Seattle Schools Community Forum

The district's info on buses and inclement weather for what may be an up-and-down weather week. Also, two items of note to put on your calendar. One, a community meeting on Cedar Park and its designation as an Option School.   This is on Thursday, December 15th at Cedar Park Elementary from 6:30-8:30 pm. The other is an Option School Fair that the district will be holding on Saturday, January 28, 2017 at Cleveland STEM High School from 10 am-2pm.  Monday, December 5th Student Assignment Plan meeting from 6:30-7:30 at JSCEE.   At UW, Education and Society Film Series : Starving the Beast.  Sponsored by University of Washington College of Education Master in Education Policy program Kane Hall 120 from 7-9 pm. Some of the most pressing issues facing America's educational systems will be discussed during the "Education and Society" documentary film series. Watch "Starving the Beast" and join a conversation about the funding of public hig...

Or, as more commonly referred to, the SAP. Background The district created a new Student Assignment Plan in 2009 that was approved by the Board.  It was a big change, primarily because the district went from a choice plan to a neighborhood plan.  I know that many of you don't like this form of SAP but, at the time, many parents were clamoring for a neighborhood plan because of the assurance of knowing what school their child would be assigned to.  The interesting thing I wonder about is that under the choice plan, 90% of people received their first choice.  That's a pretty good percentage but was that their desired choice or just the best choice they felt they could make in terms of knowing where their child would be?  I haven't heard any numbers on the choice within the neighborhood plan. Then, with the explosive growth in the district, the plan had to be tweeted and so there was a Transition Plan.  What is confusing to me is that the district is stil...

Over at the Soup for Teachers Facebook page there was some unhappiness over what info is available at the SPS website around the Growth Boundaries.   Apparently some parents received an email about them but it had no link to the webpage (which means you would have had to search for it yourself.)  And here is the link.

I'll do the School Board meeting in two parts because even though the Growth Boundary amendments were the big show, many other interesting things were said at the meeting. But to the Growth Boundaries.  HUGE thank you to Kellie LaRue who sat thru the whole thing (something like 6+ hours; I wimped out at 4 hours) and reported back on the votes.

Monday, Nov. 16th Community Meeting on Assignment Plan at Rainier Beach High School, starting at 6:30 pm.  This is the last of the meetings on this topic.  I still maintain this was window-dressing and not about staff getting and receiving real input on this topic.  I'll have a separate thread on what readers have said but it seems clear that the waitlist is still an issue. Wednesday, Nov. 18th Board meeting starting at 4:15 pm.  Something of an end of an era for this particular make-up for the Seattle School Board. Agenda . I do want to publicly say thank you to each of the Board members who are leaving - Harium Martin-Morris, Sherry Carr, Sharon Peaslee and Marty McLaren.  I walked Fremont with Sherry Carr to help her get elected.  I worked on the campaigns of both Sharon Peaslee and Marty McLaren (her first one.)  It takes courage to even stand up and run for office and even more courage and energy to serve.  I certainly have disagreed...

Here's the agenda item from the upcoming Wednesday Board meeting.  I have not had the opportunity to compare the red-line with the green printed (clean) versions of the SAP.    (And actually, it would be interesting to compare the last red-line version with the current one and see what differences there are.) Here's the agenda for the entire meeting. I note one interesting thing on the agenda.  The Board is to vote on the SMART Goals that guide the Superintendent's work. There are two amendments to this BAR; one from Director McLaren and one from Director Peaslee and Director Patu.  It involves wording over who are the groups in "students of color."

I almost - almost - didn't go to the Curriculum&Instruction Committee meeting and then the COW of the Operations (Committee of the Whole - that acronym is a scream).  But I did and I am glad I did. To the biggest news - did you hear about the University of Missouri president who resigned under protest from students about lack of sensitivity/action on racism issues?  How did that happen? Big, steady, continuing pressure. And so it goes for the Student Assignment plan.   Staff has rolled back what they are doing in a major way AND the Board is pretty clear that this is what they want.  I cannot tell you how the support of the Seattle Council PTSA has mattered in this case.  I am so proud of that group and their graceful (and seemingly fearless) leader, Cassandra Johnston.  I truly believe that their support on this issue for transparency and clarity on this issue - along with many of you - have carried the day. What was said at the COW tonight: ...

