Seattle Schools Community Forum

The Roosevelt High School Jazz Band took second place at this year's Essentially Ellington competition in NYC.  They also were awarded prizes for many individual and ensemble awards.    (Dillard High in Fort Lauderdale, FL took first place.)  Details in the Times' article. The article also explained why Garfield wasn't there (and I hadn't heard this before).  According to Massey, Garfield inadvertently failed to renew its membership in Essentially Ellington on time, so the school's sheet music arrived only a week before the due date for an audition CD.

From SPS: The West Seattle High School culinary team won the "Best Entree Award" at the 2011 Boyd Coffee ProStart Invitational - beating 17 other teams across Washington. The team members are students are Kirby Davis, Latisha Evans, and Johnny Le. The students received a $500 Scholarship to The Art Institute of Seattle, a Certificate of Achievement and a chef's knife. Kate Ptasnik of Roosevelt High School was named ProStart Student of the Year. The students attribute their success to two chef mentors; Quinton Stewart, executive chef at Branzino in downtown Seattle, and Robin Leventhal of Stopsky’s Delicatessen on Mercer Island. The Pro Start class is offered at West Seattle High School and is taught by Sarah Orton and Danielle Henry. Thank you to these two mentor chefs for supporting Seattle's youth. Any good news from your corner of the district?

The Stranger Slog reports that local Roosevelt landlord jerk, Drake Sisley, is suing the district for an article in the Roosevelt High School paper back in March 2009 that he says is " false, defamatory, libelous, and malicious ."   There is much that I could say given where I live and my status at the time but I'll just leave you with the letter I wrote to Noel Treat, district lead counsel, the Superintendent, the Board and Principal Brian Vance.  Here's what I wrote: Dear Noel, I just got wind of Drake Sisley's lawsuit against the district over the Roosevelt High School newspaper articles about properties near RHS that he and his brother own. First up, I live in this neighborhood (just 2 blocks from RHS). Second, I was co-president at RHS PTSA from 2007-2009.   Between those two items, I know this issue well.  I have had to talk to the police about this issue (at their request based on my being co-president of the PTSA). Additionally, my ...

The Essentially Ellington contest, the premier high school jazz band competition in the country, announced the finalists for the competition today. Roosevelt made the cut as did Mountlake Terrace High School. Garfield, the first place winner for the last two years, did not make the cut. I'm sure this is a blow to their fine program but I'm sure it will just be a blip and they will come back strong next year. Good luck, Roosevelt.

It wasn't quite the barnburner I thought it would be, this Construction Management audit . However, it was, for me, quietly defeating. It confirms my belief that the Superintendent would like to consolidate more power to staff and that many staff see the Board as something of a pesky fly to bat away. It did turn out to be a performance audit which meant they were not looking for anything illegal but rather asking was the district doing its job for construction management of BEX projects. There's an awful lot I could report but I think I'll just give the highlights for now and a separate thread on Board reaction and reflections. The audit is not yet available to the public but I will post it when it does. Highlights All the Board, except Kay Smith-Blum, were in attendance along with the head of Facilities, the Superintendent, the COO, two district legal counsels and the head of BEX Oversight Committee (the volunteer committee made up of construction and property manageme...

The education documentary, Race to Nowhere , will have a screening at Roosevelt High, sponsored by Bryant Elementary PTSA, Roosevelt High School and Assumption-St. Bridget School tomorrow night, Monday the 31st at 7 p.m. Online tickets are available here ; $10 for adults and $5 for students. General admission tickets will be sold at the door for $15. Student tickets will be $5 at the door. In the same vein, I note that Roger Ebert, the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times, softened his thumbs up review of Waiting for Superman. He tweeted, “ Why maybe ‘Waiting for Superman’ wasn’t all that it seemed. If I’d known, my review would have been different. ” He then put a link to the Valerie Strauss article about the film in the Washington Post. On a different note, I was checking for information at the Bryant website and noticed that they have two principals. Anyone know why that is?

I saw the announcement about the two-hour late start but they mention this: The plans that six schools had for early release today have been cancelled, so those schools will release at the usual time: Eckstein, Madison, McClure, Hamilton and Whitman middle schools and Roosevelt High School. Anyone know why those 6 schools were having an early release? I checked Roosevelt's website but couldn't find out. FYI, I did see this at the RHS website if anyone is interested. WESTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IS HOSTING “INSIDE GUIDE TO COLLEGE ADMISSIONS” Western Washington's Office of Admissions is pleased to offer Inside Guide to College Admissions, an exclusive look at the college admissions process! The event will take place on Wednesday, January 19th at the Bellevue Hilton from 6:30-9:30pm. Join respected WWU Director of Admissions and Enrollment Planning, Karen Copetas, and find out what Western and other colleges look for when selecting applications. This intera...

