Seattle Schools Community Forum

You've been following the Epi-pen story, right?  How the price has gone up and up (just as the CEO's salary went up and up?) Here's a local side to it from KUOW : One solution to the soaring price of EpiPens: Build a replacement that costs a fraction as much. Jim Duren of King County Emergency Medical Services told KUOW’s Kim Malcolm that his agency did just that in 2013, building its own injection kit.

Hard to believe, sad to believe but apparently this is happening.  From the NY Times (bold mine): Any difference can set schoolchildren apart from their peers and potentially make them a target for bullying. But a severe food allergy is a unique vulnerability: It takes only one lunch or cupcake birthday party for other children to know which classmates cannot eat nuts, eggs, milk or even a trace of wheat. It can take longer for them to grasp how frightening it is to live with a life-threatening allergy. Surprisingly, classmates may prey on this vulnerability, plotting to switch a child’s lunch to see if she gets sick, for example, or spitting milk at a child’s face and causing a swift anaphylactic reaction. In a recent survey of 251 sets of parents and children with food allergies, published in Pediatrics in January, roughly a third of the children reported being bullied for their allergies. Parents knew about the threatening behavior only half the time. Food ...

On Saturday, September 22nd, at their Fall meeting in Yakima, the Washington State Democratic Party unanimously passed a resolution OPPOSING Initiative 1240.  Out of nearly 500 delegates voting, not a single delegate from any county in our State voted to support 1240. The vote was 500 to ZERO to oppose Initiative 1240.  From the NY Times, an important story about the use of epi pens at schools. B ut school nurses in many districts face an agonizing choice if a child without a prescription develops a sudden reaction to an undiagnosed allergy. Should they inject epinephrine and risk losing their nursing license for dispensing it without a prescription, or call 911 and pray the paramedics arrive in time? A  study last year  in the journal Pediatrics found that about one in 13 children had a  food allergy , and nearly 40 percent of those with allergies had severe reactions.  A recent survey in Massachusetts, where schools are permitted to administer ep...

I haven't been keeping up as much as it seems that things change daily but here is what I believe the latest is. The Senate now has put out their proposal for trying to close the state budget gap (although still haven't closed it). In terms of education, they would protect more of what most of us would want protected. They would cut about $16M less than the House for K-4. They would transfer $25 from the State Need Grant (which would have to come from somewhat and I think higher ed has a big bullseye on it). Neither the House nor the Senate would make cuts to levy equalization or highly capable education. Also, I got a heads up on a real Lallapalooza of a bill ( HB 1025 ) that is being put forth by about 15 legislators led by Rep. Crouse. It is all loosely about education issues and includes highly capable, asthma/anaphylaxis, PE, drivers ed, school safety and civics classes. It also includes a passage about storm water drainage. (I'm guessing they all got in ...

Tonight is the first Board meeting in a couple of months. Pretty full agenda but only 10 speakers signed up (including me). As Charlie noted elsewhere, the Curriculum and Instruction committee (more on this later) meeting on Monday had 3 Board members, lots of staff and 3-4 parents/community members. Charlie was the only SB candidate there. I put that in my notes because here we have the Board starting up with work, work that affects many students (they talked about giving high school credits to middle school students and the high school curriculum alignment among other things). Wouldn't you think that would be something candidates would want to get up to speed on? I'll be interested to see how many candidates from yesterday's primary who are moving on to the general election will attend tonight's Board meeting (besides Mary Bass). Agenda items include: -Superintendent's report with a MAP update - the first public report by our new CAO, Susan Enfield, on the...