Seattle Schools Community Forum

Let's go back to last Friday when the district was hosting a "summit" with the super-peppy name of "School Improvement Superstars Summit." I asked the district some questions and here are the answers. What was the goal? The goal is to share the best practices that have led to improvements in student achievement in Title I schools so that other schools/students can benefit from those best practices. What was the cost? The event was funded with nearly $1,000 of Title One money. The coffee and rolls for about 130 participants was $646. The rest was for binders and printing. Why was it free to participants? Again the purpose is staff development, which we believe is an important component of ensuring a well-trained employee workforce, and the cost was covered by Title I. Why did this event have its own website? The website was created by a consulting teacher working in the grants office as part of her workload and as part of her own professional developme...

I was at the SPS website checking for any new updates and came upon a notice about an event happening tomorrow - the 2011 School Improvement Superstars Summit .   I thought, "Darn, how did I miss putting this on the events page?"  Upon examination there's something very odd about this event. First, it has both a webpage and a blog page which are separate from the SPS website.  I don't know why or if they are privately maintained (the blog page appears to be).  The organizer seems to be the woman who maintains the blog page, Rachel Osborn, billed as "consulting teacher in SPS Grants & Fiscal Compliance."  Second, what is the event for? Title 1 managers and principals from around the state will attend the event to learn together, share ideas and collaborate. The purpose of the summit is to help raise student achievement at the highest need schools and to strengthen the statewide Title 1 network. Okay, fine but why is SPS putting this on? Th...