well at all so I am always v...

ParentsCare is a group working on issues around Special Education for SPS students with special needs.  They are taking a survey and would like your help, whether you are a parent of a Special Ed student or not.   From their e-mail: We invite parents of SPS students to participate in a survey for families with students who are assigned to new schools next year, typically the 5th and 8th graders.  We ran a sample survey in our corner of the district and will post a sample of our results is in the Attachments section "2011 SPS Riser Assignment Survey".  It would be nice to see if we get results from across the district. We are trying to measure family agreement with the New Student Assignment Plan with emphasis on the riser process.  A student "riser" is a student who changes schools or program.  For example, from elementary to middle school and middle school to high school are two riser situations for most students. If your student is not ...

As we all know, the District has intentionally made language immersion programs at attendance area schools. This works directly against the District's stated goal of equitable access to programs. It's just bad in every way. It's getting worse. When building the feeder pattern for language immersion programs, the District wants to have two elementary schools feeding into each middle school and, then, into one high school. If the second elementary school program were placed in a school in another middle school service area, but adjacent to the middle school service area of the language program middle school, then access to the program could be extended to students in another service area. For example, if the second school with language immersion in the north-end were at Green Lake, then students in the Eckstein service area (theoretically) would have access to a language immersion program as well as students in the Hamilton service area. The District, however, has rejec...

The District has quietly announced the number of open choice seats available at attendance area high schools in the fall. Nice transparency. This represents a clear failure to keep the commitment of maintaining choice by reserving seats for out-of-area students at every high school. Here's a link to the table . High School Open Choice Seats for 2011‐12 School. . . .Grade. . . Seats. . .% Ballard. . . . 9. . . . . 21 . . . 5% Ballard. . . .10. . . . . 41 . . .10% Franklin . . . 9. . . . . 38 . . .10% Franklin . . .10. . . . . 21 . . . 6% Garfield . . . 9. . . . . 0. . . . 0% Garfield . . .10. . . . . 0. . . . 0% Ingraham . . . 9. . . . . 32 . . .10% Ingraham . . .10. . . . . 32 . . .10% Nathan Hale. . 9. . . . . 32 . . .10% Nathan Hale. .10. . . . . 6 . . . 2% Rainier Beach. 9. . . . . 31 . . .10% Rainier Beach.10. . . . . 31 . . .10% Roosevelt. . . 9. . . . . 43 . . .10% Roosevelt. . .10. . . . . 21 . . . 5% Chief Sealth . 9. . . . . 0 . . . 0% Chief...

I previous attached the documents from this Work Session to another thread.  I'll put forth what was said but right up front - it is so frustrating but I believe I understand the method to their madness. I'll be blunt - I think the district is growing and will continue to grow.  We have a new student assignment plan that added another layer of complexity to that growth.  What that means to some schools is that they are going to have to man up and buck up.  Portables, using your school's stage, whatever can get you through the next 3-5 years.  I believe the district has sympathy for these schools but really, they've got bigger problems.   Somebody once said that "change is hard" and my friends, that means you get to be the ones to suffer through this change.