Seattle Schools Community Forum

The Times had an article yesterday about the new head boys basketball coach at Hale and what looks to be a very competitive team - as in competitive at both the state and national level.  Hale is now ranked as 22nd in the nation.  Two of Hale's games this year will be televised nationally.  Sixty students tried out and 14 made the team. I had reported earlier this year that former NBA All-Star Brandon Roy was taking the head coaching job at Hale.  He receives $6,000 a year for his work, just like all the other SPS coaches.  Roy had wanted to coach at UW but chose to coach at Hale. Coach Roy appears to have made his presence at Hale known to top high school boys basketball prospects and got one of the most highly-sought after high school players in the country, Michael Porter, Jr., from Missouri.  Porter's brother, Jontay, is also playing on the team.

Today's walkout at Hale .  From 350 Seattle: Nathan Hale High School students organized a ‪#‎ ClimateStrike‬ walk out today on the first day of Paris talks. About 100 students with flags signs and banners p rotested chanting "Climate Justice" and "Solar Power" at a busy intersection. Students who participated told the school, braved the cold, and were marked absent. The student club formed about a month ago.

The Executive Committee of the Whole will meet tomorrow.  The agenda includes this: Plaintiff is a former student at Nathan Hale High School who alleges that on February 11, 2010, he was weightlifting at school and sustained a significant back injury. He claims that the District failed to properly supervise this activity. This case is currently scheduled for trial in King County Superior Court in late June. The instructor and principal are also current defendants in the lawsuit. Based on all the relevant facts, it is the recommendation of the Acting General Counsel and the outside counsel defending the District that this lawsuit should be settled at this time for $325,000, rath er than allowing this case to proceed to trial. If the Superintendent is authorized to settle this case, a Settlement and Release will be drafted and Plaintiff will release all claims and dismiss the lawsuit against all defendants in exchange for the $325,000 payment.  - also, the Resolution...

I see that Ballard High School is celebrating two big sports wins. The girls Fastpitch team took the Metro championship beating West Seattle. The boys soccer team took the Metro championship, beating Roosevelt. As well, the Chief Sealth girls track team members of the 4x100 won first in the Metro-All City Track meet yesterday. Update: Nathan Hale's girls varsity Ultimate team took the Metro championship beating Franklin. Good job to all who the students who worked so hard and competed.

I titled this thread "Early Warning" because I believe we are starting to see the signs of some major upheaval. First, I'd like to just take a pulse about opting out.   If you feel comfortable, could you comment if you are opting your child(ren) out of the SBAC and at what school (or, if not the school, the region - NE, NW, Central, WS, SW or SE)?  You don't have to give grade level, gender or names, of course.   As well, let us know if this is a source of open discussion or quiet discussion and if you are getting pushback from staff. Next, I believe the Charter Commission will be releasing a statement soon - probably in the next couple of days - that they will either be suspending First Place Scholars ' charter or closing it down entirely.  This will be sad but my impression is that the new Board/Director at First Place have not been able to meet the requirements set out by the Charter Commission when FP was placed on probation.  Lastly, below is ...

Vermont says no .  From the Vermont government website, an op-ed by a member of their Board of Education: On Tuesday, March 17, 2015, the Vermont State Board of Education unanimously voted to suspend the use of Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) scores for the 2014-2015 school year for the purpose of annual school evaluation determinations. These English Language Arts and Mathematics assessments were developed to measure student mastery of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), which were adopted in 2010. Until students' education has been guided by the new standards and schools have practiced administering and interpreting SBAC, the results will not support reliable and valid inferences about student performance and should not be used as the basis for any consequential purpose. Unless empirical studies confirm a sound relationship between performance on the SBAC and critical and valued life outcomes ("college and career-ready"), test res...

Education Funding Town Hall with State Legislators from Districts 36, 43 and 46 Nathan Hale High School Gymnasium 10750 30th Ave. NE Saturday, March 21st from 10am-11:30 am I'm think there could be a variety of education topics including SBAC (given it's at Hale). As well, if David Frockt shows up from the 46th that could be interesting given his support of the Senate bill that includes test scores for teacher evaluations.  I also note that in the Feb. 2015 edition of the Hale student newspaper, The Sentinel, principal Jill Hudson is quoted in a story about SBAC for 11th graders: I don't think we should demoralize our students by giving them a test where the test makers have already decided that 60-70% of our students are going to fail." I won't debate this issue of whether the test makers meant "fail" rather than not pass but I give Principal Hudson credit for speaking out. Also in the newspaper, a student speaks out about "honors...

