Seattle Schools Community Forum

Washington Middle School decided, some time ago, to dissolve its Spectrum classes. Spectrum-eligible students at Washington would no longer be in self contained classes for English and Social Studies, but would be mixed in with the general education students, called "scholars". The school promised that the inclusive classroom would provide more rigorous instruction for all students and that all students would benefit. Is that what happened? Here is a link to Washington's CSIP . In it, we find the results of their experiment. But first, the propaganda:

So what's up with this story about Washington Middle School and security cameras in the cafeteria?  From the South Seattle Emerald : (In late November) the principal of Washington Middle School said she thought so, announcing the installation of “video surveillance throughout the school.”   “We intend to identify kids who do not fulfill their clean-up responsibilities,” said Principal Susan Follmer. “Who wants to sit at a crumb-ridden table?” In another e-mail Follmer said:

The Times has an article this morning on "de-tracking" which is quite illuminating. First, the expert they site, Carol Burris, is the head of a group I belong to, the Network for Public Education. Carol Corbett Burris became Executive Director of the Network for Public Education Foundation in August 2015, after serving as principal of South Side High School in the Rockville Centre School District in NY since 2000.  Prior to becoming a principal, she was a teacher at both the middle and high school level.  Dr. Burris co-authored Detracking for Excellence and Equity (2008) and Opening the Common Core: How to Bring ALL Students to College and Career Readiness (2012), and authored On the Same Track: How Schools Can Join the 21st Century Struggle against Re-segregation (2014). She is one of the brightest lights in pushing back on corporate ed reform and a great thinker on public education. The Times' article cites her work in New York wh...

Update:  here's the schedule for the district boundary meetings - there are only three and they are all less than a hour. Thornton Creek K-5 lunchroom Tues., Oct. 1, 2015, 6:30 - 7:15 p.m. 7711 43rd Ave NE Interpreters: Chinese and Spanish Schmitz Park Elementary lunchroom Mon., Oct. 5, 2015, 6:30 - 7:15 p.m. 5000 SW Spokane Street Interpreters: Spanish, Somali and Vietnamese Seattle World School Meany Building lunchroom Tues., Oct. 6, 2015, 6:30 - 7:15 p.m. 301 21st Ave E Interpreters: Chinese, Spanish, Somali and Vietnamese Also, a link to the map of the look of SPS in 2020 - wow is the word that comes to mind for those high school assignments.   It says it was approved in Nov 2013 and last updated 9/14/2015.  If you are in PTA, I would go to my PTA/PTO leaders and ask that this be a topic of discussion.  

Well first, it's hot (but I'm from Arizona so you can't scare me) and dry so please have a safe and fun 4th and let the experts handle the fireworks AND be careful if you go out into the water (not in a pool).  The waters here in the Puget Sound region are very cold.   Kind of a fun survey on "How Creative Are You?"   if you draw (and I don't).  We like to talk about family engagement here and boy, did Arne Duncan fall flat in his latest Twitter chat.  From Conversation Ed: The topic of Arne Duncan’s July Twitter chat was “Parental engagement”. And that’s ironic for two reasons: He received a lot of parental engagement on the chat he probably wasn’t expecting. He didn’t “engage” much with the parents who were asking him the tough questions regarding his education policy that affect their kids. In fact, Duncan didn’t say much, but parents and educators certainly did. On the Seattle Craigslist, they are advertisin...

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...

Thread to come: the Washington Middle School meeting on Spectrum .  Pretty interesting stuff but again, what does it all mean? From the Washington Post, doing some building work on an Oklahoma high school, contractors uncovered chalkboards - intact with lessons - from almost 100 years ago.  What is truly fascinating is one board has a technique to teach multiplication tables that was new to the principal (it's some kind of circle table).  From King5, Renton High votes transgendered teen as their prom queen.  There was also a good story on KUOW on the issue of transgendered children .  Legislative News:

Washington Middle School principal, Susan Follmer, will be holding a parent meeting about Spectrum La/SS on Monday, June 8th from 4:30-5:30 pm at WMS.   It does not seem that AL staff will be there.

I got a query from a parent about changes coming to Washington Middle School and its Spectrum program. The parent stated that he/she was not able to attend the PTSA meeting where this was presented but that it seemed to others to be fairly vague and no one is really sure what is coming.  The parent also asked: I see that there are similar changes happening at McClure, so wonder if this is district-wide? Well, the district has said very, very little about Spectrum and is seemingly allowing principals to chart their own course. 

Reports of shots fired in the Ballard High neighborhood this morning led to a brief shelter in place at the school.  SPD investigated around the area and could find nothing.  I tried to find out if the shelter in place was at Salmon Bay as well but could not reach Communications for verification. In other big news in the district: Seattle’s music programs have won a lot of well-deserved awards, but a Grammy? It could happen. Beth Fortune , who teaches Orchestra and Eclectic Strings at Washington Middle School is one of only 25 semi-finalists nationwide for the 2015 Grammy Music Educator Award. She was selected from 7,000 applicants. Ten finalists will be announced in December, and the winner will be announced during Grammy week in February 2015. The nine finalists will each receive a $1,000 honorarium, and the schools of all 10 finalists also will receive matching grants. Google announced the winners of their Science Fair and they were three teenaged girls from ...

