Seattle Schools Community Forum

From SPS Communications: Family Input Requested: Bell Times Implementation  The Seattle School Board recently adopted a new bell time schedule for the upcoming 2016-17 school year. This change is meant to recognize and leverage research that has shown that teenagers may benefit from later start times resulting in more sleep, better health, increased academics and improved truancy rates.  

Interesting notations in the March 12, 2015 update to Superintendent Nyland from OSPI on the Consolidated Program Review 2014-2015 .  This report includes " commendations, technical assistance, noncompliant items and actions required." The district has 45 calendar days which makes their follow-up date April 27th. Among these notations:

Prep athletes with aspirations to play in college and their families need to be aware of changes to NCAA eligibility requirements. They are stricter than they used to be and they are stricter than the district's requirements. See this story on the Seattle Times web site for more information.

Wednesday, June 4nd School Board meeting , starting at 4:15 pm. Agenda . It is quite a long agenda with a longer-than-usual Consent agenda.  I was surprised to see a item like this not being discussed with Intro and then Action but they need to get work done on the North Queen Anne  Elementary School as soon as possible for the move in of the Cascade Parent Partnership Program.   I find this also disturbing in its rush as there is no contract attached to this Consent item (and may not be until Tuesday).  Not a lot of time for public review on spending over $400k in capital dollars.  The very odd notation for where the revenue is coming from is "capital funds."  BEX IV?  BTA III? CIP?  What?  I also raise the concern over BEX IV funds being used to replace the elevator at Jane Addams Middle School. This elevator has been problematic for several years and yet it was NOT on BEX IV.  The BEX IV funding for JAMS is very small at $7.3M...

I'll print this in its entirety.  From Superintendent Banda: Today we are announcing several leadership changes that will improve our ability to support our schools and students. Our Strategic Plan outlines a series of goals we must achieve over the next five years to improve academic success for our students. To meet the objectives outlined in the Every Student. Every Classroom. Every Day. strategic plan, we will need to accomplish several complex projects and develop a way to support and guide this work. We recently made two key hires that will help us strengthen our ability to provide better service to schools, students and families. Barbara Robbins will now serve as the Director of Project Management and Guillermo “Bill” Echeverria has been hired as Director of Continuous Improvement. These are new positions for Seattle Public Schools and they bring a much-needed skill set to the work we are doing. Together, they will help us improve the coordination, sequencing, and exec...

I attended three Work Sessions last week and here are highlights Athletics I have to say this one seemed to be one of the less dry and more animated Work Sessions that I have attended in years.

Monday, March 24th Seattle Special Education PTSA Meeting , at 7 pm, Rm 2700, JSCEE Topic is Secondary Transition and plans in SPS to to bring the District into compliance with IDEA on secondary transition.  Wednesday, March 26th Oversight Work Session on Athletics/Transportation from 4-6 p.m.  I'm assuming from the length of it that these are two sessions in one.  Agenda . Athletic (sic) Presentation - among the "strengths" - It is interesting to try to read between the lines.  It almost sounds like this department wants to run more effectively and smoothly but needs help with technology and a clear direction on how to proceed from the top - among the "weaknesses" - transportation, difficulties in communications and "inability to attract, recruit and maintain quality athletic coaches."   - "threats/risks" (an unfortunate column name) - " increasing responsibilities for adm...

 Update: Congratulations to the Cleveland High School girls basketball team - now the 3A state champions !  They beat Bishop Blanchet High School, 54-45. Congratulations to Garfield High School's  boys basketball team for winning the 4A state title overland Richland, 68-59! Congratulations to Rainier Beach High School's boys basketball team for winning the 3A state title over Eastside Catholic, 47-45!  It is RBHS' third straight state title.   No other team in state history has won three titles in a row. End of update. All three Seattle schools won their basketball game last night and are playing in championship games today. Good job and best wishes to the Cleveland girls basketball team, the Rainier Beach HS boys basketball team and the Garfield boys basketball team! (The Garfield game went off without any incident from either side.  There had been concern about the issue of racially-charged tweets by a few ignorant Issaquah High students.)

