Seattle Schools Community Forum

The big news is that the City of Seattle announced three new homeless encampments to be established in early 2017 and one of them is right by the Wilson-Pacific complex that will be home to Robert Eagle Staff Middle School, Licton Springs K-8 and Cascadia Elementary.  The location is 8620 Nesbit Avenue North and it will have up to 50 tiny homes, serving 60-70 people (Nesbit is one block east of Aurora.) The other new encampments are down in Georgetown and White Center.  (The one in White Center will also be near an elementary school but with enough distance that it's not the issue that Wilson-Pacific campus is.) I think we can all agree that the homeless crisis in Seattle is a major issue.  But I am shocked the City would choose a location in an area that is already problematic AND has so many school children nearby. As I previously reported, RESMS planning principal Marni Campbell announced at a community meeting this week that the City is giving the district $1M gr...

From the West Seattle blog: 10:23 AM: About 200 students from West Seattle High School have walked out of their classes and are headed south on California SW toward The Junction.   10:50 AM : The group has reached The Junction. A TV helicopter has picked up on this so if you are hearing/seeing a helicopter, that is what is going on.   11:15 AM; The group rallied at the Jefferson Square corner plaza (photos above and below) and then headed back to WSHS, where we’re told they’ll be talking with principal Ruth Medsker . What participants were telling us is, what happened last night does not represent the future that they want, the America that they believe they belong to and belong in, and they will work to embody the values they want to see represented.  

 Tell your kids about this - those Instagram photos ?  They don't own them once they are on Instagram AND they can be publicly shown AND someone can make money off them.  From the Washington Post: The Internet is the place where nothing goes to die. Those embarrassing photos of your high school dance you marked “private” on Facebook? The drunk Instagram posts? The NSFW snapchats? If you use social media, you’ve probably heard a warning akin to “don’t post anything you wouldn’t want your employer (or future employer) to see.” We agree, and are adding this caveat: Don’t post anything you wouldn’t want hanging in an art gallery. Safe Routes to Schools needs YOUR help.  Here's 10 ways you can make getting to school safer for students. Great info-map on the relative size of Africa - show the kids. Congrats to West Seattle High School softball coach, Trevor Leopold as Metro Coach of the Year.  His team is on their way to state finals.  Good l...

From SPS: The Office of Advanced Learning is collaborating with school and community members to develop a Highly Capable Cohort pathway for students in West Seattle. That is, when the pathway is established, students identified as Highly Capable could eventually be served from kindergarten through 12th grade in HC classrooms at schools located in West Seattle. We are forming a Focus Group to provide an opportunity for school leaders and community members to collaborate on implementing new HC services at Madison Middle School and West Seattle High School. If you are interested in joining the Focus Group, application forms will be made available by mid-April on the Advanced Learning website www.seattleschools.org/advlearning . The pathway will take time to develop and will not be fully in place by next school year, but we want to help families understand their options for this fall:

From the West Seattle Blog: "1:58 PM: Seattle Police are searching for a man reported to have jumped out of the bushes near the east side of West Seattle High School , in the Walnut/Stevens vicinity. Police say the man was reported to have grabbed the arm of a passing female, who hit him and ran into the school. Police were not able to tell us if she is a student. She was not hurt. The man was described as white, 30s-40s, medium build, about 5-11, in a blue zipup jacket and black pants. 2:06 PM UPDATE: Right after we talked with SPD media-relations Det. Jeff Kappel about this incident, which we had heard on the scanner, SPD mentioned it on Twitter and described the victim as a student. ( Added: The SPD Blotter version pulls back on that but says she’s 16.) 2:43 PM UPDATE: Here’s principal Ruth Medsker ‘s note just sent to WSHS families, forwarded to us by a parent: Today, one of our students was off campus during lunch when she was grabbed by a male strange...

