Seattle Schools Community Forum

Update:   there's a new movie out about a gifted child called...Gifted. Also, thank you to reader NE Parent for this link to a NY Times article on finding more gifted students of color.  It makes for fascinating reading.

Update: here are the minutes from that Work Session; in some ways more fleshed out than mine but I don't see all the things I have reported.  (They also attribute something to Director Pinkham that I do not believe he said and I will ask him about it at tomorrow night's Board meeting.) This section will cover only the Advanced Learning Work Session on Feb. 8th because this thread turned out to be quite lengthy. I'll cover the UW Equity Summit on Gifted Education, Feb. 9-10 in a final part to this series. Advanced Learning Work Session All the Board members were there except for Director Blanford.  (As an aside, I see that Blanford seems to be missing more meetings or coming in very late.  Not sure why but a trend.)

Let's start with this disclosure: I agree with Director Geary. Here's what she said at the Board meeting on January 4, 2017 during a discussion of the CSIPs and, specifically, the description of advanced learning services in those CSIPs:

Here is a list of 42 schools that fail to adequately address their plan for serving advanced learners in their CSIP. Is your school on the list? Does it belong on the list? UPDATES INDICATED IN RED You can find all of the CSIPs here .

A very busy week before the holiday break next week.

Friday memos , the gift that keeps on giving.

Or, as more commonly referred to, the SAP. Background The district created a new Student Assignment Plan in 2009 that was approved by the Board.  It was a big change, primarily because the district went from a choice plan to a neighborhood plan.  I know that many of you don't like this form of SAP but, at the time, many parents were clamoring for a neighborhood plan because of the assurance of knowing what school their child would be assigned to.  The interesting thing I wonder about is that under the choice plan, 90% of people received their first choice.  That's a pretty good percentage but was that their desired choice or just the best choice they felt they could make in terms of knowing where their child would be?  I haven't heard any numbers on the choice within the neighborhood plan. Then, with the explosive growth in the district, the plan had to be tweeted and so there was a Transition Plan.  What is confusing to me is that the district is stil...

Monday, November 14th Public comment continues for K-5 ELA materials Curriculum & Instruction Policy committee meeting 4:30-6:30 pm at JSCEE.  Agenda

Updates:  An op-ed from a Seattle Schools parent in the Yakima Herald Seattle Times on testing all students for advanced programs.  (For some reason only the link to the Yakima Herald works; I can't find a working one at the Times.)She's also a teacher (in Shoreline) but taught at Hamilton.  She gets things wrong and she should know better: What’s equitable about a school district that provides special services for the elite, white, privileged, top 2-3 percent of the children and families it serves? Really? What special curriculum or training or support did your students and you get from being in HCC? What message does this send to students in the district?  That white students are the current and future members of the intelligentsia, while black and brown students are not. No, it sends the message that the district needs to reach out in new and better ways to find students of color who would benefit from the program. More than thirty years later in Sea...

Monday, October 24th The district is still looking for input on the K-5 ELA instructional materials (at select schools or on-line) until November 30th.

I'll list what did/did not happen at the meeting and then go into specifics. 

The Board work session on Wednesday had three components; a discussion about distribution services (very straightforward stuff), a 15-minute update on "Interrelated Initiatives for 2016-2107" and Advanced Learning.

The Board will conduct a work session on Advanced Learning this evening. Here is the PowerPoint . The presentation doesn't address the community's primary concern: Is advanced learning a fiction?

Monday, October 3rd Starting today and thru November 30th, the district is asking for input on K-5 instructional materials.  Growth Boundaries meeting from 6:30-7:30 pm at Viewlands Elementary.

The Board has scheduled a work session on Advanced Learning for an hour and a half on October 5 after the Management Oversight meeting for ELL and Distribution Services. This is the time to contact the Board as they prepare for this work session. If you do, please remember a couple things. First, the Board's focus is policy work. They should not be engaged in the details of how things are done, but setting a clear purpose and clear expectations. Second, the Board should address themselves to correcting the problems in the system, many of which, not coincidentally, come from the flawed policy in place, but many others come from the central office's refusal or failure to manage schools, enforce policies and procedures, and hold staff accountable. So what are the problems and how could the Board address them?

Here's the link . Eligibility criteria and forms are available beginning on September 1st, 2016 at seattleschools.org/advlearning.

I'll just start by saying that I'm not surprised. You cannot have a district policy and/or a procedure about a program that does NOT clearly define all the elements/parts of that program.  If you are going to have ill-defined parts of a program, then at least the policy and/or procedure should say, "At this time and place, we are allowing principals to define the Spectrum program and/or ALO program at their school as they see fit for their community." Because that seems to be exactly what is happening.  Advanced Learning, as an office, seems now to only exist to test.  That's it.

I met with Wyeth Jessee last week (it was arranged thru Communications so there was a Communications person in the room who was not part of the conversation.)  He was the former head of Special Education and now, thru a realignment,  has a new role.

I still have to do my write-up about my talk with Wyeth Jessee about his new role as head of Student Supports, overseeing AL, Special Education, ELL, counseling, nurses, etc.  One thing I will say now is that I asked him about changes in AL and he said he had just gotten the job (absolutely true) but it wouldn't happen without stakeholder input.  I reminded him that Spectrum disappeared like sugar dissolving in iced tea but he smiled and shrugged.  But now a reader has alerted us that the AL department wants our input.   Comments on the proposed DRAFT can be sent to advlearn@seattleschools.org with the subject line 2190SP. The proposed DRAFT will be reviewed by the Curriculum and Instruction Policy Committee at their meeting on Monday, August 15, 2017. Please send your comments in before July 31 to assure it will be reviewed prior to the meeting. There are a number of documents to read. 

Once again,  the end of the week and a massively horrific incident, this time in Nice .  Please send out good karma and prayers for all affected by this mass murder and by the people of France.  (I note that Dallas had lit up public buildings in blue for their slain officers and one building was done in the colors of the French flag.  Classy.) In the name of democracy , a good article from the Global Oneness Project, Five Habits to Heal the Heart of Democracy by Parker Palmer. If I were asked for two words to summarize the habits of the heart American citizens need in response to twenty-first-century conditions, I would chose chutzpah and humility. By chutzpah I mean knowing that I have a voice that needs to be heard and the right to speak it. By humility I mean accepting the fact that my truth is always partial and may not be true at all, so I need to listen with openness and respect, especially to "the other," as much as I need to speak my own voice wi...