I agree with this author, Amanda Ripley, writing for The Atlantic.  I have no idea why ed reformers and others seem to look the other way as the dollars and resources and energy and time flow to sports.  It's a great article . But what to make of this other glaring reality, and the signal it sends to children, parents, and teachers about the very purpose of school? In countries with more-holistic, less hard-driving education systems than Korea’s, like Finland and Germany, many kids play club sports in their local towns—outside of school. Most schools do not staff, manage, transport, insure, or glorify sports teams, because, well, why would they? Let's ask some international students who come to the U.S. for high school exchanges: One element of our education system consistently surprises them: “Sports are a big deal here,” says Jenny, who moved to America from South Korea with her family in 2011. Shawnee High, her public school in southern New Jersey, fields te...

Busy week in SPS. Monday, November 28th Curriculum & Instruction Committee meeting - 4 p.m.  Topics include: skills center update, Board policies on hostility/defamation/discrimination and retaliation, waiver policy, and innovation schools' policy. Capacity Management meeting at Denny at 6 p.m. Tuesday, November 29th Work Session on Board policy Series 6000 (which I believe is about fiscal management.) Capacity Management meeting at Eckstein at 6 p.m. IB at Rainier Beach High School meeting , 6 p.m. Wednesday, November 30th Oath of office for newly elected Board members at 4 p.m.-5 p.m. Work Sessions Nutrition and Advertising 5-6 p.m. Athletics 6:30- 8 p.m. Nutrition Services 8-9:30 p.m. Thursday, December 1 Capacity Management meeting at Washington Middle School, 6 p.m. Saturday, December 3 Board Retreat - NE Branch Library, 6801 35th Ave NE from 11:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Now this should be interesting.  New Board members, probably some ...

The Seattle Times is reporting that the Ballard and Garfield football teams got in a brawl last Friday night at Ballard's homecoming game.  The Beavers were up 26-0 with five minutes left and going for a two-point conversion.  It failed and, to the Ballard coach, it looked like his quarterback took a late hit but there was no penalty.  A Ballard player pulled the Garfield player off the quarterback and the Garfield player threw a punch.  Game on and the benches cleared.  It all got settled down with no one hurt.  The officials did eject 8 players from the game ( 3 from Ballard and 5 from Garfield) and they will all be ineligible to play this week.  This is the second incident this season for Garfield.  Their coach had been suspended after the first incident and an interim coach was in charge at this game.  Last year, two of their coaches had to resign after playing ineligible players.  I would suggest that the principal at Garfield...

This Accountability Audit Report by the State Auditor was better than the one in February if you are only looking at money.  But yes, money was once again lost and while the amounts are smaller than in February, it still damning and painful.

The latest story in the long-running saga that is the Athletics Department at Garfield continues on at the Times. I'm not going to review all the latest details because I think this is absolutely ridiculous and why we in the U.S. and in our high schools and colleges allow TOO MUCH emphasis on sports.  I  absolutely believe sports helps keep many kids interested in school and focused (don't get a good grade, no participation).  But time and again we see "star" athletes protected.  That the Athletic Director and possibly the principal were jumping through hoops to protect this player is wrong.  Someone is NOT telling the truth. That Garfield was severely overcrowded and yet somehow there was room for a 3-person class with a sub teacher is disgraceful and there is NO excuse for it in these hard fiscal times. I'm sure the student will sail into UW and be a big basketball star and still can't string two sentence of basic Spanish together.  This is not w...

Athletics at Garfield hasn't been going very well this year. First there was an investigation into the football coaches playing ineligible players and the outcomes from that.  Now comes word via a Seattle Times story that the Athletic Director, Jim Valiere, has been fired after a long investigation. From the Times: The action was taken because of "inappropriate and unprofessional behavior" and "violation of district policies," according to an April 11 termination letter to Valiere from Susan Enfield, Seattle Public Schools interim superintendent. The letter was obtained by The Seattle Times under the Freedom of Information Act. In addition to being blamed for allowing ineligible student-athletes to play, the letter said Valiere misused district funds, disregarded policy and provided grades students didn't earn. The investigation also alleged that Valiere misled the KingCo Conference and Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (W...