The district has announced community meetings about the Student Assignment Plan.  I'll be frank.  It's too little, too late and really, it's a waste of everyone's time.  Why? Too little 1) There are just three meetings scheduled.  There is not one in the SW.  This is very akin to what they did for the "growth boundaries" meetings.  This city, this district has regions.  It is difficult for parents to learn of these meetings and then get to one on school nights. Too late 2) The last meeting is just two days before the vote. In less than two weeks, the district will notify parents, take their input and consider it in the plan?  No.  In less than two weeks, they will have some public meetings and write down what parents say. Waste of everyone's time Check out the FAQs.  They STILL say there are only two changes to the plan.  Who is zooming who? (Note: there is an Admissions FAQ for various programs AND an FAQ for the Studen...

The Student Assignment Plan BAR on the Board meeting agenda has changed again. I have just spent about 20 minutes comparing this document to the real SAP (see next paragraph).  I have tried to understand what they are saying and you know what?  I don't believe ANYONE should have to be a detective to figure this out. This has gone too far and frankly, it's a mess.  The Board needs to say no. First, the document that staff is using is NOT the Student Assignment Plan .  It's the 2014 Annual Transition plan. To explain, the Board passed a Student Assignment Plan in 2009.  But there have been Transition plans for the school years since because of the growth of the district and the reopening of schools.  Each of these plans had specific items (like grandfathering - who got it and for how long) and were documents to work towards - I thought - a finalization of the use of the SAP which would now be based on address. The Oct 21, 2015 BAR said this: S...

Update:  here's the schedule for the district boundary meetings - there are only three and they are all less than a hour. Thornton Creek K-5 lunchroom Tues., Oct. 1, 2015, 6:30 - 7:15 p.m. 7711 43rd Ave NE Interpreters: Chinese and Spanish Schmitz Park Elementary lunchroom Mon., Oct. 5, 2015, 6:30 - 7:15 p.m. 5000 SW Spokane Street Interpreters: Spanish, Somali and Vietnamese Seattle World School Meany Building lunchroom Tues., Oct. 6, 2015, 6:30 - 7:15 p.m. 301 21st Ave E Interpreters: Chinese, Spanish, Somali and Vietnamese Also, a link to the map of the look of SPS in 2020 - wow is the word that comes to mind for those high school assignments.   It says it was approved in Nov 2013 and last updated 9/14/2015.  If you are in PTA, I would go to my PTA/PTO leaders and ask that this be a topic of discussion.  

 Executive Committee agenda for Wednesday.  Hey, all of you waiting for next year's school calendar - they will be discussing that.  (I note that other districts have theirs published already.) Audit& Finance agenda for Thursday.  I see there is a "resolution" about moving leases and rental revenue to the General Fund.  Well, okay but ONLY if it goes to building maintenance.  Those are really capital dollars and should go to capital needs.  But I'll bet they won't.  Work Session presentation on Boundaries. 

KUOW is asking this question at their Public Insight Network page to try to get feedback on this issue for a story. So it has been a year now with enrollment starting soon for year 2 of the NSAP. What's it been like? Has your family split kids at two schools? Made a life at a new school? Any predictions for 3-5 years down the line? (I'm predicting less diversity at many north end schools.)

A Roundup of Meetings and Activities: School Report Community meetings , co-sponsored with the SCPTSA, start this week. The first one is on Monday, Nov. 29th at Roosevelt High School from 7-8:30 p.m. (These are going by region so this is the NE region meeting. You can, of course, attend any of them but your region's school won't be represented by your principal or regional director.) There's also an APP Advisory Council meeting : * Monday, November 29,* *at Garfield High School (in the commons)* *6:30-8:30pm* This will be an opportunity for the APP community to learn about Garfield capacity issues and possible solutions, the proposed APP high school path to Ingraham, and to express all your questions, concerns, and hopes. The next School Report Community meeting is the SE Region on Tuesday, Nov. 30th at South Lake High School from 7-8:30 p.m. Tuesday, November 30th is the Board Work Session on the Budget from 4-8:00 p.m. Director Maier has a communit...

