Seattle Schools Community Forum

From SPS: Dear Catharine Blaine K–8 Community, I am pleased to announce … Ms. Heather Johnson (formerly Swanson) will return to serve as your new principal. Your current principal, Ms. Julie Cox, will be Principal at North Beach Elementary next year.

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...

Trying to finish up on the Curriculum & Instruction Committee meeting minutes, I come to instructional materials waivers.  I can sum it up in one sentence. Forget anything happening this year.   Yup, because the committee kicked that can right down the road.  As I mentioned previously, Steve S. and Michael DeB stayed on with the committee regulars, Betty P., Peter M. and Harium M-M.  So there was quite the discussion but most of it was circular.  Harium started off by saying that this issue was generated by discussion at the Board's retreat.  (I didn't attend so I can't fill in the story.)  He said they needed to " refine what the true objective is here, what are we trying to fix ?"  I'm not sure it's fixing something but rather allowing schools to find the best solution.  Michael said he wanted all sites to have the opportunity to examine alternative materials and methods of teaching. Kay S-B had sent in notes saying she ...

It's Labor Day weekend and I decided to labor by reorganizing my upstairs files. Naturally, most of it is SPS information. It's a little overwhelming trying to look through and then decide what to keep. However, at the end, less paper and more organization. And you know what? You never know what you might find. I've found information that, at the time, was not so important and now, after the Auditor's report, might be quite useful. But all that requires more work before disclosure. However, I thought I would pass along some info that I've come across to put on your radar as we move towards planning BEX IV . Having done nearly all the high schools (sorry, RBHS, Sealth and Ingraham; although Sealth just got quite a nice upgrade) and a couple of middle schools, it seems like BEX IV will be heavy on elementary schools . (I do believe the district is likely to do either Eckstein or Whitman or Washington under BEX IV but given the huge amounts we need to spend now ...

I just wanted to set the tone for what followed after the speakers portion of the Board last night. So, per new Board tradition, they had some high school students speak. Last night these students were from Roosevelt. They were speaking on a high school group they had formed called STICK (I know it's something like Student Team for Information, something, something - I'll find it). What this group does is try to follow district activities especially as it affects students. For example, they created a video (I was in it) explaining the new SAP to RHS students. They then did a survey to students and of those who answered, 65% said they felt better informed after viewing the video. Now they are trying to branch this group out to other high schools in the hope for all high school students to be more aware of the decisions made that affect their academic lives. I think it's a fine idea for these young people to want to do this and be part of the process. There were a...

This post recently appeared in the MAP 101 thread . That's an old thread, so the comment is a little buried. I think it needs to be brought to the surface. Elizabeth said... When I asked my kids how the MAP testing was last week (at North Beach elementary) I was really alarmed. Tell me what you think of this story: I asked if it was hard, etc., my younger child said that it wasn't hard at all and that the person administrating the test told them "to try to get the first questions wrong so that it's not too hard." I asked if maybe there was a misunderstanding and then then my older child chimed in and said that yes, the teacher administering their test had told them they shouldn't try to get the questions right at first because then the tests later on in the year will show that they have learned a lot. The MAP test is responsive to the answers being given so that if I child is getting everything right it will make the next questions harder and if they are getti...