 Update:  Free Admission to Washington State Parks this Saturday!  Beautiful weather, beautiful parks - get out there! West Seattle HS culinary students place 5th in state competition with two students winning scholarships.  Our own Top Chefs in SPS.  Congrats kids! From the "what do you want him to call it" category, comes this story about an Idaho science teacher who was called out by parents for using the word "vagina" during a unit about...the human body and the reproductive system.   I'd love to know what word they think the teacher should have used for this discussion.  “I teach straight out of the textbook, I don’t include anything that the textbook doesn’t mention,” McDaniel remarked. “But I give every student the option not attend this class when I teach on the reproductive system if they don’t feel comfortable with the material.” “It is highly unlikely it would end with his dismissal,” the superintendent mused. “Maybe a letter of repri...

From our friends at the West Seattle blog, a story of kindness from students at West Seattle High School: Often the first-hand raves (or rants) surface in the WSB Forums – but the past few days have yielded a couple of gems to share here in the news section. The latest is from Laurie : I wanted to share a heart warming story about what my mom experienced (Tuesday). She was heading to Safeway to get her groceries around 1 o’clock when her car stalled in the intersection by Jack in the Box on Admiral. She tried and tried to get it to start again while enduring all the rude people blowing their horns at her. She couldn’t get it to start so she got out of the car and started to try and push it out of the way…really…she’s 80 years old! While trying with no success but the horns were still blowing from the trucks and cars that were held up…NOT ONE ADULT got out of their car to help her…then her Heart filled with warmth..she heard voices shouting in the distance “don’t w...

Listening to speaker after speaker talk about the Indian Heritage Middle College program, I thought, "Well, add them to the list that includes Special Ed, Nova, and World School."  What do these programs have in common?   They get moved around as though they were furniture.   Each and every one of them deserves a permanent home. I spoke to Sarah Kelly, one of the speakers, and asked her about someone in their community doing a guest post about the history of their program.  (I was surprised to learn that Pathfinder K-8 used to be a feeder school for the program.)  One thing I told her was that once we had a history - one that is written by those who know it - it would be here for a long time.  The district may purge some history from its website but at least here it would have a home.  I'm hoping I will get that guest post within a couple of weeks. Also, there is an issue over the feeder patterns in West Seattle from middle to high sch...

Well, that was embarrassing.  I knew this was a busy weekend in Seattle and trying to help parents out, I posted a list of events from last year.  (Darn Google - I typed in "this weekend" but clearly should have searched by date).  I apologize for any confusion.   I just decided to delete the whole thing. From Diane Ravitch's blog , we learn that officials in the Oklahoma DOE posted, at the website, personal information about students who had not taken the state test.   These students had received exemptions and thus, waived their rights under FERPA but that didn't mean the state education officials had to do what they did.  Unhappy legislators want to know if this was done out of ignorance or as retribution for students who opted out.  What seems clear is that this was a distinct action and not an accident; meaning, someone had to directly put this info out there.  Congrats to West Seattle High School which learned it is receiving a g...

From the West Seattle Blog : "West Seattle High School is in celebration mode this afternoon. Principal Ruth Medsker just announced they’ve won a major grant from the city Families and Education Levy" Congratulations to West Seattle High School. These funds will be used to target services for ninth grade transition and for students needing interventions.

From SPS: The West Seattle High School culinary team won the "Best Entree Award" at the 2011 Boyd Coffee ProStart Invitational - beating 17 other teams across Washington. The team members are students are Kirby Davis, Latisha Evans, and Johnny Le. The students received a $500 Scholarship to The Art Institute of Seattle, a Certificate of Achievement and a chef's knife. Kate Ptasnik of Roosevelt High School was named ProStart Student of the Year. The students attribute their success to two chef mentors; Quinton Stewart, executive chef at Branzino in downtown Seattle, and Robin Leventhal of Stopsky’s Delicatessen on Mercer Island. The Pro Start class is offered at West Seattle High School and is taught by Sarah Orton and Danielle Henry. Thank you to these two mentor chefs for supporting Seattle's youth. Any good news from your corner of the district?

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...

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...

