Seattle Schools Community Forum

We've had discussions here about the role of PTA in public education in our district.  There are several schools that are now PTOs (parent-teacher organizations) that operate solely at their schools.  Being a PTO is more work in some ways but in another way, it's better as your school gets to keep all your fund-raising dollars (without dollars going to state and national PTA.) We've talked about trying to figure out if it would be possible to share PTA wealth from some more empowered schools since other schools have small PTAs.  (I was doing a random check and so far I haven't found a school without a PTA/PTO.)  As I previously reported, the district says that PTA grants are now well over $3M a year and that's now above some other grant providers. Seattle PTAs have certainly taken on more and more. But it's not just the money but how PTA at all levels seems to be different to me.

Tuesday the 21st sees the public forum for Summit Sierra charter school from 6-8 pm at Freedom Church, 9601 35th Ave. SW.   Unfortunately, the Summit site gives no detail on the format of the evening nor does the Charter Commission site.  From my experience, you sign in if you want to speak and are given a lottery number.  There are usually between 3-5 Charter Commission members there.  After they are introduced, then Summit has about 10 minutes to flesh out what their school is and how they will operate. Then, the public gets a chance to weigh in.  Hopefully, the Charter Commission will not allow what happened in the past which is that the charter school gets supporters to come, each gets lottery number to speak.  However, Green Dot had a staffer who collected all those numbers and Green Dot decided who would speak.  I don't have a problem with any charter being able to bring in supporters but it seems like whoever has the number that is dra...

From Florida, a state where ed reform is almost completely out of control, two stories. The first is a continuing issue of Florida's insistence on testing all students, even the most severely disabled.