Seattle Schools Community Forum

South Shore K-8 is losing its award-winning principal, Keisha Scarlett.  Their new principal will be Dr. Laurie Morrison who had previously served as assistance principal and was the principal at Graham Hill Elementary.   Ms. Scarlett is going to be the district's "principal leadership coach." What is odd is that a survey was sent home Thursday night to parents about input on the principal.  It had also been available on the SS website but it's unclear for how long.  It seems odd to do that unless you didn't have any community input on the selection of a new principal.  (To note, the district's previous agreement with the New School Foundation that help to fund South Shore included a notation that New School had a say in the principal.  I wonder if the agreement with LEV has the same notation.)  There is also an article in the Rainier Valley Post on Graham Hill parents who are very unhappy with leadership changes at their school that see their ent...

Almost a year ago I did a thread on South Shore and compared it to the other K-8s.  I found in reading, SS is about the same as most K-8s but the math is worse.  So I did a comparison today with South Shore, Roxhill and Maple from 2009 to today and there seems to be two issues.  One, something seems amiss from 3rd to 4th grade at South Shore .  The children in third grade do really well only to see those scores drop (and I mean drop) by 4th and into 5th.  Two, there is a bit of a mystery about South Shore.  No one mentions the long-time partnership that started South Shore (with the New School Foundation and now LEV).  Not at their school website and barely in the district's own pages.  You'd think this would be some shining example of (1) what you can do with smaller class sizes and (2) public/private partnerships.   Why doesn't the district talk about SS more when confronting legislators over funding?  I note the district d...

A few updates: One - with less than 8,000 votes to count statewide, I-1240 appears to have passed .  (I'm sure it's true but I'm not the Secretary of State and in a position to officially call it.)  The margin appears to be 1.36% of the vote which is just under 41,000 votes.  A win for sure but certainly no mandate.  Two - Thanks to SPS Leaks for some very illuminating reading.  To whit: Lynne Varner gets it wrong in an Times editorial and SPS gently points this out to her.  I note that Varner says "sources" told her certain things about the departure of Superintendent Enfield.  So, as you see, journalists have sources and they don't reveal them (and sometimes not even by the order of a court) and that's how it goes.  (I, of course, still contend that I am not a journalist but I have sources.  I do get my hand slapped occasionally by readers demanding to know my source.  Not revealing them is how you keep your sources.) Thre...

Monday, June 18th Continuing high school graduations .  Go get 'em, kids. Tuesday, June 19th  Continuing high school graduations .  But don't forget the sunscreen. Wednesday, June 20th Last Board meeting of this school year.  Agenda .  There appear to be a number of interesting items including the contract between LEV and the district for South Shore (and it looks more like a newish contract than a renewal because of the passage of time since the old MOU was created), vote on the Advertising and Commercial activities policy,and renewal of NWEA contract. Intro items include policy 2200, Program Placement (now called "Equitable Access to Services & Programs).  I haven't read this yet but Charlie tweeted that it did not appear to make understanding program placement any better.  Also, there is intro of the 2012-2013 Operations and Capital budgets which I really haven't looked at yet.  There's also always an odd item like the increase ...

People have often asked me, "Why don't you run for office?"  The painful slog that is sometimes the Board meetings and/or committee meetings is one reason.  Today's Executive Committee meeting was one such experience.  Started at 8:30 am and ran probably till noon (probably because I left at 11:45 am).  This is Part 1.  Not that it wasn't chock-a-block full of news - it was.  But Brian Rosenthal from the Times left early (and surprisingly right before a good part) and Charlie, a twitchy guy on his own, was fairly chomping at the bit to get out of there. I'll start backwards because that's one of the most interesting parts. Good news - they picked the "focus group' community for the superintendent search.  For the most part, a good list with touches of greatness and one truly bad choice.   But I have faith in the abilities of the majority of the committee. Bad news - the process was a mess.  I hate to be this hard on the Execut...

Forgot to mention the last Director Community meeting for this school year: Director Betty Patu, 10 am-noon at Tully's, at Rainier and Genesee So apparently, the John Marshall building is being rented to a group called Applied Scholastics Academy of Seattle .   They use the "works" of L. Ron Hubbard who started (invented) Scienctology.  Here's what they say: I see you mention L. Ron Hubbard in your materials. Who is he and what does he have to do with Applied Scholastics Academy of Seattle? L. Ron Hubbard was an American philosopher and educator who extensively researched the field of learning, and identified barriers to study that individuals face when trying to learn something new. More importantly, he developed methods to overcome these barriers that any person can apply. Mr. Hubbard’s written works on education and child development are applied within the school’s program and are directly related to our success in helping students and families. Th...

Only one Director community meeting this Saturday .  That would be with Betty Patu from 10am-noon at Tully's, 4400 Rainier Avenue South.