Seattle Schools Community Forum

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...

Update :   Mayor's press release Chappelle will seek to form stronger strategic partnerships with Seattle Public Schools, institutions of higher learning and other education stakeholders throughout the region, with an eye to improving outcomes for all Seattle children. Well, well, it certainly looks a Trojan horse coming thru that no longer needs its cover. From Dr. Nyland: We are so proud of Mr. Chappelle and are thrilled that the mayor has chosen someone with such integrity, accomplishment, talent and dedication to equity. Mr. Chappelle has been a positive, transformative leader at Rainier Beach High School over the past four years. He has worked side-by-side with students, families and the dedicated Rainier Beach staff to create a college-going culture, elevating expectations for students by bringing in the International Baccalaureate Program. Under his leadership, graduation rates have soared and enrollment has almost doubled. As Director of the Department of Educatio...

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.

The last Superintendent's Friday Memo on April 3, 2015 says this: Rainier Beach: The recent recognition of the Rainier Beach International Baccalaureate program is well deserved. Rainier Beach has benefitted from the state School Improvement Grants, Race to the Top grants, and support from many community partners. The district has supported the IB program as we do for all schools – during the first five years. That funding will continue for the next two years. And we are certainly hopeful that added state support will make longer term funding possible. As a result of community complaints, the Office of Civil Rights has opened a file on inequitable funding for Rainier Beach (furniture, curriculum, staffing). Our responses to OCR will show that we are funding Rainier Beach as well or (in some cases) better than other similar schools in the district.  I feel like there's something a little backhanded in that reply.  Maybe that's jus...

From the "there goes that idea" - Expedia is moving its corporate headquarters  to the Amgen campus .  Several readers had thought that might be an ideal spot to share space with a business and an SPS high school.  (This is considered a huge win for Seattle as Expedia is leaving Bellevue.)  Sen. Maralyn Chase (D) and Senate President Pro Tem Pam Roach (R) will lead a bipartisan press conference Thursday afternoon followed by an exposé of the Common Core educational standards adopted by the Legislature in 2011.

 Update: I realize my original headline that did contain ("no thanks to the district") and  was not fair.  The district DID create the IB programs at Ingraham, Chief Sealth and now Rainier Beach.  It just that they don't support them in the way those programs should be supported if they expect them to thrive.  Again, the district creates programs they do not support (like IB and dual-language.) end of update The Times owns up to something good happening in Seattle Public Schools (without charters or a state turnaround order).  Tangled in bureaucracy and tradition, public schools need years — often the better part of a decade — for real turnaround, so skeptics may wave off the spike in graduation rates at Rainier Beach High as a mere blip. Or ignore its ballooning enrollment. Or shrug at the dozens of students on track to leave with college credit for advanced studies. No marker is more stunning than Beach’s 25-point increase in graduation r...

Scratch art by Ava Code-Williams Two SPS students were named Regional Award winners at the Regional High School Art Show that is sponsored by the Puget Sound Educational Service District.  Those students are Ava Code-Williams from Garfield and Huo Xian Wu from Franklin.   I love Code-Williams' haunting "You have your mother's eyes."  In a battle of the titans, the state boys basketball title went to Garfield who beat Rainier Beach High School, 64-51 last weekend.  Congrats to Garfield and a good effort by all.  (RBHS had beat Garfield for the Metro title but Garfield turned the tables on them in the state finals.) SPS was also awarded a 2014 Gold Star by Governor Inslee for getting students signed up for the College Bound Scholarship program.  SPS signed up 100% of eligible 8th graders.  Yesterday was the Curriculum and Instruction Committee meeting.   I wasn't able to go but I know that Director Peters was going to try to get the SBA...

Roosevelt and Garfield jazz bands both made it into the Essentially Ellington competition in NYC...again.  Congrats to both programs. And because I love high school newspapers - news from the Rainier Beac h student newspaper, Viking Shield. I received a press release today from the district announcing that  Kareem Abdul-Jabbar will visit Sanislo Elementary's  3 rd -5 th graders  tomorrow .   From the press release:

From SPS Communications: Rainier Beach High School will resume classes tomorrow,  Friday, Nov. 14. Classes were canceled today due to a power outage after a small explosion occurred while fixing a transformer. There were no injuries. Power has been restored and the building systems are operational.

Shockingly, I neither attended nor watched the School Board meeting.  But I did hear about it from other sources so here is some of what went on (plus some input from a careful reading of agenda items on the docket).   Apparently it was a love fest for Banda and some tension on the Board.  Here's the information I received from the organizing group for later starts where the tension comes in. Later start times analysis passed, 6-1, with Director Blanford the sole no.  Apparently, though, both Carr and Martin-Morris claimed they felt staff was  "bullied" by others on the Board.  I'm suspecting they mean President Peaslee who can be quite strong-willed.  Is she a bully?  I have never seen evidence of it but I'm not sitting with her behind closed doors.  From the Later Start group e-mail message: We WON!  Bell time analysis was passed 6-1 with only Blanford voting against. Cautions were made about not overworking staff, particular...

