Seattle Schools Community Forum

The story from Phinneywood Blog : Robert Eagle Staff Middle School, Cascadia Elementary School (Advanced Placement Program) and Licton Springs K-8 will serve about 1,700 students total, including students from Greenwood and Phinney Ridge. Many students will have to cross major streets, including Aurora, 85th, I-5 and 105th/Northgate Way. The survey is being conducted by Licton-Haller Greenways , Greenwood-Phinney Greenways and Seattle Neighborhood Greenways . At the end of the survey, you can enter a drawing for raffle prizes for gift certificates from Woodlands Pizza, Fred Meyer and other local businesses. Take the survey here

The minutes from the last Operations Committee meeting shed some light (if somewhat dimly.) From the December 17, 2015 minutes: FACMAC:   Resurrecting FACMAC was discussed. Dr. Herndon explained that the FACMAC was a superintendent advisory committee working on the operational side which is different than the BEX Oversight Committee, is a professional advisory board appointed by the Board of Directors. The committee expressed concerns that the former FACMAC had been primarily run by two people and did not represent the school district equally. Dr. Herndon will be discussing the committee with the superintendent in the next few months when current workloads have lessened. 1) Which "committee" expressed these concerns - BEX Oversight or FACMAC?  2) Who were the two people?  (I have my own thoughts but I don't really know.) 3) Finally, it would be GREAT to see FACMAC back but that "discussing in next few months after workload lessens" doesn't exactl...

Another week and no budget from the Legislature . Disgraceful.  (I'm marching in the Pride Parade on Sunday in support of Leslie Harris and Jill Geary for School Board and if I see any legislators there, I'm going to give them a cheerful earful.) If the state shuts down - even partially - it will have real effects on the population.  For one, the state parks will close and that will be terrible for those planning their 4th of July.  Naturally, the bigger issue, especially for school districts, is the inability to clearly plan spending without knowing how many dollars are coming in.  At the last Board meeting, the Board voted to name the two new buildings at the Wilson-Pacific site.  The middle school will be the Robert Eagle Staff Middle School and the elementary school will be named Cascadia Elementary .  (It was explained at the Board meeting that the spelling of Eagle Staff's name was corrected by the family and this is the correct spelling.) Th...

Want to "nominate" a project for BTA IV?  The deadline is Thursday, April 30th.  The form seems to be just for nominations for projects but frankly, use it to weigh in.  We would like your input regarding possible projects that may be included in our BTA IV capital levy. You may nominate a project for the BTA IV capital levy using our online form: http://bit.ly/BTA-IV-Nomination . Printable nomination forms and translated versions are posted on the Levies 2016 page . We will collect, record, consider and share your nomination with the Seattle School Board. The deadline to submit a nomination is April 30, 2015 . Read about the Seattle School Board's BTA IV project selection process, find contact links and get more information on the Levies 2016 page . Learn about all BTA capital projects at http://bta.seattleschools.org . Here's what I said in my nomination: The district needs to put an auditorium at Wilson-Pacific.  Why? One, there needs to b...

Several meetings to put on your calendar.

It seems some names are out there for both the elementary school and the middle school at the Wilson-Pacific site.  And, there was a survey about it but that survey, somehow, was only sent to select people.  Now why would that be?  (I'll ask tomorrow but here's what I understand.)

Not sure if everyone saw this - it's a report commissioned by the Mayor and created by Peter Steinbrueck about neighborhoods in Seattle.  It's interesting reading.  There are mentions of school issues on page 10, page 32, page 100, page 101 (where they speak of the WASL) as well as maps of the district. Yes, it's true - the wonderful murals at Wilson-Pacific have been cleaned and, to my eye, keep their wonderful vibrancy.  I'm still wondering what the plan is to preserve them when W-P is rebuilt. What's on your mind?

