Seattle Schools Community Forum

A message from Ramona Hattendorf, Washington State PTA Government Relations Coordinator: =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= There seems to be confusion about WSPTA’s position on charter public schools. There has been no change in the WSPTA position on charters. The association has qualified support. Please note "qualified." On this blog and others individuals have been posting assumptions and outright fabrications about what I personally am doing and supporting and actions that WSPTA is taking. I know you value clarity, and while you like to inspire debate it is not your intention to spread misinformation. To clarify various posts on your blog:

It isn't that hard to create the illusion of consensus where none exists. All you have to do it use multiple voices. The Gates Foundation has essentially pulled the same trick. Rather than speaking with a single voice, the voice of the Gates Foundation, it speaks as a chorus. Their message is carried by their proxies: the League of Education Voters, the Alliance for Education, the Our Schools Coalition, Stand for Children, Democrats for Education Reform, Washington STEM, A+ Washington, Excellent Schools Now, Partnership for Learning, Teachers United, Crosscut, the Washington State PTA, and more. They are all mouthpieces for the Gates Foundation, yet when they each speak it creates the illusion of a broad consensus, but it actually just one voice, multiplied. There are many finger puppets, but only one hand. So even if all of them speak it still counts as only one person, only one vote.

Tuesday, Jan. 17th Region 6 PTSA Forum on charter schools at Washington Middle School from 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. I want to note a couple of things here.  One, this is not sponsored by the Seattle Council PTSA so please take note of that.  President Lauren McGuire stated to me that they would be taking no stance on charter schools until legislation was offered (she and I spoke before legislation came out) and that the PTSA Board would read it and then consider their stance.  Seems like a good way to go. Second, while this is billed as a forum, to my mind, if you present a pro side and a con side, it's a debate.  Keep in mind that Region 6 is not trying to educate parents as to what charters are (and are not); this is going to be two sides basically explaining why we should or should not have them.  It's a little hard to follow that kind of debate if you don't even clearly understand the subject matter but that's what they are doing.   Lastly, what's inte...

I received a copy of the PTA's "toolkit" with information and paper handouts on issues.  One of them was for charters . Upfront I'll say this is for local units to print out and give out to their members.   Apparently, it's still up for discussion and I hope each and every one of you that belongs to a PTA gets it on the agenda at your school.  This issue needs the fullest airing possible.  What is quite strange about the position paper is that it doesn't answer one simple question: why charters?  It has no information about how they have performed or why they would work better.  You'd think if you were advocating something, you'd say why it's needed. Instead it's a lot of talk about how families of at-risk kids don't have choices and alternatives.   Throwing more choices at people is not going to solve the opportunity gap. They also vaguely say, " Charters would not require new funding, but they would divert funding to new prog...

The stars aligned last night and Charlie and I were once again in the same place - the CPPS event on parent engagement at Lincoln High.  This event was great because there was evidence that the work CPPS is doing around parent engagement is reaching the right people. Also, I feel this may be a signal or a golden moment for parents to seize upon; this based on what the Superintendent had to say about parent input AND the CPPS idea of "training" parents to be advocates for their child.   I only wish this wasn't coming at the end of the school year when people are starting to dial back. Credit goes to all the CPPS staff but especially Stephanie Jones .

The Washington State PTSA, at this weekend's convention, took up a resolution on local units paying for teachers/staff.   (Note; the resolution is about two-thirds of the way down the document.)  They are advocating for PTSAs to NOT pay for teachers/staff.

I have a couple of items to note about work I'm doing around Seattle public education.

Boy, I apologize; I let this fall off my radar. Monday is PTA Focus Day at the State Capitol in Olympia. Here's a link to the WA State webpage with info. There will be a noon rally (with a police escort) to the Capitol steps. Also, here's an e-mail to sent to the Speaker of the House, Frank Chopp, and the Senate Majority Leader, Lisa Brown. (This from Ramona Hattendorf, Government Relations Director, Washington State PTA.) MESSAGE: Dear xxx, Will you help us save our ABCs? Monday is Children's Day at the Capitol. The Parent Teacher Association will be there with our kids rallying on the steps, and we hope you'll take a moment to consider the incredible importance of education to their lives. Our K-12 schools need your support, or we'll lose a generation of learners. (Yes! the cuts are that bad.) We need Basic Education funded. It's paramount. Sincerely, ---- frank.chopp@leg.wa.gov lisa.brown@leg.wa.gov Find your legislators: http://apps....

