Seattle Schools Community Forum

I will be reviewing the School Board agenda for the Board meeting coming up this week on Wednesday.  It looks like It looks like Concord, Roxhill and Graham Hill  may be losing some of their bus service.  Transportation standards item from agenda here .  (The changes are fairly extensive as there is sunsetting of some standards.  One thing I wish that staff would do, especially for exceptions to standards for some schools, is explain WHY these schools get an exception.  There could be good reasons but again, when you are looking at equity issues lack of clarity doesn't help.) And it appears there will be further cuts to Graham Hill.  I am puzzled by this especially for a school that has already had its share AND given serious safety concerns that parents have repeatedly brought before the Board. There seems to be equity issues arising from the assignment plan in terms of how many options some parents are able to get their children to school, t...

New principal at Roxhill announced (via West Seattle Herald): Seattle Public Schools Superintendent José Banda has named Sanhica Washington as the new principal for Roxhill Elementary School, replacing the recently promoted Carmela Dellino. Dellino was named as Executive Director for Seattle Public Schools West Seattle Region last month. Dellino leaves the school in great shape having coordinated and overseen the recent T-Mobile makeover at the school. (About the T-Mobile makeover: The sad condition of Roxhill Elementary School got an impressive facelift on July 26 as 300 Seattle and Bellevue based T-Mobile employees brought their best makeover efforts to the school. The effort, part of a national community outreach program called "Huddle Up" had volunteers painting, planting and beautifying the school concentrating on creating a T-Mobile After School space. That space is now a customized afterschool area stocked with furniture, school supplies, books ...

I was unable to attend last night. If you did, could you let us know what was said or your impressions.  Here's the West Seattle Blog wrap-up of the meeting (complete with video).   Apparently the biggest issue discussed was the merging of Arbor Heights and Roxhill and how late in the timeline their renovation would come. Again, Arbor Heights is in the top three of worst condition buildings in our district.  They want it fixed sooner rather than later.  From the West Seattle Blog: (District officials acknowledged that capacity issues are taking precedence over school-condition issues in planning of this levy.) You could hear this as an issue at the Eckstein BEX IV meeting - "we have capacity issues." It's a rock and hard place for BEX IV.  If could have another bond, this wouldn't be as big an issue but the district can't risk losing with a 60% bar that a bond requires. From the WS blog; Capital projects/planning director Lucy Morello s...

Over in West Seattle, they are not letting any grass grow under their feet.  They have four community meetings on the preliminary BEX IV plans for their area.  They, along with everyone else, do need to understand that BEX IV has to be considered in a "big picture" type of way but yes, of course, do look at your region. Director McClaren has a newsy website with lots of info including the audio of the BEX IV work session (thank you Rod Clark!).   (Also there is audio available of the K-5 STEM design meetings at Marty's website.)   I will try to get these audio links up as much as possible. Schedule of meetings: Tuesday, April 3 at 7 p.m. in the Arbor Heights cafeteria for Arbor Heights and Roxhill Thursday, April 5 at Denny from 6:30-8:00 pm. regular BEX IV meeting Friday, April 6 at the High Point Community Center from 7:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m. (note: in conjunction with High Pt. Family Night which starts at 7 p.m.) Tuesday, April 10 at the Delrid...

From our friends at the West Seattle blog, news I had to print from Roxhill Elementary: Last Thursday, November 10th, Roxhill fourth graders were treated to a Living Voices performance of Native Vision . Lisa Gladstone, a Blackfoot Indian from Browning, Montana did a remarkable job of engaging our students in the story of Alice, a Navajo girl sent to a government run boarding school in the 30’s and 40’s. Alice became a nurse in the Pacific during World War ll, struggling to keep true to her native culture in a changing world. Before the performance, Roxhill students had read about and discussed how native children fared in the boarding schools and had also learned about the contributions of the Navajo Code Talkers. Their rapt attention during the performance and perceptive questions afterward spoke to how valuable this performance was in enhancing their knowledge of a very complex subject. I am writing to you because this performance was a gift to Roxhill, a gift from th...

Franklin High School Kicks Off Centennial Year on Friday, Sept. 30th Franklin High School turns 100 years old in 2012, and one of Seattle’s oldest high schools will kick off a year-long centennial celebration in the gym Friday afternoon. The event will include a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the school’s newly-renovated gym and a proclamation by King County Councilmember (and Franklin alumnus) Larry Gossett, who has declared Sept. 30 Franklin High Day in King County. The proclamation will also recognize the school’s significant improvements in student test scores and college acceptance rates. Principal Jennifer Wiley predicts that other big-name Franklin athlete alums, along with Seattle School District leaders who are also Franklin graduates, will be in attendance. Officials of the National Achievement Scholarship Corporation named three students from SPS as Semifinalists in the 48th annual National Achievement Scholarship Program. These academically pr...

Over at KIRO 93.7, reporter Josh Kerns did a piece on TFA coming to the Puget Sound area.  Update:  the KIRO piece includes links to the professor at the University of Texas and Janis Ortega who is the area TFA person.  Very interesting to listen. I have to say that one troubling thing is the language that TFA uses.  Ms. Ortega, in defending the research that supports TFA's contention of how their recruits do, said, " I wish research would be comprehensive, at least those who proport research."  Considering where some of that other research comes from, that's a little disrespectful.   It's one thing to say you disagree or have other research to back your claims; it's another to call that research proported.  I also note that TFA never seems to acknowledge teachers already in the classroom.  I wonder why. 

From the Wallyhood blog (the blog of Wallingford where B.F. Day, JSIS and McDonald are located), a post on the school reports. The blog points out the differences in scoring between JSIS (a 4) and B.F. Day (a 2) as well as the number of free/reduced lunch students at B.F. Day versus JSIS. Here's an interesting stat from the blog entry: While many folks don’t think about B.F. Day as a Wallingford school since it sits on the other side of Aurora, last year 23% of B.F. Day’s students were from Wallingford, and that number more than doubled to 48% this year due to the New Student Assignment Plan. They also provide a link to an interesting study that I forgot about from 2000 of parent involvement at JSIS and its outcomes. What is fascinating is how quickly the comments got vicious (and it points out a big issue of how parents feel about their school versus the data on its performance). One parent spoke of how he/she felt that B.F. Day gets a bad rap versus JSIS when it comes to ...

The Times this morning has a story about the great librarian at Roxhill Elementary, Pat Bliquez. She recently on a Golden Apple teaching award for her work. From the story: "Four-fifths of the kids are on free or reduced-price lunch. About half live in households where English is not the first language. About 40 percent live in homes without two parents." "Her principal, Carmela Dellino, is direct about her librarian's value to the school and its 335 kids: "In many ways she's the heart of the school," Dellino said. Bliquez is petite, gentle and soft-spoken, but she's "incredibly effective in fostering books and a love of reading. I can honestly say that her library is more full than the playground at recess. They're grabbing books, they're reading, they're exploring books in that way that we want them to." Bliquez works collaboratively with teachers, to make sure the reading concepts she's imparting align with...