In horrible news, the Times is reporting that the Native American depicted and created mural at the Wilson-Pacific building were vandalized over the weekend.  According to the artist, Andrew Morrison, he knows who did it because "he was stupid enough to sign his name." The words DAPKILO were painted over, said Morrison, who sent me the photo you see above. DAP is the name of a crew of graffiti artists. It stands for Down Around Pike, said Morrison, and KILO is the name of one of their artists. It remains to be seen how this can be mitigated but these were not the actions of "graffiti artists" but of vandals. Andrew Morrison

From the  Licton Springs Site Council: On the Monday we return - January 5th, 2015 , Licton Springs K-8 and the Urban Native Education Alliance will be hosting a showing of the documentary Eaglestaff , which tells the story of Robert Eaglestaff celebrated Principal of Seattle's nationally-recognized Indian Heritage School. The film will be  at 6:00pm , in the Little Theater at the Lincoln Building,  4400 Interlake Avenue N  (entrance on N43 Street). There will be a Q&A section with the filmmaker and graduates of the Indian Heritage School afterwards. The public is welcome. Also, here is the trailer -  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIJa2m1vCng

From Indian Country Today media network : Plans to demolish a public school with strong ties to Seattle’s Native community have been sent back to the drawing board. The Seattle Landmarks Preservation Board voted 7-1 on July 16 to designate Wilson-Pacific School a city landmark. That prevents Seattle Public Schools officials from proceeding with plans to demolish the school so a new school can be built in its place. Ironically, the school was nominated for landmark status by the very agency that wanted to demolish it. Under the state Environmental Policy Act, the school district was required to make an assessment of the school’s cultural and historical importance and present it to the landmarks board. Erin Doherty, Landmarks Preservation Board coordinator, said the school met three of six criteria for landmark designation: it is “associated in a significant way with the life of a person important in the history of the City” (Eaglestaff); it is “associated in a si...

Went to the BEX Oversight Committee meeting this morning. In terms of notable people at the meeting, Director Sharon Peaslee was there, Lead Counsel Ron English was not. Issues mentioned/discussed - Seems to be some kind of portable placement issue for Blaine and Laurelhurst .  No specifics given. - Only $1M for technology left in BEX IV .  Head of Technology, Carmen Rahm, gave a presentation where he noted that 75% of SPS schools don't have wireless.  But he repeated, again and again, that for the here and now, you still need "wired" buildings for all kinds of reasons.  Meaning, to have a totally "wireless" building for technology is not the desired outcome. There was this interesting back-and-forth with Director Peaslee and Mr. Rahm over smartboards.  She was under the impression that they were $10K apiece.  He said no, you could get 5-6 of them for $10K.  I looked this up and it really depends on what you want to spend.  But the total ...

Friday, August 8th BEX Oversight Committee Meeting , 8:30 am-10:30 am, JSCEE, Room 2750 Minutes from June. It will be interesting to see if the downtown school issue will be discussed.  (Yes, I know that BEX money is spoken for but it might come up as a topic.) No Community Meetings with Board directors on Saturday the 9th. To note: next week, the schedule starts picking up again with two Board committee meetings and one Community meeting.  SPS News: Distinguished Seattle Public Schools Health Services Manager Katie Johnson has been named one of 20 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Executive Nurse Fellows for 2014. Johnson joins a select group of nurses from across the country chosen to participate in the final cohort of a three-year leadership development program aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of nurse leaders who are working to improve the U.S. health care system. According to a news release from Mayor Murray's Office on July 21, 2014, five new ...

Friday, July 11 BEX Oversight Committee meeting , 8:30 am-10:30 am. Unfortunately, whoever runs this group does not put up the agenda nor past minutes in a timely manner so I can't tell you what will be discussed.  I've asked if that could happen and told it would but it doesn't.  The last minutes are from the meeting in April and have some curious notations.

March and Rally to Gates Foundation To note: there is the march and rally to protest the ed reform work of the Gates Foundation today, starting at 5 pm at Westlake Park.  The march will then go to the Gates Foundation on Mercer at 5th.  There will be speeches and some kind of flash mob dance. The police are warning of possible traffic issues.   From Diane Ravitch: Speakers: Anthony Cody (prolific education leader from CA) & Kshama Sawant (speaking as a teacher & city council member) will engage the crowd by connecting public education issues to larger issues of democracy vs. oligarchy. Morna McDermott & other education heroes will also make the case for school transformation, not corporate reformation. (Editor's note: Cody is a former teacher and writer at Education Week.) Anthony Cody will be speaking at 10:30 on Friday June 27th at the University of Washington HUB Room 332. His talk about the education ‘reform’ movement and how to recla...