This meeting could be interesting for a number of reasons. One, it is likely the last one where we will see Superintendent Banda up there on the dais with the Board.  (The Sacramento School Board is scheduled to vote July 17th and this Seattle School Board meeting is the last until August 20th.)  It may be awkward (to say the least) as the Superintendent is now the lamest of lame ducks.  Does the Board say farewell publicly or throw him a quick party after he makes the final announcement on his departure? Two, as usual, the agenda has got some items that stand out. 

United Opt-Out , a website that has state-by-state resources for parents on how to opt their children out of tests got hacked recently.  They say it was " maliciously hacked and destroyed in an act of political sabotage." Odd, no? I mean, it's not Target or any money-making entity where you could get credit card info.  It's information for public school parents.  And yet it didn't just get temporarily interrupted - it got destroyed. From Reclaim Reform : How much money is involved for investors in the highly lucrative fields of testing, online programming, training, publishing, vendor contracts, etc.? The latest estimates from a Bill Moyers interview with Diane Ravitch is about $500 billion annually. View/read HERE .  And, of course, there is the power in directing the course of public education.  I'm sure some ed reformers could not have that taken away from them.  On Common Core and popular support (which supporters insist is huge). ...

Last night's Board meeting saw the honoring of four (!) SPS basketball championship teams.  (My apologies to Garfield's boys basketball team - I managed to flub my photos of them.) Ballard High School Beavers -Special Olympics Unified Basketball Team Cleveland High School Lady Eagles- 3A State Champs Rainier Beach Vikings - 3A State Champions The Superintendent in a demonstration of how much a middle school student would have to carry w/o a locker. Later Start protesters before the meeting Ballard High Video by Will Erstad, Aurore Bouriot and Side Johnson about needing more sleep.

Interesting story from The Classical (an independent sports website) about Rainier Beach High School and its history of basketball dominance. Locally, it's known as the best place to get Vietnamese food. It is perhaps less well known as an astonishingly fertile cradle of basketball talent, although it's that, too. This is a place that has produced more current NBA players than just about any other place on Earth—as many as Brooklyn, Manhattan, and the Bronx combined. This jumped out at me: Those most recognizable student is 6’7” senior and Louisville commit Shaqquan Aaron, who moved all the way from California to go to high school at Beach. Strange as it this seems if framed in a non-basketball context, such a thing would have been entirely unthinkable a few years ago.  This, too: As something of a last-ditch attempt to turn things around, the school began offering classes from the prestigious International Baccalaureate program, a route that had actua...

 Update: First, still nothing about the charter applicants and the upcoming Charter Commission meeting.  Still odd. Second, there was an article this morning. about public school funding throughout the country that may give some insight into why our state legislature drags its feet on fully-funding education.  To whit: nearly all states doubled or tripled the amount of money spent on public schools from 1970 to 2010; but the growth has been uneven But the biggest per student spending has been in nine states, with seven of those in the NE Seven of ten states with the least growth in spending are - you guessed - in the West and yes, Washington State is one of them. Despite what Washington Policy Center wants to tell you (they regularly say that the average WA State student spending is about $12k), according to Ed Week, Washington State spending is about $9,497 (adjusted for inflation from the 1969-70 rate of $4,794).    The top six states spend ab...

Wednesday, Sept 4th It's the start of a brand-new year.  Welcome back, kids. School Board Meeting , 4:15 pm.  Agenda . Several items got held over from the last Board meeting.

Rainier Beach is one of three comprehensive high schools to not have a complete renovation. Chief Sealth has had major work done and got some of it via the fallout of them having to share a campus with Denny.  Ingraham is the other but Ingraham has also had major work done and has been on every single BEX and BTA.   Rainier Beach got a performing arts hall (but no performing arts curriculum or program so it sat, mostly unused for years) and had some building area upgrades but not much else. According to the Times, the Rainier Beach community isn't going to wait for the district to make their building better.  They would like to make it the greenest high school in the state.  The story in the Times . T he community’s aspirations were announced Tuesday at a news conference where Mayor Mike McGinn and Denis Hayes, president of the Bullitt Foundation, expressed their support, albeit not the financial kind.  The Bullitt Foundation doesn’t fund capita...

Wow and congratulations to the Rainier Beach High School boys varsity team that took the 3A State title March 3rd in Tacoma.   They beat Seattle Prep for the title.  And more good news, RBHS's high scorer, Marquis Davis, is just a junior.  A huge triumph for a little school that could.  Also to note, the Garfield boys team took 6th place in 4A, Cleveland girls took a 3rd place 3A trophy and the Franklin girls team took the 2nd place 3A trophy.

Not a big crowd for the School Board meeting last week but traffic was lousy and it's the end of the school year.

I will be better able to flesh this out at the end of the week but I'm hearing some pretty serious rumblings. It appears one high school principal will lose a job (not just RBHS) and may not be placed elsewhere. I believe this may be happening as a signal to other principals to get with the curriculum alignment program or else.  (So far there doesn't appear to be any other reason like a criminal act or fraud.)  Meaning, less flexibility/creativity in how teachers can teach the curriculum and principals will be expected to bear down on teachers who don't follow the direction of the alignment.  It also appears the district is unwilling to state whether or not they are closing RBHS for a year and then reopening it as a "transformation" school.  This would have HUGE repercussions for the entire district as whether or not you think is something that should be done (or should have been done long ago), the question would be - where would those 350 kids go? Gar...