Sent March 5 Dear Principal Hudson and the Nathan Hale Senate: We, the undersigned teachers of Schmitz Park, join with the Nathan Hale Senate in its concerns over the validity, reliability, and equity of SBAC (Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium) including the questionable cut score strategy.  Like the Nathan Hale Senate, we are also concerned with the loss of instructional time devoted to this questionable test.  We stand with you in asserting a commitment to a judicious use of valid, reliable, and equitable assessments.  We urge parents to inform themselves about the tests their children are taking and the validity of those tests. Thank you for putting students first. Sincerely, (signed by the majority of teachers at Schmitz Park)

According to this story in the Seattle Times , State schools superintendent Randy Dorn is threatening to withhold funding if Seattle's Nathan Hale High School doesn't administer the SBAC tests to 11th graders.

The Nathan Hale Senate (effectively their BLT) voted "nearly unanimously" to not give the SBAC to their juniors this year.  (They had also recently voted to not give the PSAT to 10th graders at all.) The Nathan Hale Senate–a body made up of the teachers, administrators, parents and students–voted nearly unanimously that this test was inappropriate. The vote was taken after careful consideration and much discussion and inquiry, including two school community forums — one of which included University of Washington professor of education and renowned scholar on high-stakes testing, Wayne Au.) Reasons for refusing the SBAC for 11th graders included (summary):

Update: coverage from the West Seattle blog about the opening of Fairmount Park.   end of update I attended the press conference and ribbon-cutting at Jane Addams Middle School today.  Quite eye-opening. First, it's a good thing that Hale and JAMS don't start at the same time.  I note that 35th Avenue NE is closed south from Hale for about two blocks.  And, Seattle Public Utilities appears to be doing work along NE110th, right in front of Hale.  Two guys told me, yes, they'll be back tomorrow. Press conference I was a little surprised at the number of media who didn't show up, given the start of a new year and a new superintendent.  But they may have thought that they would get some canned answers and sadly, that's what Superintendent delivered.

The majority of high schools, comprehensive and alternative, will start at 7:50 am (ten minutes earlier than last year) and end at 2:20 pm.  This includes Cleveland STEM, World School and South Lake. The outliers are Center School (8:30 am-3:10 pm), Chief Sealth (8:40 am- 3:10 pm), Hale (8:40 am-3:10 pm) and Nova (8:30 am - 3:00 pm).  So Center School I get because of its location.  Sealth because it's a joint campus with Denny and the district promised to not have the middle school and high school kids come to school at the same time.  Nova?  Well, it is a project-based alternative school so I get that. But Hale? It lives a charmed life and has been able to keep their late start for years (and to this day).   (I personally have never seen any advocacy from Hale's administration for this kind of benefit for other high schools. ) Also, how is that it's okay for Nova, Hale and Sealth all to deliver 10 minutes less a day to students than other high sch...

Is this discussion over enrollment numbers and school funding still happening where you are? Because apparently, it's still an issue for Nathan Hale High.  Hale parents are being notified, via a Hale parent group, that the district is underestimating their enrollment (by less than 20 students) and it will reduce their funding.  They say they have had a waitlist for years and don't understand why this is happening.  Unfortunately, this issue is pitting school against school as the notification goes on to say that the district is not moving their waitlist because some of the students on the list would be from the Roosevelt High School area and Roosevelt would then lose students.  I don't follow this line of thinking because it presumes that Roosevelt is lobbying for Hale's list not to move.  Are schools really looking over their shoulders at other schools?  Could be. But if the district is not moving waitlists (and looking to see if a school has had a w...

