Seattle Schools Community Forum

It will be quite the week by the time we all get to the end of it. From SPS Communications : Tuesday, Nov. 3 Deaf/Hard of Hearing (DHH) community gathering cancelled Due to an unforeseen circumstance we must cancel and reschedule the Nov. 3, 2015 DHH Community Gathering. A critical component for this meeting is appropriate interpretation services. Despite early requests and multiple agency contacts, interpretation services were not secured. The district was informed of this on Oct. 30.

I attended this meeting yesterday, along with at least 60 parents (plus School Board candidate Leslie Harris).  Director Peters did a superlative job in handling the crowd. There were two topics; bell times and the QAE issue.

Update #2: I asked the district to answer some basic questions on this issue.  Some are about timing, some were about this issue of a missing laptop - none were answered.  "It's a personnel matter."  But naturally, if the laptop was owned by the district - effectively, you and me - then yes, we get to ask.

Second Update:  There will be a rally and petition signing tomorrow, Friday the 23rd, at 9:15 am at Queen Anne Elementary.   Update: a parent sent me a reply from Ms. Pritchett.  I won't print it in full because I don't know if it a general parent letter but basically she stated: - that it was Mr. Elliott's choice to go "on leave."   That's a bit odd because her first letter to parents said he resigned .  I could be wrong but resigning generally means leaving the place of employment.  Leave is walking away for awhile while some matter gets settled.   end of update This is quite stunning as David Elliott was a dedicated principal who left one school, Coe, to helm the start-up of Queen Anne Elementary.  I know many parents are saddened and upset and want answers. One parent told me he/she feels certain it is not a health issue as Mr. Elliott is unlikely to have started the school year only to leave so abruptly. Also the Executive Direc...

In reaction to the less-than-kind, less-than-welcoming actions of others in Queen Anne, a group has been formed to explore how to make the placement of Interagency, across from John Hay Elementary, a win for all.  As you may or may not be aware there has been an incredibly misleading campaign against the placement of Interagency Recovery School program at the site of the Old QA High School Gym across from John Hay Elementary.  I, amongst many many others, strongly support the implementation of this clean and sober academic wrap-around program at this site. The program is unique and small, and will begin with less than ten students and will eventually grow to a maximum of 80 students. It fills a critical need for students whose success is so vital. The program supports students who have addressed and made the commitment to facing their addictions and remaining clean and sober. For many of these students this is their stepping stone to also returning onto a path towards a...

Update: I had bad information about Interagency at Lincoln. Interagency was never at Lincoln.   The student incident with the plastic knife was a Sped student that is part of a Sped program based there. My apologies. Also, the info in italics is from a widely-sent e-mail and included the information about Ms. Powdlodowski. End of update The district plans to move Interagency from its somewhat secret location (until the recent incident with one of its students and a plastic knife) at Lincoln to across the street from John Hay Elementary.  Story from Queen Anne View. There is a online petition against the placement of Interagency across from John Hay Elementary.   The authors of the petition are Christina Economou, Janelle Fowler and Carmen Hagios. Some feel the district is trying to "sneak" the program into their area.  Here are some of their reasons:

A reader put up a letter from Queen Anne Elementary principal, David Elliott, that was written in light of yesterday's Seattle Pacific U shootings (QA Elementary is fairly close by as is Coe Elementary).  Mr. Elliott calmly explains what they did once the event became known to this (and this happened as school had just ended for the day). Apparently buses had left but there were many children and parents on the playground.  He made the parents aware of the situation.  He goes on:   After some time making sure we were aware of where all children and adults were on our campus I had time to call our SPS Security. I was informed that SPD had contacted our security department and informed them there were no schools in the vicinity and no calls needed. I was, and am, completely unsatisfied with that decision for us and for Coe, which is situated eight or nine blocks from the SPU campus. I will certainly follow up on this with both SPD and our SPS Security Depar...

