Seattle Schools Community Forum

I ask this question as two large parent issues are looming large right now.  Those issues are Building Leadership Teams (BLTs) and PTA.

And speaking of field trips , yet again the district cannot get the smarts to head off situation. Now it's all over the news.  This morning students at Stevens protested outside their school for about an hour.  They were protesting the very abrupt announcement that a long-time tradition of 5th graders going on an overnight field trip was not happening.  This is two weeks before the trip was to happen. The "official" explanation is that the paperwork didn't get to the district in time and, even with an extension, could not get done.

The District is definitely having trouble around field trips. There has always been incidents of misbehavior on field trips but they didn't get much publicity until the report of a rape on a Garfield High School field trip to NatureBridge. The review of that incident revealed the lax supervision that was practiced and the total neglect of the policies and procedures.

Two items have come up that only solidify my belief that the district has a very odd relationship with principals.  I say odd because there is no real way of knowing what the district will tighten the screws on and what they will completely look the other way on. One key issue is WHY principals make some of the decisions that they do and where they get the stated support for some decisions.   Principals say "their community" wants something and yet sometimes the PTA doesn't even know what is happening.  I have found that principals are people with their own philosophies and beliefs about education.  The problem is that a school can have a district program in them as well as a stated focus for the school.  I find it vexing that a new principal can come in and almost sweep all that away.   You can have parents, on the ground at their schools, telling Ex. Directors and others, "this is happening at my school" and the district will ignore it or shrug. I...

My first piece in this series was about how the City and other outside forces seem to be lining up to takeover the district, piece by piece. This thread is about legally mandated programs for students that have been an issue for the district for a very long time, namely, ELL, Special Education and Advanced Learning. I'm not going to go into a dissection of each because I'm not qualified to speak fully on ELL or Sped. (And I'm not looking for another discussion on Advanced Learning.  Please do not go off-topic on this point.) The issue is that our district has consistently either failed to provide services, provided partial service or failed to provide services in a timely manner for all of these programs at one time or another.  This has happened for many years.  The district has been under review for both Special Education services and ELL services by OSPI over the last year.  To be fair, I know that ELL and Special Education services are expensive and it...

I attended the 43rd Dems meeting last night; it's my district.  As you may be aware, the election of Ed Murray as mayor means he leaves the State Legislature as senator.  So his post needs to be filled and, so far, the only person to step forward is the one of the 43rd's representatives, Jamie Pedersen .  (The other is Frank Chopp, the Speaker of the House.)  Senator Murray is to resign on December 31st and the seat must be filled within 60 days of that date. Naturally, that means Pedersen's seat will be open and there are - so far - three candidates vying for the appointed position.  (It seems a complicated process who gets the appointment.  It was explained that the PCOs for the 43rd will vote, their rank order votes for all three are then sent to the King County Council who will make the final decision. Pedersen and Chopp spoke to the crowd about coming legislative issues.  Their overriding message was that the Dems need to regain control of t...

Saturday sees three Director Community Meetings: Community Meeting with Director Martin-Morris at Diva Espresso on Lake City Way from 9:30-11:30 am. Community Meeting with Director Smith-Blum at Capitol High Library, 425 Harvard Ave. E from 10 am-11:30 am Community Meeting with Director Patu at Caffe Vita, 5028 Wilson Avenue S. from 10 am to noon. From Central District News, a story about unhappy Central area parents and elementary school choices.  What's interesting is either no one checked in with the district on the use for TT Minor or chose to ignore what the district is planning (to reopen TT Minor for World School).  I think there are valid points here, though. Parents and residents in a northern swatch of the Central District, from Madison Avenue to Cherry Street and from 14th to 23rd Avenues (called Areas 42 and 43) are hoping to influence the school district to reopen TT Minor as the area’s elementary school. The group’s impetus for forming is a rec...

From the Central District News: Do you live in the Stevens Elementary enrollment boundary and have a preschool student you are planning to enroll in the next couple of years? The Stevens Capacity Task Force is hosting a community meeting on June 5th, at 7:00PM in the Stevens Library to share information regarding the planned enrollment boundary change for the 2014-15 school year. We are looking for your input in response to the information we have collected. The Task Force will use the input gathered from the community to make a recommendation regarding the Stevens boundary change to the district. Hope to see you there! (Editor's note; I think these meetings are a great idea but it would be better to present to the district a regional perspective.  You can't change boundaries in one school/region without a ripple effect.)

The Superintendent announced these principal assignments today: Appointments: * Kelly Aramaki to Beacon Hill International School (Susie Murphy is retiring) * Anitra Pinchback-Jones to Rainier View, which opens this fall * Lisa Escobar to Viewlands, which opens this fall * Dr. Robert Gary to Principal-on-special-assignment at Interagency Academy, joining Kaaren Andrews Note: Pinchback-Jones has been at Bagley Elementary, Lisa Escobar and Robert Gary have been at RBHS.   Also, the word is that Bryant will either have an assistant principal or head teacher and not continue having two principals. The following individuals have served in an Interim role this year and are officially being appointed as principal. In each case the ExecutiveDirector of Schools gathered feedback from staff, families and communitybefore making these recommendations: * Keven Wynkoop at Ballard * Kelley Archer at Stevens * Keisha Scar...

Looking at the School Board agenda for tonight's meeting, there are many changes. (One thing that hasn't changed is that there is no information what the Superintendent's update, CAO update or COO update will be about tonight.) One big change is that Kay Smith-Blum has withdrawn her amendment . Her statement seems to reflect having listened to her constituents and finding their reasoning plausible. First, I have withdrawn my amendment from tonight's agenda. I greatly appreciate your input and sincerely apologize for any anxiety caused. My amendment would NOT have reassigned any student, but I appreciate neighbors who would like to see their children continue to be assigned to the same school and greatly appreciate the upheaval the NSAP/TT Minor closure has had on the neighborhood. The numbers the board received LAST NIGHT from Tracy Libros show that Steven's enrollment will be up from the already 111% capacity, and do not include siblings of current Stev...

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...

To JSIS principal, Kelly Armaki, who won the 2010 Milken Educator Award for Washington with a $25,000 cash prize. Good for him and good for JSIS. (One slightly sad note: the OSPI website story says that he works to connect Spanish immersion students with native Spanish speaking ELL students. This is great but if you will recall from the NSAP discussions, fewer native speakers will be able to go to JSIS because it is an attendance area school, not an option school.) As well a shout-out to Lowell Elementary, Stevens Elementary 2nd grade and South Shore Elementary for creating altars for Dia de Muertos at Seattle Center. I'm sure that was a great project for kids, both interesting and educational. There will be altars at the Center House and a candlelight procession from the Center House to the International Fountain at 7 p.m. on Saturday. As well, there are other activities on both Saturday and Sunday. For those who may not know, Dia de Muertos (Day of the Dead) is a tradi...

There is a two-hour work session before this Wednesday's Board meeting with the topic of District scorecard and School Reports communication plan ." This is apparently a topic of some concern to the district because of the pending date of release set for November 9th. It is part of the Strategic Plan. From the district's website : The first annual school reports will be released by Seattle Public Schools (SPS) on November 9th 2010 , which will provide a snapshot of school performance on common academic measures. SPS wants parents, students, and the community to know how each individual school is doing – from test scores to absence rates to student proficiency – so we all can learn from and act on the information to make our schools better. In order to ensure excellence for all, the district needs to know how each school is currently performing and make improvement plans based upon that information. To be successful, we will need the community’s help. These school repor...