The Times has what they call "The Truth Needle" and Linda Shaw, their education reporter, filed a report this morning. Let me allow her to tell you: The claim: Starting in 2008, Seattle Public Schools reported that a meager 17 percent of its high-school graduates met the entrance requirements for four-year colleges. The district quietly quit using that number then recently revised it, without comment, to 46 percent. "... revised it, without comment ..." classic SPS. This is why, when you read a contract or a hard number, you should bookmark that page or print it out. It might just disappear and you'll feel like you got gaslighted (how old am I to use that reference). Now that 17% is out there in ether and even though many of us were left scratching our heads (how did all those seniors at Roosevelt get into college?), what can you do? This 17% number has been used by LEV, Seattle Foundation and many other "community" groups. What the Times f...

So the Seattle Council PTSA sent an e-news bulletin labelled: "Debate Teach For America - Debate centers on certification churn need." They present an overview and some pros and cons. They call TFAers " teaching candidates " which is better than teachers. They explain about the costs but say: HOWEVER, the district has pursued private funds to pick up those costs for this contract. That's NOT true. There has been no guarantee that the "donor" is going to pick up for all three years of the contract. (And you do know - right - that TFA seems to have a sliding fee. They seem to have charged almost nothing for the teachers in the Delta area and are charging Federal Way $3k per teacher per year while they are going to charge Seattle $4k per year.) They do well to raise the issues of student privacy and the loose interpretation of the state law on conditional certification. SPS agrees to share student-identiable (sic) with Teach for America for the ...

I would like to believe that the district wants to effectively and in a timely fashion communicate information to parents. Is that what they do? No. I actually don't know whose duty it is write what shows up on the webpage. I don't know whose duty it is to put up the information on the website. Are they told "Get this up ASAP, parents need to get this information quickly." (I have the smile when I write that - who am I kidding?) Like the Superintendent, I think most of the people who work in Communications have the skills necessary for their jobs. But they get their direction from top and basically, they serve as public relations for the Superintendent. Not the district and certainly not the Board. (I've heard complaints from the Board about being able to get their own message out. What they might want to say might not always jive with what the district has to say.) The Superintendent has completely taken over Communications and she decides what we hea...

So it's the eve before the ballots are opened. The committee that got formed in opposition to the levy, Committee for Responsible Education Spending, wanted to get issues out there. We wanted parents especially to be better informed about levies and the specifics about this one. I'd like to think that we accomplished that goal. I want to thank the members of our committee for their hard work; Dorothy Neville and Meg Diaz (two crack spreadsheet and data analysts), Eric Muhs (Ballard high science teacher), Ken Berry (IA at Van Asselt Elementary) and Charlie Mas. It was very helpful to have staff on the committee who could lend their voices as those with feet on the ground and in our schools. I ask going forward that each of you consider each future levy carefully. Each levy IS a tax and we are dependent upon our friends and neighbors who don't have children in SPS to help us pass levies. There are those people for whom $48 a year (plus all the other levies and initi...

It's always good to keep up with what is happening in all parts of the district and our friends over at the super West Seattle blog went to the Saturday community meeting with Steve Sundquist. Some eye-opening stuff there that is valid for many other parts of the district. Here's what I found interesting: - parents in West Seattle (well, some) are worried about the economic divide that is being created by schools with higher free/reduced lunch students all feeding into one middle school while the schools with less F/RL feed into the other. Since they are setting up the middle schools areas to almost "feed" into the high schools (even though that isn't technically what the SAP does), then you'll have that same divide continuing into high school. -one parent has a very passionate plea about PTAs (she's talking about Concord). She said she knew going in that they were struggling and that she sees that not having a PTA system in place makes the struggle h...

(Apologies; this is a new thread of a post I made on Charlie's thread about APP accountability. I felt like maybe we might want to have this discussion and find out what stops people from stepping up to truly fight for what we want from our district. Arch Stanton had said an APP WASL boycott wouldn't likely happen without advocacy from the APP parent group. Here's what I said.) Which leads me to...parents have muscle. Oh, we do BUT only in numbers. If we massed at the Stanford headquarters, do you not think there would be notice? If we blitzed the City Council, you don't think they won't notice? If we blitzed the Times with letters or requests to write op-eds every day of the week, again, any notice? If we all staged a one-day walk-out in general protest? BUT, just as APP is split, so SPS parents are fragmented. Mostly, and I mean this kindly and not coldly, people just don't like to rock the boat. Either they think it won't work or they worry abou...