Part 1 ( this part is not as fascinating as Part 2 but may have info you might be interested in. I'll bold key words so you can skip to what you care about.) Charlie was right (I lost count how many times I have written that this year but his streak continues). The Executive Committee meeting on Wednesday morning was very, very good. I was the only member of the public there which I think might have somewhat influenced what was said (or how forcefully it was said). I'm not sure it was me personally but that there was a John Q. Public in the room. Michael DeBell is the head of the Committee and Kay Smith-Blum and Steve Sundquist are the other members. The cast of staff coming in and out was quite amazing. Dr. Goodloe-Johnson was there for most of it as was Holly Ferguson, head of policy and government (I always forget her exact title) and Noel Treat, the new head of Legal. The first thing I learned is that this is where you get an advance look at upcoming Board meeting age...

I attended the BEX Oversight Committee meeting on Friday. As usual, interesting stuff. No Board member attended. Here's a recap. the problematic Small Business Hub program seems to be dismantled and nearly shut down. What is interesting is that they absorbed all the 4 employees into the Facilities department. I don't want to be unkind but why? If that program is no longer going to exist, why did we need to keep four people? (This is the program that the State Auditor called out for having morphed from a policy that the Board created to make sure the district did outreach to small/minority businesses wishing to do business with SPS into a $1M a year, 40 class program. Most of the people attending these classes never did any business with SPS which is why the audit said it was improper use of capital funds.) Nearly 2 million dollars will leave our Operations budget and go back to Capital. So we don't even have to wait for the state to cut funding to our district - we do it do...

When I attended a Regional Meeting earlier this fall, I met Keith Bowen and some other parents. They are parents who are concerned about orchestra offerings the follow-thru from middle to high school music especially around the orchestra offerings. I talked with them after the meeting and Keith sent me this article about their concerns which I want to share with you. (I edited this article for length.) If you would like to reach him to join his group or offer ideas, his e-mail is keith@fixbassoon.com The new Student Assignment Plan (SAP) changes the demographics of who is assigned to which school. However, specialized programs are still in place at these same locations but now the students are distributed without regard to their interests or merit. Parents, teachers and local administrators predicted the oncoming situation and how it would affect a prized resource of music education. They predicted that existing programs would come dangerously close to not having enough particip...

Once again, checking for one thing led to another. I went to Roosevelt's web page and there's info on their enrollment issues. From the principal: Starting next week, we will need to make some adjustments to some students schedules in order to accommodate an influx of new students to RHS as the result of the new assignment plan. We have several classes that are extremely full and closed to some students who need those classes. As a result, we have been provided with some additional staff to create new sections of classes and thus reduce the overcrowding in those classes. Starting on Monday, October 4, we will be making some adjustments to a few students who are currently enrolled in 9th Grade Science, Biology and/or Algebra 2 Honors. We are taking volunteers who may want to change their schedule. Please see your counselor if you would like to volunteer to change your schedule. In addition to the volunteers, we will need to randomly select other students ...

There were about 30-40 parents in attendance at the meeting along with a plethora of staff; Dr. Goodloe-Johnson (who came about 7 p.m.), Dr. Enfield, all the NE principals, Bernardo Ruiz of Family Engagement and Directors Maier, Carr and Martin-Morris. A couple of heads up for anyone attending the other meetings. One, for some reason they had the sign-in sheets in the auditorium instead of when you head in. So look for those if the building you are in is using an auditorium. Also, they had two tables at Eckstein and different handouts at each so check if you want to make sure you get everything. Two, get those questions ready because they took any and all questions. I was surprised to see a table of Starbucks coffee, bottled water and granola bars for the audience. It's a nicety but I thought we were a poor district. I asked Dr. Enfield and she said she didn't know what budget this came out of. Apparently I hit a nerve because Dr. Goodloe-Johnson later said the district ...

Lots to report from the Regional meeting last night but that's for later. Right now, I have a question about the NSAP that I wanted to put out there before I write to Tracy in Enrollment. I was talking with some parents and was told, by two of them, that they got their child's assignment to Roosevelt just before school started. They both said they got in on the 10% set-aside seats, not waitlist movement. I was a bit startled because I would have thought the 10% set-aside lottery happened months ago. Does anyone have anything they know about the NSAP to explain this? Why would the lottery be held in the last few days before school?