So in advance of the upcoming tours and open houses at both public and private high schools, Seattle Metropolitan Magazine latest issue has several articles about high school education with 78 public and 50 private schools graded. Among the articles: The New School Plan - about the NSAP One Size Fits Some - about the LA alignment Talk Supe - about who else? (We'll have to discuss this one because she flatly denies saying something I heard her say out loud at a meeting.) Geek Boot Camp - about STEM at Cleveland (I'll have to take them to task for this title; no, no, and no.) Smart and Smarter - about a West Seattle mom who worked to get IB at Chief Sealth 6 Ways for Seattle Schools to Score Higher - hey, this one's by me and Charlie Parents as Search Engines - mostly about applying for private school (but boy does the district take a ding here) Private Lives - about a couple of private schools Grading our High Schools - the listing and grades of area high school...

( Update : the WSB has a story with input from the rep from the union, Dave Westberg. According to Dave, the issue at Cleveland, 1 lunch/900 kids/113 fit in lunchroom, is on-going. Also to note, there was a story in the Seattle Times about some Ingraham students who decided to break into a house during their lunch hour because they needed money. An alert neighbor saw them and called the police. They were arrested. The more kids who leave campus, the more opportunities to find trouble. It's also hard on a neighborhood -I know not to go near 65th and 12th NE during Roosevelt's lunch hour.) The West Seattle Blog scooped me on a story I had on the backburner. (Actually the story is written by Simone Machmiller for the WSHS newspaper, The Chinook.) West Seattle High had one lunch hour and a short "breakfast break." They will now have two lunch hours and no breakfast break (similar to what some other high schools have). Of course, change doesn't come easi...

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...

If you watch enough Board meetings you will eventually see one of these , a PERC decision. These occur when the District engages in unfair labor practices. I'd say that we see about two of these a year. The superintendent is directly responsible for all of them. Well, folks, it looks like there will be another one coming soon. Remember how happy everyone was with the new promotion to get more high school kids to eat breakfast? Well I guess not everyone was happy about it. West Seattle High School has unilaterally reduced the most popular breakfast period from 15 minutes last school year to only 5 minutes this year. An average of about 200 kids a day ate "2nd Breakfast" at WSHS. The schedule change was implemented with no notice to the Labor Relations, General Counsel’s office or the union despite repeated past (legal) commitments from Central Administration that such unilateral actions would never be allowed again, and a caution (from the longtime Kitchen Manager)...

Maple Elementary and West Seattle High School are the newest schools to take a vote of "no confidence" in the Superintendent. Maple voted 17 yes, 1 no and 2 abstaining. West Seattle voted 35 yes, 3 no and 4 abstaining. I do want to echo what someone else said in a different thread. We don't know, right off hand, how many SEA represented staff are at each school. I don't believe most of these votes are technically SEA votes. I would call them straw votes. However, that these staff members, and a fair number at every single school, got together and took a vote tells me two things. One, there are a lot of brave people are out there because I can believe this could have repercussions for some and two, that enough staff from each school made the effort to take the vote. I am a bit surprised that the SEA is waiting until early September to vote as a whole. They said they want to wait and see how the Superintendent handles the negotiations. Fair enough and mayb...

Thanks to Yumpers for alerting us to this news: now all of the leadership of West Seattle High are leaving. This from the West Seattle blog. It had previously been announced that the principal, Bruce Bivens, was leaving for a job in California. Now both the assistant principals are leaving as well, one to the Highline district while the other one has just resigned. That a lot of leadership gone at once. Look for a lot of juggling of existing principals/vice-principals to WSHS and/or bring some out of retirement (I'm looking at you, Chuck Chin - Mr. Chin has come out of retirement at least once to take over a school.) That this comes so soon before school ends means we may not know for sure until school starts.

First off, I really like West Seattle. I'm not a native so let me know if I have this wrong but what I always heard is that SW Seattle is considered "West Seattle". So that area has two high schools, two middle schools and a number of elementaries that serve their area. And, since West Seattle is a somewhat isolated area, most families stay in that area for school. Second, I really like the West Seattle Blog . They do such a great job of covering that whole area like a little mini-city. There seems to be such a sense of community over there. They also getsome pretty interesting reader comments on their stories. I was checking out what was being said about the departure of Bruce Bivens, the current principal at WSHS. Just as you would expect there are differing thoughts about his departure but then some tension crept in over the differences between Chief Sealth High School and West Seattle High School. Here's what one commenter had to say: Currently have s...