A heartfelt message from David Elliot, principal at Queen Anne Elementary expressing some anguish for a situation out of his control.  (Principal Elliot's data on QA/Magnolia growth/enrollment.) I was aware of the unhappiness at Coe over their tight quarters AND that there was some advocacy for QA Elementary's   geozone to change to include more neighborhood students but it looks like it went a step farther. I feel this is an important part of the discussion and find no fault with concern on the part of any parent.  But when you pit school against school, it does no good.  The fine regional group cited in the message is no more but I believe each region should have its own group just to prevent this kind of distrust and unhappiness. To note: this blog hears from many parents on many topics.  If you are planning something at your school or region and believe no one outside the school or region will find out, you'd likely be wrong.  It might make sense t...

 Updates: - there were full tables and most were about one school or area.  There was a Coe table, a Beacon Hill table (with some hard facts about the changes for that area), a TT Minor table, Montlake, etc. - I found these to be people who knew their facts and, if they didn't, wanted to find out more.  One man pushed back against the format, asking why staff couldn't explain who thought up the boundaries and explain them.  He was told they just wanted "comments and feedback."  I don't think many were satisfied with that answer. -Rep Jamie Pedersen was there and he spoke as a father of four (one in school).  I think he's getting a good picture of the issues. Takeaways : - this region HAS had a lot of push-pull from the district.  I honestly had not realized how bad it has been.   And, like other regions, the boundaries are NOT taking into account established "community boundaries or geographical features.  For example, one are...

 We've heard from many parents who are unhappy about enrollment issues like waitlists.  My understanding is that the district was switching technology systems.  Reading the Queen Anne Elementary principal's blog, it would seem that the whole system has been down,  in one form or another. Principal Elliot's explains that on Back to School Night (an event they are having this week), parents would be able to learn their child's classroom assignment from the school secretary.  He then states that "our student information system is not functioning.   The old system was purchased by a new company and our district has had to transition to the new company, a formidable task.  Our tech department has been working very diligently and we hope to have the system up and running by early next week.  What this means is that we have not seen any new student changes at all for the summer and will not be able to make any necessary changes until the system is...

So, some high drama tonight at the Board meeting.  From the speakers list (with a long wait list), we see most of it is over the resolution for a No on 1240 from the Board.  Judging from the names I recognize that would seem to be in agreement with this resolution, the Board will get lots of encouragement (although I do see a few that will disagree and I'll be interested to hear their argument). Unfortunately, there are 4 TFA people on the list apparently to endorse the latest hiring of one TFAer (which no one else is protesting).  It sure would be nice if they gave up those spots to parents with BEX concerns.  If I hear enough good words in support of the No on1240 resolution, I will give up my spot. I am actually hoping the Board, while discussing the resolution, does make some statement about groups that try to stifle their right to speak out on election issues that directly affect our district and the Board's work overseeing our district.  Neither Stan...

So we see the progress being made in preparation for the new K-5 STEM at Boren but it got me wondering; how are the other new schools doing? Sand Point? Queen Anne Elementary? Viewlands? Rainier View? McDonald? Did I leave anyone out? I seem to hear more about McDonald and Queen Anne so I'd love to hear from Sand Point, Viewlands or Rainier View parents but I'm sure we would like updates from all.

There was much of interest discussed at last week's Operations Committee meeting. I think the Capacity Management issue will be a bigger item of interest but as I stated previously, I'm still waiting for some documents to be on-line so that I can link to them. There were three documents related to Facilities (not including the monthly summary which is almost useless). Two were labeled "Annual Report" but I'm not sure anyone would think of them as reports. (One page, both sides? Considering all the work done in a year on facilities, how is that a report?) The first was was an annual report on " BTA Related Information ." It reviewed the work need to be done in seven weeks to get BTA projects done on Queen Anne, Rainier View and Viewlands. (The seven-week period was not specified so I don't know when they are talking about. Summer?) They point out that there are many unknowns in the work. Now look, I get that some of these b...

Before going over what was discussed line-for-line, I wanted to throw out some items that popped out to me as ah ha! or oddities or questions. One thing to point out off the bat - and please help me out if you know for certain - is that on the sheet entitled "SPS 2011-12 (Gap) Estimate Summary" (bundled in a group of documents) was a total list of losses from the state. It STILL has Highly Capable as eliminated. I thought that got put back by both the House and Senate. They budget in about $1.16M to reopen Rainier View, Viewlands and McDonald/QA. I had forgotten that basically McDonald and QA will have TWO opening costs because they are first in Lincoln and then go to their own buildings this fall. Interestingly, I hear that Broadview-Thompson could handle Viewlands for another year so maybe the district could consider waiting one more year and save that money. STEM update - $100k. Look for that to be on-going. STEM came along at a time when the district really di...