There were some other key, important things said at both the School Board meeting last Wednesday and the Board retreat yesterday.  I'll just group information under headings but note by M (for meeting) or R (for retreat) where I heard it. Principals (M) To note, both of the Washington State Principals of the Year, for high school and K-8, came from Seattle Schools.  Keven Wynkoop, principal at Ballard , and Keisha Scarlett, principal at South Shore, were the winners.  Mr. Wynkoop is one of several of our high school principals who actually attended the high school he now leads.  Native American students (M) President Peaslee noted that she wished that the Indian Heritage program would be revitalized especially in high school.  This came in conjunction with the large contingent of Native American parents, students and community members who were part of public testimony.  They said they wanted a program for high school and hoped it could be at Ch...

The City of Seattle Department of Planning and Development deadline for receiving comments is today, May 21st on the Wilson-Pacific project about zoning requests from SPS.  Consider writing to them about any issue of concern: traffic impacts, loss of open space, and/or height. Here's a link to comment via e-mail, include the project #3015479, the address 1330 N. 90th and your mailing address. The DPD's advisory committee will be meeting on May 28th to consider these requests for code departures.  You are allowed to testify at this meeting. The meeting is at Wilson-Pacific at 6:30 p.m.

Sometimes it's not the explosion but the slow burn. After attending the Wilson-Pacific BEX meeting last night, that slow burn on this project may be the fuse that ignites voters to say no to the next capital levy measure.  (That would be BTA IV in Feb. 2016.)  I know.  February 2016 seems like a long way off and voters forget, move on, etc. Except that Wilson-Pacific is an extra-ordinary project that if not done well, could have severe outcomes for the district for BTA IV.  Because, by then, this project will be well underway.  The project was slated for $110M and - big surprise - is now up to $116M (that's the number I heard tossed out last night).  I would put up highlights from the meeting but there were very few (except for the good humor of BEX spokesman Tom Redman who managed to interject some laughs into the crowd of about 140).   Sadly, staff did not seem to anticipate such a crowd and did not have nearly enough chairs out.  ...

And guess what?  These numbers are different from previous ones. Yes, we all know that forecasting numbers is not an exact science but we all also know how many times SPS has gotten it wrong.  Very wrong.  Tell me again why we should put faith (not to mention tax dollars) into these forecasts? And again, why are these numbers kind of weird to begin with?  Most projections are generally round numbers (with a + or - projection).  It's almost like someone feels they can get it down the the last student and it's just not possible to do so. Of course, these numbers come out conveniently before tonight's Wilson-Pacific meeting.

From the Urban Native Education Alliance: "Hello Community Members, family and friends, You are all invited to attend the premier of a documentary on Robert Eaglestaff and Indian Heritage School. This documentary has been in the making for the past 8 months and we are excited to announce the premier date May 22nd @6pm at Indian Heritage Seamat building (Wilson-Pacific). Free event. Dinner and panel discussion to follow the viewing. Special thank-you to Struggling Productions and the many people who participated in the interviews and planning for this documentary. We want to honor the late Robert Eaglestaff and his family and hope the community will benefit from learning about Mr. Eaglestaff and the Indian Heritage school." Trailer for Eaglestaff

It might have gone unnoticed by some parents but the issues with Wilson-Pacific are near dire. This matters for two reasons.  One, there is a ripple effect to nearly every single capital decision in this district.  Two, next time, it could be your community.  - The district will have a " community meeting on Tuesday, May 13, 6:30 p.m., at the Wilson-Pacific building’s SeaMat Center where information will be shared about the project and the schools’ designs."  You'll note that it is fairly clear this is for information, NOT for questioning the design. Note - the vote on the W-P design took place tonight but the meeting is after the vote.  I'm not sure there will be pitchforks and torches but frankly, it's a little ridiculous to think a PowerPoint and a smile will soothe folks. The Board voted tonight to approve the plans for the Wilson-Pacific project, with Director Peters voting no and Director Patu abstaining.  Despite well-reasoned arguments f...