Seattle Schools Community Forum

The AP is reporting that the State Supreme Court will announced on Friday that it would consider if the charter law of Washington State violates our state's constitution. I would say that's a rather large piece of news as I have been repeatedly told that it was "highly unlikely" this would happen.  Oral arguments are scheduled for Oct. 28th.  I just might have to go and listen. A King County judge had earlier ruled that parts of the law were unconstitutional and both sides asked to skip the appeals and go straight to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court issue centers around our Constitution's wording about "common schools" and whether charters meet that specific definition (and therefore are entitled to be funded in that manner). NCLB letters are reaching mailboxes soon.  (SPS is holding back to see if their individual district waiver comes thru based on the district's belief that the CBA covers using test scores for teacher evaluation.)  Her...

From the Times about the West Seattle robberies of Denny students : S eattle police believe they may have caught at least one teen connected to the armed muggings and beatings of West Seattle middle-schoolers earlier this week. When officers approached a dozen teens hanging out around 4 p.m. today near Roxhill Park, where the armed robberies took place, several of them took off running. Officers chased after them and caught eight, all between 14 and 18 years of age. One 18-year-old was arrested and booked into King County Jail because of a gun and box of ammo in a car he’d been driving. The seven other teens were released, but police say they’re continuing to examine any links between them and recent robberies in the area. The Stranger Slog is reporting that Salmon Bay K-8 has dropped out of the MAP boycott.   They surmised, (and I believe rightly so) that their middle school could lose funding via the Families and Education levy for their middle school activities....

South Shore PreK-8 came up as a topic during a discussion over conversion charters .  I, like many, believe it would be a target (a willing one) for a conversion takeover.  I suspect you could get the parents or teachers to agree and I'm sure LEV, who now directs the foundation money that South Shore gets, would also be agreeable.  That leaves the community and the district that may not like the idea of losing a $73M building to a charter entity. One thing to keep in mind - ALL charters are their own districts .  If they take over a district building, they can decide the parameters - within the law - of public use just as SPS does.  If you use a school building for your local community meetings or Boy Scouts, you might have to find someplace else to go.  I also don't know what it would mean for the joint-use agreement that SPS has with Parks for SPS playfields.  I would assume if a charter group takes over the building and its grounds and is its ...

Tomorrow, Sunday, April 1 , Seattle Children's Hospital will be giving away bike helmets on a first-com, first-serve basis.  They have 400 helmets to give away and your child must be present to be fitted properly.  This is happening at the Ballard Commons Park from 10 am to 1 p.m.  Salmon Bay's Leo Pfeifer won first place in C-Span's documentary video contest.  He won $3,000 and his video will be aired on C-Span on April 25th.  This is the second year in a row Leo has placed in the top tier of this competition.  Students in grades 6-12 created videos with the theme, "The Constitution and You."  They had to select any provision of the Constitution to work on.  Over 1200 videos were submitted.  Congrats to Leo, his parents and his teachers at Salmon Bay. In the Global Reading Challenge competition, two Seattle teams have advanced to the next round: Alki Elementary and Adams Elementary.   Those two teams will compete against a Canad...

First up are two pieces of good news from the northwest corner of the district. My Ballard reports that a Salmon Bay student, Leo Pfeifer, won recognition by C-SPAN for his documentary, "Homelessness: An American Crisis."  He is one of 30 students to be recognized out of 1,100 entries and won 1 of 4 second prizes ($1500, not shabby).   On Friday, he and his cameraman, Ian Derby,  will be honored at an assembly at Salmon Bay and presented with a check.  From the district's website, Ballard High band director, Michael James, was selected as one of five directors from around the country to receive a full scholarship to the Lincoln Center's Band Director Academy.  He was chosen based on the quality of recordings submitted to the Essentially Ellington Jazz Festival.  More jazz band honors for SPS. Also, Bryant and Thurgood Marshall won the City Finals in the 2011 Global Reading Challenge .  They advance to the Video Conference final with Canada...

