Seattle Schools Community Forum

Below is a roundup of information/stories from the (Southeast Seattle Education Coalition) SESEC e-mail update; they do a very good job in covering youth/ed issues in South Seattle. The City of Seattle Youth Employment Program (SYEP) is an ongoing comprehensive internship program. Applications are currently open until May 2. Seattle Opportunity Youth Fair for 16-24 year-olds not working or in school. Thursday, May 5. 9.00 a.m. to 4.00 p.m. All attendees must register online . South Lake High School is seeking volunteers and donations for their 4th Annual Teen Parents Community Baby Shower on April 29 from 4.00-6.00 p.m. Really good article on diversity in our neighborhoods from KUOW . Starting on Saturday, national parks have free entry for a week for National Park Week from April 16-24th.  #FindYourPark and #EncuentraTuParque. The National Park Service is celebrating 100 years of service this year.  

I was listening to the NPR show, The Takeaway, and they had a conversation with former Attorney General, Eric Holder.   It was a somewhat wide-ranging conversation and it included discussion of Sandy Hook. Holder: And I met with the first responders and the crime scene search officers and they took me around, I looked at the pictures. If the American people had access to those pictures, if the American people had seen those pictures, the calls for reasonable gun safety measures would have been passed.

Three years since the Sandy Hook shootings . The SEA , at their representative assembly last night, voted in a resolution in support of Middle College High School (MCHS) for its almost 25 years of serving students of color who are disenfranchised or in crisis.  They note that this means that six teachers of color have been administratively displace or removed from their positions. State that SEA’s position is that the historical focus of the MCHS program and curriculum on social justice and critical pedagogy at all sites must be maintained. We believe failure to do so would contradict the focus on equity agreed to by both SEA and the district during the recent contract negotiations; Los Angeles schools were shut down today over an electronic terror threat relating to backpacks and was directed at schools themselves (not places like buses.)