I taped the Board meeting Wednesday to listen to public comment and see what the Superintendent might have to say this time around. I'll go in reverse order on these two. The Superintendent herself didn't speak much for her updates. She had Tracy Libros, from Enrollment Services, talk about how this enrollment season had gone, early data and what to expect before school starts in September. Highlights: during Early Registration, 84% of those registering were kindergarten students Enrollment processed 7,038 forms, 5,780 were for choice seats Notification of waiting list movement should start soon (but again, it depends on the school) there are 8 schools that have 6-10 K sibs on their waiting list, 6 that have 6-10, 3 with 11-15 and 2 with 16-20 Enrollment will be collaborating with principals to see if they can revise their enrollment to put in more kindergarten students (okay, but what does collaborating mean? Arm-twisting or promises for more resources? It's hard to...

Thanks to StepJ who let us know the district had posted a document about the kindergarten sibling waitlists . There are 148 siblings on the waiting lists for schools that are not their attendance area school. There is a fairly even city-wide distribution of siblings who didn't get their sibling assignment with the largest for Kimball at 19 and John Hay at 18. Here's the document summary : "The following chart shows results for non-attendance area K siblings who applied for their sibling’s attendance area school during Open Enrollment. In summary: • 556 non-attendance area K students applied for their older sibling’s school.2 • 73% of these applicants (408 students) were assigned to their sibling’s school. • 27% of these applicants (148 students) are on waiting lists for their sibling’s school. These results are in addition to: • Students assigned to their attendance area school their older sibling attends. • 132 K siblings assigned to the Option School their older si...

(Update, Saturday, the 8th. The CPPS Superintendent survey is open until midnight tonight .) Just to let you know, there have been roughly 500 CPPS Superintendent surveys taken since last week. Of those, 270 had comments. The last day to take the survey is tomorrow so if you haven't, here's your chance (or let a friend know). While it is not scientific, I think the results will be of interest to the Board. Also, Matt Halverson at Seattle Metropolitan magazine is doing a story on the new SAP . He is interested in hearing from anyone thinking about and/or looking to move in order to get to a different school. He is trying to find out if this talk about moving to be near a school is an urban rumor or a reality. If you are such a person (or know one), contact him at: mhalverson@sagacitymedia.com or 206-957-2234 x133

( Update: 9:10 am - Nevermind. I guess the district staff really does visit us (that was fast). The numbers are not giving out information now except to tell you to call Transportation. Question is: why were they live in the first place and will the information given be valid for people who did call?) Apparently some folks have tried calling automated enrollment numbers and have learned their child's assignment. You can try one of two numbers according to our readers. 206-252-0410 OR 206-252-0760 However, here's a caveat which is don't give it 100% credibility until you get it in writing in the mail.

I attended the joint meeting yesterday morning. There were a handful of other interested people including Ramona Hattendorf, the Seattle Council PTSA President. The entire City Council was there except Sally Clark and the entire School Board was there except for Michael DeBell. The Superintendent was also in attendance. As I mentioned elsewhere, I saw Tracy Libros, head of Enrollment, before the meeting started and asked her about the district decision to enlarge the enrollment at both Ballard and Roosevelt. I asked her how many students that might be. She said up to 25% of the functional capacity of each school except if the school did fill with attendance area students, they would need to keep the 10% Open Choice seats. A bit confusing but I'm sure it will all become clear by the end of May. I had forgotten that all City Council meetings have a public comment portion at the beginning so I did get up and speak. I just told the Council that as someone active in the distric...

I was unable to attend the Board Work Session today on the budget. The PowerPoint is available and it has quite a bit of interesting information (which I'm sure was much better fleshed out at the meeting). There is another Board Work Session on the budget on April 8th. Items of interest (or amusement or annoyance, take your pick): for whatever reason, staff always has at least 2-3 pages of high-minded rhetoric. The Board knows what they are doing and why they are doing it (meaning, why this district exists and what they are trying to accomplish) and yet staff puts these pages in. For example, at the bottom of page 5 there's this (what I would call) mission statement: We are mindful of the impacts of the current budget crisis and will work thoughtfully and diligently to obtain the best outcomes possible for our students. Okay, thanks. Page 5 also has the guiding principles for the budget decisions including: Ensure lean, healthy infrastructure exists to support instruct...

A couple of previous posts had mentioned a link to a document about enrolling for the new SAP created by Elizabeth Walkup, a Seattle schools parent (and yet another smart person who knows how to analyze data). I had looked at it myself and it seems like a big help for parents who are new to the both SPS and the new SAP. There have been many questions about the Barnhart-Waldman amendment that has been and is being used (likely for the last time) in the SAP. Elizabeth explains it quite clearly in her document.