Seattle Schools Community Forum

Update: here's a bit of the discussion from the last Board meeting on EEU where Director Peters asks a very direct question to Sped head, Wyeth Jessee. End of update Via the Support Big K Facebook page: I'm very sad to report the below update on EEU -  "I'm in disbelief that we are asking people to join us again (at the next School Board meeting.) Despite all of your incredible support at our last meeting, the powerful moving testimony, the passion, and the unanimous support of the school board- no solution has been reached. The Executive Director and Director of Special Education stated at a Special Education PTSA meeting 'no solution will be reached by open enrollment.'

School Board meeting highlights (thru Board comments).  Here's the full video :

This just got put on the agenda for tonight's Board meeting (thanks to reader Lynn for the heads up): Motion to Amend the Agenda – Superintendent Nyland has requested that a motion to amend the agenda be made to add an introduction item to accept a grant from the City of Seattle in the amount of $510,017.58, in the form of a Memorandum of Agreement, and to amend the 2015-16 Transportation Service Standards, to implement the ORCA Card Passport Program Enhancement for Free and Reduced Lunch Secondary students for the 2015-16 school year.  Given the time sensitivity of this item, the motion to amend would include a waiver, for the purposes of this motion only, from the requirements that the item be posted to the district’s website at least three days in advance of the meeting, as discussed in Policy No. 1420.

The Seattle Times is reporting that the decision from the City on the use of $1M of a transportation fund set aside for low-income citizens will be used to pay for ORCA cards for all middle and high school students in Seattle students (no matter where they live from their school.) This decision came largely because of the unwaivering efforts of the Rainier Beach students who made it a front and center issue from last summer on.

Update (11/17) Today, I spoke with staff at the office of the sponsor of this measure, Councilman Mike O'Brien .

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...

A fine article from a Rainier Beach student, Ifrah Abshir, writing at Occupy.com about issues at RBHS.  Ifrah didn't just write this article to complain but had spent the summer working with Children's Defense Fund Freedom Schools at RBHS  to try to address the issues at Beach.

Tuesday, August 19th Audit& Finance Committee meeting from 4:30-6:30 pm.  Agenda Wonder if the Committee might consider where money was taken for the various staff members to go off on their preschool junket. Update: Wonder no more, there is nothing on the agenda about the preschool junket or replacing those funds from the various sources that were used to fund it. Lots of interesting items like: - redirection of selected lease and rental earnings to General Fund (because, really, why do buildings need maintenance?) - policy for unpaid holidays for reason of faith or conscience - restrictive covenant agreement terms review - downtown school financing options Wednesday, August 20th School Board meeting starting at 4:15 pm. I am aware that a rally over the Garfield field trip rape is to occur outside of headquarters right before the meeting at about 4 pm.  Supporters of the student and her parents are also likely to be at the meeting. Agenda Selected A...

The Seattle Youth Commission is a group of 25 Seattleites aged 13-19 who are appointed by the Mayor and City Council to connect youth to their elected officials. They produced this video to inform students about possible upcoming bus cuts in Seattle. They are clearly saying they are losing or will lose bus service and provide info for each high school's state reps. 

Update: from the Akron Beacon Journal in Ohio, an article about the costs of busing charter school students costs 44% more than regular district students. In part, the extra cost comes from having to bus charter school students longer distances, sometimes with fewer students on the route, the journalists found. Around the state, school buses traveled an extra 15,600 miles every day in 2012 to accommodate charter school students, which adds up to about an additional $85,000 every day. That extra cost is largely footed by the urban districts in which most charters operate, said the report.  “Transportation is probably the second or third largest issue for all public schools,” said Ron Adler, president of the Ohio Coalition For Quality Education, a school choice and charter advocate. “It’s a problem not only for charters but it’s a problem for districts. In our view, whatever it is today, it’s going to be worse next year because of the cost of fuel, because of the sta...

Sharon Peaslee has been elected President of the Seattle School Board by a vote of 4-3.  Sherry Carr was also nominated. Betty Patu was elected unanimously to be Vice-President. Marty McLaren was elected unanimously to be Member-at-Large. Superintendent Banda conducted the elections. I'll have a longer wrap-up of the Board meeting but a few notes. Blanford recused himself from two votes that involved his wife who works for the district in CTE. Blanford, Martin-Morris and McLaren won't be having any December community meetings (for various reasons - Martin-Morris was unable to find a space).  They all said you could contact them via e-mail.   The majority of public testimony to the Board were on three topics.   One, allowing current 7th graders at Hamilton to stay on and finish 8th grade there.  One speaker said that they had been told there was not space but now the finding is that there would be space.  As well, they said Laurelhurst 7th...

In starting this discussion, I will make a point about transportation in SPS that was made at the Work Session on the Budget.  Overall, SPS transports many more students than the average district does.  My understanding of that meaning is that many other districts do not provide transportation to schools outside of your neighborhood and the amount of transportation available to middle/high school students is far less in other districts. I understand the concern about limiting transportation especially when so much has been provided in the past.  I also understand that it can be seen as a social justice issue when cutting off transportation makes it harder for some families to access programs.  But this is the way it is in most urban cities and students are still able to access schools via public transportation.  (I know in NYC that many students take the subway or bus - for an hour or more each way - in order to access speciality programs.) So what is to f...