Seattle Schools Community Forum

From Erica C. Barnett (of C is for Crank): Tomorrow, the city council plans to fund nine new legislative assistants, one for each council member, bringing the total number of legislative assistant salaries for each office to four. (Council members can divide up those salaries however they want, for example by hiring multiple part-time aides, but council members' budgets will increase to add the new full-time equivalent position.)  The reason for the change, according to a staff report, is that council members have mor e work to do now that they represent districts, instead of the entire city. (This is the first council under the new system, in which seven council members represent geographic districts, and two are elected at large).  "The additional staff support provided by the new positions in this ordinance will be used to address the increased workload resulting from this switch to district elections," the staff report says. The legislation does...

Big night for Seattle for election results .   We could see a major shift in the make-up of both the School Board and the City Council.  Any predictions?  It is also a hugely important election for Colorado and, in specific, Jefferson County, where a recall election of several school board members is being attempted.  From Aljazeera America : But this battle has ramifications far outside the school district, and it’s drawing attention on a national scale. It is a battle pitting heavy hitters like AFP, the small-government advocacy group founded by billionaire businessmen Charles Koch and David Koch, against teachers’ unions and their supporters. It’s a battle being closely watched by educators and political operatives across the U.S. because JeffCo is the ultimate swing county in the key swing state of Colorado. That means success — or defeat — there could be replicated across the U.S. Interesting article about tweens/teens and use of digital pr...

I received a tweet on Monday from SPS, saying that Dr. Nyland was visiting with the City Council as part of their regular Monday morning briefing.  Here's the link .  It was worth listening to as I heard Dr. Nyland say, with some candor, various interesting things. Summary

It's an interesting thing to see who has endorsed which campaign around I-1240. First, you can thank me for the Yes side even having an endorsement page because they didn't have one for months.  But I kept calling it out at debates and I guess they got embarrassed.  What is kind of cute is the little mini-bios they have for every single person listed (but it does make the page look longer). For variety, there isn't a lot of comparison.  The Yes is a lot of business groups/ed reformers and, for the elected officials, Republicans (with the "roadkill" Dems thrown in). The No side / No side is quite varied and long on elected officials (but yes, very Democrat-heavy). As far as educators and those in education, there is no comparison.  Educators, administrators and elected officials in education are overwhelmingly against I-1240.  Community groups?  Quite a variety especially up against the Yes side. Newspapers?  Very much for the Yes side but ...

Remember my thread about the list of who does and does not support I-1240?  Remember how the No On 1240 group list dwarfed the Yes list AND had the biggest diversity of educators, parents and community groups?  Well, consider the list of individuals, particularly elected officials who are, as private citizens, taking a stand against 1240.  I have written to many elected officials to not stand by and be silent.  Any elected official who thinks they can be silent and think voters might not remember that silence in the future if 1240 passes - when schools have EVEN less money and non-failing schools get taken over by a charter - is wrong.   And I will be the first to say it out loud. What's interesting is if you go to either the No On 1240 campaign or the No On I-1240 campaign, they both have endorsement pages for both individuals and groups.  The Yes folks?  No such list; in fact here's all they say about their endorsements: The Washington P...