I had reason to check in at the Nathan Hale website and discovered their fine student newspaper , The Sentinel .  Very long (I haven't seen such a long student newspaper since I was in high school) and boy, they pack the news in.  (I note that The Sentinel took first place at a Western Washington University student journalism competition recently.)  From a front-page article, it seems that staff may ask the district/state for a waiver on the extra hours as they believe they are already " successful in all the parameters they're looking at compared to other schools..."   Their article on the change for several SPS high schools to the Metro football league is a great and informative one.   I also found great amusement in the first-person column of the Features editor about his relationship with time and being on time.  " I was born without a sense of urgency ." They mix the important with the sublime (a first-person plea about a treaty in...

Called "Rich Blocks, Poor Blocks", a very interesting map of income/rent across the U.S .  Zeroing down to Seattle, you can clearly see the delineation of income in our city. You may have heard that there is work going on around the city for new low-power FM stations for different regions.  One might be coming out of Ballard High via science teacher, Eric Muhs,  (a la the mighty C89.5FM at Nathan Hale High). At one school in NYC, for children K-2, 80% of the parents opted out of testing , effectively shutting it down.  From the New York Daily News : Students at the 36 “early education” schools are too young to take the regular state reading and math exams, so the littlest kids are sitting down for different tests As the Daily News reported earlier this month, such exams, given to kids as young as 4, require students to fill in bubbles to show their answers. In one of the more "let's just stir the pot" columns from Education Week , teacher and...

From SPS Communications: Symetra and the Seattle Seahawks honored Nathan Hale High School teacher Doug Edelstein as a “Symetra Hero in the Classroom” on Sept. 18, during a classroom presentation. Edelstein is a Social Studies instructor for Grades 10–11. “Doug Edelstein is a remarkable individual and educator, who is celebrating his 20th year as a teacher. He has given his heart and soul to students at Rainier Beach High School, Cleveland High School and now Nathan Hale High School. I have had the pleasure of working with him since 1999 and consider him a mentor and a role model,” said Jessica Torvik, a teaching colleague.  Edelstein is one of 16 K–12 teachers across the Puget Sound area who will be honored for educational excellence in the Symetra "Heroes in the Classroom" program during the 2013 NFL season. Teachers are recognized in front of their students and peers at surprise in-school presentations, and they receive a $1,000 donation for classroom bo...

Big meteor shower this weekend (Perseid by name).   It has just turned cloudy here (and boy, what a lightening/thunderstorm last night) but if the clouds part.  From My Northwest: "If you watched for an hour in a typical Perseid shower, you'd probably see about 70 meteors, maybe a meteor per minute," says University of Washington astronomy professor Julie Lutz. "Some would be brighter than others. And the darker the place you can get to, the more meteors you're going to see."  It's called the Perseid shower because the meteors come from the constellation of Perseus rising in the northeast in the late evening.  "The best time to view it is around or after midnight, although right after it gets dark, you might see a few meteors. Just look to the northeast sky and you'll see it," says professor Lutz.  On the night of Aug. 10-11, the night before the peak, NASA will conduct a live web chat to watch the meteor shower from 11 p...

First up, some good news from SPS Communications: The McClure Middle School boys team won first place in the Team Relay Heat of Erg Ed’s Indoor Rowing Championship. In second place were the Pathfinder K-8 girls, and in third place were the Madrona K-8/Broadview-Thomson K-8 team. Launched in 2010, Erg Ed is a classroom-based indoor rowing education program operating as part of Seattle Public School's physical education curriculum.  In partnership with Seattle Public Schools, Erg Ed is currently provided at 14 middle and K-8 schools across the city.  With more than 800 pledges, Roosevelt High School let it be known loud and clear that they are against texting and driving . And to celebrate this massive turnout for the "Save it Seattle" campaign, Roosevelt welcomed Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson to their campus March 22. The Verizon Wireless "Save It Seattle” contest challenged students at four Seattle high schools to take a pledge against textin...

Well, color me surprised because I just did a spot-check of graduation requirements at some of our SPS high schools.  SPS requires 20 credits to graduate.  I'm not printing everything required but here are some basics: LA - 3 credits Social Studies - 3 credits Science - 2 credits PE - 2 credits What I jogged me to look this up was a comment I read that The Center School is a "prep" high school and has higher graduation requirements than SPS.  So I checked.  Indeed they do. They require 22 credits.