Maple Elementary and West Seattle High School are the newest schools to take a vote of "no confidence" in the Superintendent. Maple voted 17 yes, 1 no and 2 abstaining. West Seattle voted 35 yes, 3 no and 4 abstaining. I do want to echo what someone else said in a different thread. We don't know, right off hand, how many SEA represented staff are at each school. I don't believe most of these votes are technically SEA votes. I would call them straw votes. However, that these staff members, and a fair number at every single school, got together and took a vote tells me two things. One, there are a lot of brave people are out there because I can believe this could have repercussions for some and two, that enough staff from each school made the effort to take the vote. I am a bit surprised that the SEA is waiting until early September to vote as a whole. They said they want to wait and see how the Superintendent handles the negotiations. Fair enough and mayb...

I think I have gone about as far as I can with trying to get a clear picture on this situation. The reason I thought it important to cover was (1) to try to reassure parents about what is in place and (2) to find out if we need to be advocating for certain things. What I am sad to say is that like a lot of the criminal justice system, there are flaws to be found. There are gaps in what is supposed to happen. There are people saying contrary things. There is a situation that, on the surface, looked black and white and now there are many shades of gray. At the end of it? We are only as safe as the people doing the protecting (and some of those people aren't even in criminal justice). I interviewed Pegi McEvoy, the head of Security for the district, a probation officer for King County, and an unnamed source at Roosevelt. All those sources talked to me on procedural grounds (with one exception), NOT in specifics of this case. Pegi McEvoy only spoke to me on this condition. ...

Roosevelt principal Brian Vance sent home a letter to parents about the rape at Roosevelt (it is also posted online). I plan to write a detailed thread about this incident because it raise a lot of issues that all parents should understand about what can and can't happen in our schools. It may inspire us to tell our legislators to change notification laws. But to address this letter, I have a continuing troubled feeling here. On the one hand, the district was very clear, in its statement to the press, that the school knew of this student but did not tell the district. (The law requires the Sheriff's office to notify the school, not the district. Dumb? Yes.) My first reaction, because I worked with Brian for two years when I was co-president of the RHS PTSA, is that there is no way Brian wouldn't have done due diligence on this work. He is a good principal, a decent man and a detail-oriented person. I find it very hard to believe he overlooked telling the district ...

Sad news. An 18-year old Roosevelt student has been charged with raping a developmentally disabled girl. They had been dating for several weeks but he got her to skip class and go into a girl's bathroom where he touched her inappropriately and only stopped when another student came in. The girl reported it to a counselor. The attack happened on May 20th and the offender was arrested. He was charged May 25th. What makes this particularly difficult is that the male student is a Level II sex offender. Only certain staff at Roosevelt knew this and certainly no students or parents. State law does not require this information to be given out to a school community. He could go to prison for up to 14 months if convicted of this second crime. It's a pretty delicate thing to provide for the safety of students and yet allow this student to continue his education. I'm not sure I understand the choice of a regular high school versus a small re-entry where he could be better...

Good news from around our district: Rainier Beach High School took 1st place in the M.E.S.A. Math Olympiad this last Saturday. to Garfield High school for their jazz band winning, for the 4th time, first place at the NYC Essentially Ellington jazz competition. Roosevelt High also did well with an honorable mention. to Orca K-8' s team of readers who share the Global Reading Challenge title with a BC school. to Franklin High school whose robotics team won the state title for the FIRST Robotics Microsoft Seattle Regional Competition in March. Franklin also won the Engineering Inspiration Award at this competition. Additionally, Franklin's mock trial team took second place in the 2010 YMCA Mock Trial Competition. Franklin has long had a strong mock trial team. 13 former MLK, Jr. Elementary students were awarded scholarships from the Martin Luther King, Jr. Dream Foundation. Eckstein 's Orchestras took top places (in beginning, junior, intermediate and senior) at the...

A roundup of news tidbits, big and small. Mayor McGinn didn't get his levy ballot in on-time (some kind of mix-up or put in the wrong box). So his vote never registered. Big whoops on his part. Peter Maier has his monthly community meeting tomorrow, the 13th, from 10:30-noon at the Bethany Community Church at 1156 N. 80th. Lawton has a new principal (yet another mid-year principal change). From the Magnolia Voice blog: "Beverly Raines has taken a family leave of absence for the remainder of the school year. Kathy Bledsoe started this week as interim principal and will remain at the school for the rest of the year. Bledsoe is no stranger to Magnolia, having been the principal at Blaine for seven years. She retired from the Seattle School District two years ago. This was Raines first year at Lawton and prior to coming to the school she filed a lawsuit against Seattle Public Schools, accusing the district of discrimination based on age and sex." The distric...

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...