I haven't looked at this but it was in the Seattle Council PTSA news. Enrollment counts up to September 22. Other News: Best Practices for Inclusive Schools Conference hosted by Seattle Special Ed PTSA. Saturday, Oct. 17 in the John Stanford Center Auditorium. Info on Seattle Spec Ed PTSA: http://www.seattlespecialedptsa.org / Key Ingredients for Successful Students September’s Child Advocate magazine is now online. Please share the link: http://www.wastatepta.org/resources/child_advocate/index.html The state PTSA has a Legislative Assembly in early October. Here are the topics up for discussion. So what are the next steps are for basic ed funding? Teacher compensation? Get background info, learn how to advocate, and help determine state PTA priorities. Up for vote: Fund education first; increase funding for highly capable; allow weighted GPA. Proposed issues: http://www.wastatepta.org/advocacy/headlines/Issues_2009_Leg_Assembly_proposed_platform.pdf Also of interes...

So I received my new school calendar and there are some interesting items in it. First, hate the new size. Kinda of awkward to handle. Second, theme anyone? Coming in at #1 (with a bullet and mentioned no less than 20 times): accountable/accountability. Number 2? "Improving services for our students in special ed, advanced learning and bilingual programs." Given how little information there is available on the website about what or how this is happening, the jury is way out on this one. Under Measuring Performance, page 2 "Every person employed by the District is accountable to contribute to our central goal of student achievement." Really? How are they held accountable? They sling that word around like hash at a diner and yet, who is ever really accountable? Three, is it me or does the text in this calendar have problems? It does not seem to be not well written. I also note a couple of items that are either confusing or incorrect. On the Family Engageme...

I heard this on KOMO-tv and it apparently came off the AP wire; Seattle is joining 29 other districts including Kent, Spokane, and Federal Way to sue the state to demand they pay the full cost of education. The trial starts tomorrow and is supposed to run for 6 weeks. From the AP story: "Attorneys for both sides say the economy will have little or no influence on the outcome of the non-jury trail, scheduled to begin on the first day of the school year for many district and to continue for six weeks of testimony in King County Superior Court before Judge John Erlick. Senior Assistant Attorney General David Stolier said both sides will be arguing its interpretation of a state Supreme Court ruling from more than 30 years ago in Seattle School District v. State that said Washington state must fully pay for its definition of basic education. "In some ways this case is a continuation," Stolier said. " Apparently, 45 out of the 50 states have sued their state governments...

This article in Crosscut about the teacher layoffs and the pending contract negotiations got me to thinking about our discussions about meeting as a group, organizing, etc. This is because CPPS is quoted and seems to be sort of a de facto "official" parent group when I would have thought the writer might have gone to the PTA. (The article in and of itself is interesting but I'm not going there on this thread.) I have been silent on this topic despite requests here to meet because I wanted to think about it and investigate a couple of groups. I don't want to get involved in organizing a new group. I think there are already several to choose from with organizations already in place. As I have said previously, I totally support the PTSA. Our PTAs do the frontline work at our schools and give support that makes many good schools great. I personally wish there was a way to organize a PTA in every school (I sure there is but how the Seattle Council approaches this I...

Danny Westneat of the Times had a column today about CPPS's efforts on RiFed teachers. From the column: "But the decision this month to lay off 165 of Seattle schools' newest teachers in a "last hired, first fired" manner has got some of liberal Seattle suddenly sounding more like a conservative red state. More than 600 school parents have signed an online petition, at supportgreatteachers.com , that calls out the teachers union for causing "great distress and upheaval" in the schools. At issue is the policy of choosing who gets laid off solely by seniority. "Wake up and see how union refusal to consider merit is damaging the profession and our kids," wrote one parent. "We want the best teachers, not the oldest, teaching our kids," wrote another. "Teacher unions are an anachronism," said another. The organizers of the petition are a group of parents called Community and Parents for Public Schools. They agree wha...

From the Seattle Council PTA: HOW UP, noon on the Capitol steps in Olympia, THIS Thursday, Feb. 26. Our children are the future, and they need a financial commitment. Need a ride? If you haven’t signed up yet for the Seattle Council bus, email bus@SeattleCouncilPTSA.org ASAP with your name and school. We can also arrange some last minute car pools if needed. Rally bus check in 9:20 a.m. at the Calvary Christian Assembly, 6801 Roosevelt Way NE. Bus leaves promptly at 9:30 a.m. The bus will depart Olympia at 1:30 p.m. sharp and will return to Calvary Christian Assembly around 2:45 p.m. Bring a sack lunch and snacks. We will be making signs on the bus. WEAR BLUE and dress for the weather; most events are outside. Go virtually … Can’t attend the rally on Feb. 26? Send an email to your legislators via capwiz (they’ll know it’s from the PTA). Starting Feb. 25 and continuing through Feb. 26 all PTA members should visit http://capwiz.com/npta2/wa/home/