When we last left Pay for K in November, the district hadn't been able to figure out what money had come in or even who was supposed to be paying.   At a later Audit and Finance Committee meeting, it appeared more under control but the handout still didn't explain if they had fully implemented it and were receiving all the money due to the district. On the heels of that comes another snafu, this time with Pay for Play which is for students who want to participate in competitive athletics in high school.  (This is not for PE or intramural sports.)   The old fee was $50 for the first sport and $25 for the second sport (with a cap at $75 for 3+ sports).  The Board approved raising the fee for this year.   I believe that the new fee was $100 for the first sport and $30 for the second (again, with a cap at $130 for 3+).  (Still checking on this because the new website has old data and no one answers at the School Board office but it was raised.) All st...

I am going to create a one-sheet list of my suggestions for easy reading but here it is fleshed out. (I'll have the one-sheeter by the end of the evening.) As a preamble to what I would suggest the district should cut, I make these disclaimers: I have looked through all the documents available for 2011-2012 budgeting. They do not follow in a real and coherent fashion so it is not really possible to discern exactly what staff is saying. There was an initial listing , followed by another presentation and the Strategic Plan Budget Planning Tool followed by the Budget Balancing tool . I can't tell if the planning tools overlap. I know that the Board pushed back on some initial ideas (like selling the radio station at Hale) so naturally it fell to staff to look at other areas. Staff is right about the difficulty of planning when there are unknowns looming. What will the economic update forecast be on March 17th? What will labor partners have to say? I am going wi...

( Update : there is a school meeting on this issue tonight at 6 p.m. at the Garfield Commons.) From the Seattle Times : As part of KingCo Conference sanctions imposed Monday, Garfield will not be eligible for the football postseason this year and in 2011. In addition, the school forfeited its 24-22 win over Sammamish. All of the school's teams are on probation until Sept. 1, 2012, but will be eligible for the postseason. Why? Students who were academically ineligible played in a game on Sept. 10th (which Garfield won). Both the head coach and the defensive coordinator resigned (according to the article both believed they would have been fired had they not done so). The coaches claim they tried to have a system in place for athletes to get grades/homework checked but " miscommunication " led to the ineligible players being on the field. What does Ted Howard, principal at Garfield have to say? When asked about the severity of the punishment, Garfield principal Ted...

From the SPS website, there is this notice: May 28: Update on 5th Grade Math Letters Letters recommending math placement for students entering sixth grade in 2010-11 were due to be mailed on May 26. Unfortunately, the letters were not sent out. This is due to a production issue at the external printing and mailing service that is handling the letters. We apologize to our families, and we will get the letters to you the week of May 31. So look for that letter in this week's mail. There is a Board meeting on Wednesday night . Sign up tomorrow in the AM to speak. The agenda isn't long but has a few interesting items. The CAO update from Dr. Enfield will be about preliminary MAP scores On the Action Item agenda is approval of an online learning policy prompted by a new WA State law, RCW 28A.250.050, which requires that by August 31, 2010, all school districts shall develop a policy and procedures around online learning. On the Introduction Items is one that is surprising ...

I attended this afternoon's committee meeting for the Board's Curriculum & Instruction Policy Committee. The attendees were chair, Director Martin-Morris, Director Carr and Director Chow (who was late because Gary Locke is to be Commerce Secretary for the Obama administration and, as Cheryl put it, they needed a Chinese-American to talk to at KOMO) as well as High School Director, Michael Tolley, and CAO, Carla Santorno. The topics to be discussed were changes to the grading policy, promotion/non-promotion and bell times for middle/high schools. As usual, there was a lot of paperwork passed out. There was: a memo from Carla about the Steering Committee for High School Reform; Proposal to Changes to School Board Policies D46.01 andC15.02 (grading) the survey about these changes a draft of changes to the Board policies (which came from staff) 3 years worth of AP and IB information for the high schools that have it (very interesting but I haven't read it all (FYI, I err...