Seattle Schools Community Forum

This story was put out sometime on Wednesday . (partial) To improve K-12 students’ academic access and achievement, the Seattle Education Association (SEA) and Seattle Public Schools (SPS) agreed to add 20 minutes of core instructional time to the school day starting in the 2017-18 school year. This action also brings our instructional hours into alignment with other districts in the region. In addition, SEA and SPS agreed to add teacher collaboration time into the work day to support common planning time and improved student outcomes. Your input and feedback is valued.

Another week, another Friday Memo . This week's memo has some interesting bits including:

That's what the Huffington Post thinks.  Maybe the schools are but it seems quiet on the parent front.  Have you talked to your high school kid about this?  Is it a smile or a shrug?

I don't know what is up but there is a lot of adding and shifting of meetings in these final weeks of school.

Tuesday, May 3rd Teacher Appreciation Day.  #ThankaTeacher If I could thank a teacher, I'd thank my second grade teacher, Mrs. Gates, for her kindness and letting us listen to musicals, I'd thank my 5th grade teacher, Mr. Springer, who was a giant to me (he was 6"3" and I was very small but he was a giant in his patience as well), and Mr. Brendan, my band teacher in both middle and high school ,who believed in excellence even in a small, dusty border town. Operations Committee Meeting at JSCEE from 4:30-6:30 pm. Agenda Looks like a pretty straightforward meeting but there is to be a bell times update (but there is no attachment to the agenda.) International School and Dual Language Immersion programs meeting from 6-7:30 pm at Mercer Middle International School. African-American Male Scholars Initiative Community Meeting from 6-7:30 pm at the New Holly Gathering Hall. GiveBIG day - all day - please consider donating to a group doing good works for Sea...

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.  

Tuesday, March 29th Special Education Regional Meeting Portion of the meeting for families is from 6-7 pm at Whitman Middle School 24-Credit Graduation Task Force 6:30-8:00 pm at South Lake High School Please join us to offer your feedback on how Seattle Public Schools could best serve students under the state’s new high school graduation requirements. Mayor's Conversation on Education meeting  Mockingbird Society, Treehouse, and YMCA of Greater Seattle from 6:30-8:00 pm The 2100 Building (2100 24th Ave S) , Community Rooms A and B Wednesday, March 30th Work Session from 4:30-7:30 pm Superintendent SMART Goal #5: Bell Times; and Work Session: Budget The Bell Times presentation has some valuable history of the bell times issue as well as current updates (including a request from the district for a summary judgment that may come April 1st pending from a challenge to the bell times around environmental impact issues.) From the presentation, Part Two of Implementat...

Tonight's Board meeting is the last for this particular make-up of the Board.  They certainly are leaving with major issues that will be decided tonight. Items of note for tonight's meeting:

Monday, Nov. 16th Community Meeting on Assignment Plan at Rainier Beach High School, starting at 6:30 pm.  This is the last of the meetings on this topic.  I still maintain this was window-dressing and not about staff getting and receiving real input on this topic.  I'll have a separate thread on what readers have said but it seems clear that the waitlist is still an issue. Wednesday, Nov. 18th Board meeting starting at 4:15 pm.  Something of an end of an era for this particular make-up for the Seattle School Board. Agenda . I do want to publicly say thank you to each of the Board members who are leaving - Harium Martin-Morris, Sherry Carr, Sharon Peaslee and Marty McLaren.  I walked Fremont with Sherry Carr to help her get elected.  I worked on the campaigns of both Sharon Peaslee and Marty McLaren (her first one.)  It takes courage to even stand up and run for office and even more courage and energy to serve.  I certainly have disagreed...

With just about 24 hours until the vote on bell times, here comes more info. First, the district has released a Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the change. As well, KPLU's Kyle Stokes is tweeting this: FYI @ seapubschools updated the new bell times proposal — everything time-shifted 5 minutes. My updated spreadsheet: http:// bit.ly/1k8RNZ5 I’m checking with @ seapubschools whether bell times shift really will override current 7-hour day at @ RainierBeachHS http:// bit.ly/1k8RNZ5 His spreadsheet is a wonder.