FYI, SPS is conducting early enrollment for incoming kindergarteners as well as students who will be new to SPS next fall. Early enrollment started in October and continues thru January 2011. Open Enrollment starts is from March 15-31, 2011 with notifications mailed in May 2011. I note that Queen Anne Elementary is having a couple of kindergarten meet-and-greets, one on December 14th and one on January 5th. These are NOT at the school but at a PTA parents' home so they are limiting it to 40 people. This information comes to us from the Queen Anne View. QA Elementary has a spiffy retro spaceship logo. Please let me know if you hear of any other kindergarten events before the regular January tours start. They have already posted the tour dates for high schools. These vary. A few schools do not have tour dates posted (Hale, Garfield, RBHS). Most are having 2-3 tours with Roosevelt having 1(!) day tour and one evening event.

Last week's Board meeting was fairly interesting (well, until you got to the staff updates but more on that later). The room wasn't full of the usual suspects but there definitely were sides. Highlights from speakers list: District watchdog Chris Jackins pointed out that the sale of MLK, Jr . property gives buyers all the money. (Apparently the presumed buyers - First AME Church - is getting the money from the state and the state will give it to the district. This is because the church, in its offer, says it will be offering youth programming and other community activities.) The idea of selling it to First AME is to create a community center in that neighborhood that would offer community services like youth activities. Then came a long line of people against the sale of the property to First AME. This was introduced and will be voted on by the Board in two weeks. Everyone spoke respectfully of the church's long history here in Seattle but the issue seems to be tha...

( Update: feel free to talk about the NSAP plan here as well.) It's a little early but this thread was requested. Any Sand Point, McDonald or Queen Anne Elementary parents out there who could let us know how their buildings feel, how organized the school feels, how that first day went, etc?

I went back and looked at some of the items on the Board agenda for Wednesday. Before the meeting, they are having a Work Session on maintenance. I'll just have to make the effort to go because, on the one hand, they allowed the head of Maintenance to buy some new software and hire a couple of temporary(?) people to organize all the backlogged maintenance. (Yes, I know; it's 2010 and our district really has no idea how much needs to be done, where, and in order of need.) There was this idea that we would have one or two zone crews to go out and get one school's needs done in one shot. On the other hand, the district has just laid off 7 of the 14 maintenance workers (a pretty big hit for any department). So that backlogged maintenance? Either we are going to contract it out or there's going to be a lot of waiting. Now contracting it out has problems. First, the volume of work is such that it makes sense to have your own in-house people. Second, you can certainl...

From the QA and Magnolia News online, a story about QA Elementary. Lots of interesting quotes from the principal, David Elliott including: We are trying to encourage families that are hemming and hawing about this decision to make it," Johnson said. "It puts everyone at the school at a disadvantage if families wait until the end of the summer to enroll." Elliott, who was principal at Coe Elementary for more than 10 years before making the move to Queen Anne, agrees that making the decision soon is better for the school. "I would love people to make up their minds soon. The best thing that I can do is to hire great teachers, and I've done that," he said. Johnson said the design team had a "very causal initial conversation" with the district asking them to stop enrollment, but haven't heard any response. By stopping enrollment, the design team could create a waitlist, and then open another classroom if the waitlist grew long enough ...

From the Queen Anne blog, an interview with current Coe principal, David Elliot, who will become the principal at the new Queen Anne Elementary. From the interview: At first Seattle Public Schools said that Queen Anne Elementary was going to be a Montessori school. Now it is going to have a "technology" focus. How did that change come about? In the design team survey that was taken in late February assessing Queen Anne and Magnolia interest in different kinds of schools, there was interest in a technology or elementary STEM [science, technology, engineering, mathematics] program for the new school. We need to attract families from our cluster into this school to relieve the overcrowding we see in our elementary schools right now, and there was a concern that a Montessori program wasn't going to do it. Plus, it is very difficult to find enough highly qualified Montessori teachers within the District. There were teachers who might be willing to do Montesso...