From North End Mom: Here is a link to the presentation from yesterday's Growth Boundaries work session. There is a new staff proposal to "implement full grade assignment in year one." (see slide 24 and 25). Basically, it is assigning JAMS and JAMS/Eckstein APP, grades 6, 7, and 8, to JAMS, in the JA building, beginning next fall. The APP kids living in the Eckstein SA would have the choice of going to Eckstein as GenEd or going to APP at JAMS. JA K-8 is relocated to John Marshall, so no co-location with JAMS for the K-8. Wilson Pacific would start up (grades 6, 7, and 8) in John Marshall 2016-17. They give enrollment numbers for all the north middle schools, and it looks like the building utilization would be pretty good, if everyone does what they want them to do. End of NE Mom post.  (Thanks!) Here's what the agenda looked like: Work Session: Growth Boundaries–Presentation Discussion of major issues: •T. T. Minor •Washington Middle SchoolBoundary •Acce...

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...

Update:   I have looked into this - still waiting for district response - but I learned from a Times reporter that the site will have 35 people living there, 24-hour security and a fence. End of update. The West Seattle Blog is reporting that the Nickelsville homeless camp will be moving to a site at 20th and Jackson which is near Washington Middle School at 21st and Jackson. I'll ask the district about this. Thanks to alert reader Amy.

Based on statements made by Superintendent Banda and President Smith-Blum, I believe the district is doing its best to be diplomatic and pragmatic with the former tenants in the Horace Mann building. The Superintendent has said he wants to try to find solutions. President Smith-Blum says staff made it clear when leasing the building that it was for a limited time and has a "claw back" clause (as nearly every lease of a school building does because the district needs to have the use of the building in case of need or crisis). What is interesting is that it appears the actual lease holders (those who contracted with the district) HAVE moved out to other locations.  The other groups that remain (with subleases from the original lease holders) are the ones asking to stay. She says: "The Superintendent felt it was important to help the groups still in the building relocate as they are doing some good things with kids at risk. The task force has a fairly succinct chart...

From Superintendent Banda (I haven't reviewed the presentation yet myself): To meet the needs of our growing enrollment, Seattle Public Schools is considering boundary changes for the 2014-15 school year. We will not change any boundaries or assignments for the upcoming 2013-14 school year.   In anticipation of these changes, we are having conversations about our current schools and programs with our stakeholders. On Wednesday, district staff will present several options to the School Board for early consideration, including for  Hamilton International Middle School . We recommend increasing the number of highly capable (APP) elementary and middle school pathways, with guaranteed assignment, to increase access and bring services closer to where students live. If approved, this means APP services will be offered at additional sites – beyond Hamilton and Washington Middle School.   Again, these are all preliminary conversations. We will host five community meetings th...

Good news from The Road Map Project.  One of their efforts is to make sure that as many eligible students as possible sign up for the College Bound Scholarships .  Looks like it paid off as a record 91% of eligible students signed up (as compared with 74% lat year).  Thank you to everyone who reminded a kid or their PTA. The scholarship will cover students who pledge to graduate from high school, demonstrate good citizenship and seek admission to a college. The area covered includes South Seattle, Auburn, Federal Way, Highline, Renton, and Tukwila.  Tukwila signs up 100% of all eligible students while Auburn climbed from 38% to 67%.  Over 3900 student signed-up.  The Seattle schools covered are Secondary BOC, Merce, Aki Kurose, Orca, South Shore, Washington and Denny.  Secondary BOC, Mercer, and Aki Kurose enrolled 100% of their eligible students.  South Seattle schools overall went from 91% to 95%.

From the Seattle Times, a story about a former Olympic rower, Portia McGee, who is helping students in three SPS middle schools learn how to row. It's the first year of the program which is a partnership with the George Pocock Rowing Foundation and the school district. It currently runs in 3 schools - Eckstein, Washington, and Aki Kurose - and is going to expand to 3 more next year with the program at nine middle schools by 2013. Not for me but a state legislator is sponsoring a bill to allow parents to teach drivers ed to their children under 18. This came as a surprise to me because I thought the main reason to take driver's ed is to perhaps receive lower insurance rates. Driver's ed is expensive so I can see why this could make a difference to parents (although the stress and the possible damage to your car are also off-putting). The Times has the details in this story. I think the Alliance for Education has a new look for its blog (I doubt they answer comme...

The Seattle Times has a couple of interesting stories this morning. The first one is - big surprise - about state budget cuts. No new news here but they do have a poll going about what to cut. Currently, K-4 class size reduction money (14.8% of the vote), Initiative 728 (19.88%) and Initiative 732 (15.2%) are leading the cuts poll. The other story is great news for Bailey-Gatzert Elementary . Seattle University, which has provided tutoring for the last 20 years, is creating a project for $1M a year to help provide: more tutoring and after-school help, free legal aid to recent immigrants provided by the university's law school and free health assistance from the nursing school. The project aims to touch all aspects of the neighborhood's social, health and educational development, and will include assistance to Washington Middle School and Garfield High School. They are trying to model the services after the Harlem's Children's Zone in NYC. By working with the...

From King 5 news: SEATTLE – Washington Middle School in Seattle was locked down Thursday afternoon after 911 received a cell phone call from a man threatening to kill children. Seattle School District spokesperson Theresa Whipple says the caller did not specify a school, but a cell phone trace put the location of the call somewhere near Washington Middle School at 2101 S. Jackson Street. As a precaution, the school doors were locked and the students were kept inside. Police armed with assault rifles then escorted children to their waiting school buses and parents. "There have been threats here before where they've had the police come and we've had to wait about an hour to get the kids, but they never tell you the details," said parent Dominika Rosinski. Police are still looking for the suspect. They do not have a description but they do have the caller's cell phone information. This seems to have happened at the end of the school day according to other news r...