Seattle Schools Community Forum

I had heard that Emerson Elementary was losing a large number of teachers (somewhere between 10-12) and I asked the district about this. Here is their reply:

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...

Last week's Board meeting was fairly interesting (well, until you got to the staff updates but more on that later). The room wasn't full of the usual suspects but there definitely were sides. Highlights from speakers list: District watchdog Chris Jackins pointed out that the sale of MLK, Jr . property gives buyers all the money. (Apparently the presumed buyers - First AME Church - is getting the money from the state and the state will give it to the district. This is because the church, in its offer, says it will be offering youth programming and other community activities.) The idea of selling it to First AME is to create a community center in that neighborhood that would offer community services like youth activities. Then came a long line of people against the sale of the property to First AME. This was introduced and will be voted on by the Board in two weeks. Everyone spoke respectfully of the church's long history here in Seattle but the issue seems to be tha...

I've attended a few meetings and received some information from other sources that may be of interest. First Item - Math Placement Apparently the district math department (via MAP scores) sent out honors math placements to middle schools based on winter MAP scores . The placement lists were done BEFORE all 5th graders had taken the Spring test. Teachers had been assured that the Spring MAP exam would determine placement . I was told that, for example, at one school 80% of the kids would have qualified using the Spring scores versus about 50% with the Winter scores. There seems to be an issue with seats but if we have qualified kids, they all should get the placement. The district will probably get a lot of blowback on this issue but may try to dodge it some other way. Second Item - Facilities I attended the BEX Oversight Committee meeting on Friday. I was particularly interested in hearing what was happening with South Shore. I arrive a few minutes late and wo...

From our friends over at the West Seattle blo g, as mentioned previously here, the Denny/Sealth boundaries did not completely overlap on the maps. This, of course, raises the question of why the joint campus for the two schools if not to feed populations (even though technically middle schools are NOT feeding into high schools). Turns out, the map is wrong . They are supposed to completely overlap. Here's what Steve Sundquist told a West Seattle Q&A session this (according to an attendee): "Mr. Sundquist stated that the “revised” map will be announced on November 3rd, presumably at a scheduled meeting at the John Stanford Center Auditorium in SoDo at 4 p.m." So, true to Dr. Goodloe-Johnson's word, nothing will change at these meetings or until the introduction of the plan on November 4th. (The introduction is on November 4th, not the 3rd as the above participant states.) Then the final vote is November 18th . So here's the issue. We all have concern...

This from our friends at the West Seattle Blog : "Two weeks ago, we published a short report from the city Hearing Examiner’s chambers in the Municipal Tower, after listening to arguments from both sides in the appeal of the decision granting “departures” crucial to the Denny Middle School/Chief Sealth High School co-located-campus project (rendering above). At the end of that hearing, deputy hearing examiner Anne Watanabe promised to publish her ruling in two weeks. Though the ruling is not yet available online, we got a call tonight from the person who filed and argued the appeal, West Seattle-based district watchdog Chris Jackins. He has received a copy of the decision and tells WSB that while the ruling upholds the city’s granting of the “departures” - allowing the project more height and less parking than city code otherwise would have required - he says “we did get two of the things we wanted”: One, a stipulation that the two schools’ start/dismissal times must be staggered ...

It could be high drama tonight at the Board meeting. The overwhelming majority of speakers intend to speak on the High School math adoption . The Times has come out with a steady state editorial asking the Board to be careful, to listen to the public and to make sure their reasoning is sound. I am hoping, no matter what the vote, that I do not hear any Board member saying this has be done because time is running out. We make far too many decisions in this district based on staff giving this reasoning. I know the need for new and better textbooks at the high school level but as my son starts on his final leg of high school, I am aware that other parents will just start their journey in SPS in the fall. Those students need to have good valid textbooks awaiting them when they get to high school. But, as usual, there are other interesting items on the agenda. One is an addition to Hamilton to accomodate the music students coming from Washington who will help build and strengthen Hamilton...

It is not without a sharp tang of irony that I note the approval of an additional $828,388 to Bassetti Architect’s for the additional services related to the Sealth High School renovations. Didn't the Board choose not to stop the co-location of Sealth and Denny primarily to save a reported $2 million? This amount of "savings" didn't count the $3 million spent in BTA projects that would be lost as that work is destroyed by the co-location project. I guess now the additional cost of following the public will is down to $1.2 million. The additional money isn't a result of inflation or higher costs of steel or concrete. It's for additional architectural services. And why are we building additional classrooms at a high school when we have over 3,000 excess high school seats? Oh! That's right! Because our Facilities Department is totally dysfunctional.

Seattle Public Schools Facilities Department has finally answered questions that were asked at the public meeting of February 4, 2008. After only six months, the District has answers to these questions. The answers on the web site may still appear as "Response in progress as of 2/8/08" but here are the answers from Don Gillmore: On the WEB there were four questions that had the “Response in progress” notation for which you requested updated information. They are: 1. Pink Room Question #25 Question: What are current independent security stats for each of the schools? Response: Historic security stats for each school are on each individual school website. The information on the website includes disciplinary actions by year related to suspensions and expulsions (click on School Test Data and click on School Outcome Profile and scroll down). In addition, each school website has the “Student Climate Survey” which includes questions related to the school’s general climate (fe...

As a result of the kerfuffle over the BEX III project at Ingraham I found myself at the BEX III web site where I was tempted to click on the links to Denny/Sealth . Once there, I took a trip down memory lane on the Q & A from the February 4th public meeting . It's a funny thing, but here it is August, six months later, and they STILL haven't answered some of those questions. If I didn't have perfect faith in the District and the Facilities staff, I might fear that they never will. Just the same, I am curious about when they intend to answer these questions. Maybe if we could just get a timeline... Ah! And when exactly is the start time for that speedskating race in Hell? I think all you have to do is look at their record. Who is being held accountable for this? Is it the outside communications company that was hired to do the community engagement?

I would call the Denny/Sealth Work Session today a snow job except that some of the Board weren't buying it. The staff had a very elaborate presentation (the paper they used was a very heavy paper with deep color photos of the Powerpoint presentation - how much could this cost to do?) for the Board. They first explained how both projects came about; Denny is quite old in all areas and Sealth's boiler/HVAC system is at the end of its life (and replacing it requires demolition and if they are going to do that drastic of work, they should spiff up the place). Interestingly, they say that the condition between the two high schools in West Seattle is so great that they need to remodel. Then they gave an "academic rationale" which was somewhat laughable because all they did was print the Seattle School Board mission, their theory of action, the district's academic vision, some cherry-picked research on 6-12 schools, academic benefits of "span" schools (from ...