It will be quite the week by the time we all get to the end of it. From SPS Communications : Tuesday, Nov. 3 Deaf/Hard of Hearing (DHH) community gathering cancelled Due to an unforeseen circumstance we must cancel and reschedule the Nov. 3, 2015 DHH Community Gathering. A critical component for this meeting is appropriate interpretation services. Despite early requests and multiple agency contacts, interpretation services were not secured. The district was informed of this on Oct. 30.

Update:   from the Start School Later Seattle group, they are urging a "yes" vote on the current bell times plan.

I attended this meeting yesterday, along with at least 60 parents (plus School Board candidate Leslie Harris).  Director Peters did a superlative job in handling the crowd. There were two topics; bell times and the QAE issue.

I'm a little late in writing this up but here are the highlights of what is to be discussed at tonight's Board meeting . There is to be a presentation called, " Can Assessment Actually Improve Schools?" by one Rick Stiggins.  (There is no link to his presentation.) That's a ludiacious title because, of course assessments can help.  It's how many, the cost, the time and the actual assessments themselves that are at issue. But here are his seven principles of assessment and it's fascinating that he doesn't mention data once. Mr. Stiggins is - surprise - part of the Pearson Assessment Training Institute.   He also has his own website .  He's not here out of the goodness of his heart but I have no idea how much he is being paid. Speakers  The speakers list is full with 13 people on the waitlist.  Many of the speakers are addressing bell times and transportation and school staffing cuts.  One speaker stands out - Jane Broom who is the Director...

This Wednesday's School Board meeting sees the Superintendent's introduction to change bell times .  What has happened is that a large number of schools - primarily elementary schools - have shifted to Tier Two, leaving about 13 schools in Tier One (I think there are eight elementaries).  What appears -to me- to be happening is that the Super and staff are trying to get the "We want two tiers" out of people's minds.  Staff doesn't really want to have to suss out the real costs and present them to parents. (Do I think it is truly $8M for two tiers? No.) So how to divert parents off that idea? Whittle down the Third Tier to a handful of schools and let other parents attack Tier Three parents for being "selfish" to not think of the greater good.  Brilliant on the part of staff and not-so-lucky for the Tier Three people.  But I think so much time has gone by, that it's likely a done deal if only because people are probably now tired ...

It was a fired-up crowd that came to JAMS last night for the bell times meeting held there.   (Oddly, like a forewarning, there was a contingent of crows - by my rough count, about 50 - on the east side of the building when I came in. I felt like I was in The Birds.) I estimated the crowd at about 70 which was the largest number to attend a bell times meeting.  (Pegi McEvoy told me that the one last Friday night had about 30 people.) There were quite a few Sand Point parents there plus I know there were JAMS parents, John Rogers, someone who wanted to represent for Aki Kurose plus high school parents (who self-identified as such but not their schools). Here's my take, overall, about what is happening and you should keep this all in mind as we go forward. 1) Most important of all to remember is that the staff NEVER wanted to do anything.  In fact, they never even wanted to discuss this issue.  They had to be dragged by the Board to this time and place. ...

A busy, busy week.

A wrap-up of last night's meeting from the great West Seattle Blog (partial): It appears the district added another meeting because it wasn't there when I first posted the list: Mon., Oct. 5, 2015, 6:30 - 7:30 p.m. Jane Addams Middle School 11051 34th Avenue Northeast Interpreters provided (subject to change due to availability) Chinese, Spanish Seattle Public Schools ‘ draft proposal for changing bell times didn’t draw much support among the two dozen or so people who showed up at the first of five public meetings about it, held tonight at Chief Sealth International High School .

Editor's Note; there are two important groups of meetings over the next three weeks.  One is for the Feb. 2016 renewal levies for Operations and BTA IV, the other group is for Bell Times Analysis.  If both issues are important to you, plan accordingly. I would love for staff not to eat up 30+ minutes explaining the levies and just give an overview and have more Q&A for the ENTIRE group (not just 20 minutes and then force everyone to ask any further questions one-on-one.)

I believe that this year is to be a pivotal one in public education - for our district, our state and nationally. I'll go in reverse order.