PTA Wars from Time Magazine This article even has quotes from parents at Salmon Bay K-8 (wonder how they found them). We here know the issues: "You now see parent groups paying for a substantial part of the budget," says Julian Weissglass, an education professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. "But what happens to schools in poorer areas, where parents can't afford to do this? It's very troubling." But here's a great thing: When the Bellingham, Wash., district cut a conservation program from its budget, the PTA at Carl Cozier — whose leaders say it could have funded the field trip for its own students — asked to spearhead a fundraising campaign so that every third-grader in the district's 14 elementary schools could attend. The district green-lighted the proposal, and PTAs throughout Bellingham joined forces to foot the $30,000 bill. Those are parents committed to equity. The dangers (again, we know this as well): One...

I started this in Charlie's thread's comment section but it got too long. So, to add to the discussion, here are my notes (I left as Charlie arrived). From my notes: -the Board office has two new hires so both Joan Dingfield and Pam Oakes are gone. I'll miss them; they are nice people. One new thing; the addition of the first 5+ people on the waitlist to the agenda so you can get an idea of where you might be on the waitlist -Lots of energy from TOPS parents who very calmly and clearly explained their issue about transportation. Over 50% of their students will lose their transportation, mostly from the southend. They are asking for a community stop model for buses so their students can continue on. Their hope is for the district to fulfill this request for 3 years. (This time request has something to do with a promise the district made, I believe.) - it was pointed out that a member of the BEX Oversight Committee is doing business with the district and this has not...

Let's go through the Transition Plan amendments being proposed by Board Directors. Harium Martin-Morris I move that there be a one-year special program preference for Thornton Creek 5th graders applying to Salmon Bay as their first choice school, without transportation, with tiebreakers applied in the following sequence: 1.Sibling 2.Special program preference for Thornton Creek 5th graders 3.Geography 4. Lottery So this would keep TC students flowing to Salmon Bay. Of course, without transportation, how many will be able to make this choice? Maybe someone at TC could let us know what they think the rough numbers might be. Salmon Bay is less difficult to get into than it used and if more TC students didn't go, there'd be more spaces for other students. The accompanying chart shows that it truly varies from year to year where TC 5th graders go for middle school. Oddly, either the number got left off, but they give no numbers for how many TC 5th graders went to Eckstein f...

Here is the Transition Plan that is to be presented to the Board next Wednesday. Reading through it quickly, I don't see any major changes. Transportation is Appendix A, right at the end. I certainly feel for all parents. It is a lot to absorb and considering some of it may change in a year or so, even more work is in store. There are also a few other items of interest on the Agenda. 1) Dr. Enfield's report is on curriculum alignment and STEM . Should be interesting. 2) interestingly (and maybe I just never noticed before) but they have the minutes of work sessions and the retreat on the Consent Agenda. Are there actual minutes of these meetings or just agendas? 3) Interesting capital items . One is for McClure to get some energy efficiency work done under a Washington State Department of Commerce grant. From the agenda item: "McClure Middle School was awarded a grant during the last legislative session under sponsorship of state Rep. Reuven Carlyle. The grant ...

I attended the Budget/Transition Board Work Session yesterday (well, 4 hours of it before I left). I had seen they were going to discuss the Budget and, as usual, the Board bit off more than it could chew in one sitting. The budget portion went long and the Transition Plan got started late. I regret I couldn't stay for all the Transition Plan (and yes, grandfathering was at the end). However, I saw several familiar faces there and I know they will fill in. As it turns out, it was good to hear about the upcoming budget issues because my belief is that the budget and the new SAP are on a collision course. We are headed for a huge budget crisis of proportions we haven't seen since the Olchefske era. We are losing almost $24M from state money alone. The gap as of yesterday was $35M BUT, if they want to enact the new SAP, it could rise to nearly $45M between the new SAP and what is called Budget Enhancements. They are likely to dip into reserves again. This is going to last...

I pointed out recently that in the SPS calendar, there were two school start times that were incorrect. It says that all the K-8s start at 8:20 a.m. Now we here know that it's not so; TOPS and Salmon Bay have a different start time. I had called around at the district yesterday, trying to find out how this happened but I got a very irritated person in Transportation saying the calendars were not their doing. I spoke to someone in Communications who said they would have Tom Bishop of Transportation call me back. I pointed this at to the Board, both in an e-mail and at the Board meeting. I told them, "One thing you need to get right is the time you expect parents to have their child at school." I ran into Mr. Bishop as I left the Board meeting. He explained that yes, two K-8s don't start at the same time as the others. He seemed very calm and not a whole lot concerned. I told him the calendar reflected that they all start at the same time. He said thanks for tel...