Seattle Schools Community Forum

The Whittier Elementary PTA has put forth a petition to the Board to ask them to not add an additional kindergarten class next year (which would take away their long-time child-care program. From PhinneyWood.com Members of Whittier Elementary School ’s PTA plan to attend Wednesday night’s Seattle School Board meeting to oppose a proposal to add a fourth kindergarten class next year. Whittier, which is at 13th Avenue NW and NW 75th Street in Ballard, currently has three kindergarten classes of 23 students each. The letter from PTA Co-Presidents Lisa Melenyzer and April Brown states that 80 percent of this year’s kindergarteners live within the school’s attendance area, and that there was no waitlist for kindergarten at Whittier this year. The two say that there is room within the current three classes to add any anticipated population growth in the next few years. In the letter from the PTA: Please note that we are not suggesting that kids in the attendance area wh...

New Update (6:27 p.m.)   Here is a link to the Governor's list of possible education options.  Another area of reduction; preschool enrollment for 3-year olds.  Another reason to vote for the Families and Education levy.   Eliminate school bus transportation $220.0 million  Shifts responsibility for transporting students to parents and communities t hrough local transit systems, beginning in the 2012–13 school year. Maintains required transportation for eligible children with disabilities.    Also, reduce the school year by a week, eliminate National Board certification bonuses (boo), eliminate full-day K in high poverty schools, change daily attendance calculation and change the calculation for withdrawal from school from 20 consecutive days to FIVE .  Read the full list for all the ideas put forth.   You might want to weigh in with the Governor or your state legislator about what is a non-starter versus a maybe versus "...

From reader Aggrivated, comes this Salon article about...sigh, class size.  Really?  Still?

What is happening in our country? In Wisconsin it has gotten really ugly.  The governor there is determined to make his point and, I guess, show himself to be some kind of GOP superstar.  The teachers have agreed to take big cuts in their health care as the Governor wants.  Not enough.  If collective bargaining is the problem, Governor, why single out teachers?  Why not police or firefighters or state troopers?  Oh right, they supported your campaign and teachers didn't.  (Luckily some of those groups have come to their senses because if you break one union, then buddy, yours is next.) Honestly, let's set aside whether we think unions are a good idea or have morphed into self-serving adult groups who are totally selfish.  Let's talk fairness. It was one thing when teachers were named as the number one reason that some think education in our country is failing (it's not).  It's another thing when teachers' contracts are named as the ...

Danny Westneat's column in the Times this week certainly had a challenge to Bill Gates about class size. Bill, here's an experiment. You and I both have an 8-year-old. Let's take your school and double its class sizes, from 16 to 32. We'll use the extra money generated by that — a whopping $400,000 more per year per classroom — to halve the class sizes, from 32 to 16, at my public high school, Garfield. In 2020, when our kids are graduating, we'll compare what effect it all had. On student achievement. On teaching quality. On morale. Or that best thing of all, the "environment that promotes relationships between teachers and students." First, he explains how Lakeside, where Bill went to high school, thinks about class size: "Ask any alumnus what the best thing about Lakeside is," the school's brochure urges. "And they will likely mention an environment that promotes relationships between teachers and students through sma...

Part of the last Operations Committee meeting was devoted to Capacity Planning and Management and there were several documents released. They finally made it to the SPS website (thanks to readers who pointed that out - I lost track in all the financial crisis tangle). They are: Enrollment Projections Facilities Planning Annual Report Capacity Planning Management Annual Report Unfortunately, there is one missing document which is the 2010 Enrollment Headcount and Projections by School. It has some data not in the Enrollment Projections document that is interesting. I'll try to get this one as well. The Enrollment Projections is a series of 30 charts (have fun, kids!) projecting enrollment to 2015. The big number here is that they are saying: Based on the adjusted projections, the 2015 moderate projected enrollment is 53,969 students. That is a difference of 9200 students. Let that sink in. Can our district handle 9k plus students? (Of course with the current debacle, t...

( Update: one important part of the issue that I failed to note in my first post is that the Legislature rarely cuts funding in mid-year . This will happen in Feb. for districts and it leaves them struggling mightily. They will have to dip into reserves - and in SPS's case, possibly the just-passed supplemental levy - to get through the year. Next school year, that's going to be where we see the axe fall.) I am sorry, truly, for the parents who have students in SPS. Not because we don't have some good things happening, we do, but because between the continuing district mismanagement AND the poor economy AND more budget cuts from the Legislature, it is going to likely be a terrible couple of years. I have some links here to recapping what did and didn't happen in the Legislature. One thing that didn't happen is that the state did not take levy equalization away from poorer districts. From the Horsesass blog (a very profane and funny take from a liberal who a...

Here's what may be happening in K-12 funding: Class size reduction for current year eliminated; schools would lose payments mid-year. Federal "Edu jobs" money absorbed into current state budget. HB 3225 summary HB 3225 bill - Both House and Senate Ways and Means committees will meet Saturday morning; members are expected to move to floor around noon. View via TVW Contact your legislator. In addition to millions in administrative reductions, cuts include: $51 million in across-the-board cuts to state universities $39 million to eliminate K-4 class-size enhancement $9.1 million in planned K-12 education reform activities $27.7 million in Basic Health Plan (freezes coverage and lowers enrollment as people drop off the plan) That federal "edu-jobs" money was to keep teachers in classrooms; it will likely get absorbed into the state's General Fund to off-set cuts throughout the system.

I saw this agreement last night, hot off the district presses, but for some reason, the network I was on at headquarters wouldn't let me sign on here so I couldn't post it. The Labor Relations page has all kinds of versions of the agreement information (but ignore the Fast Facts - it's useless). There are some interesting things and some things I think are vague and wonder what they mean. Maybe some teachers out there can help us. I did attend the Work Session on Maintenance (interesting) and about half the Board meeting (also interesting)but I'll post separate threads on those. From the agreement: looks like seniority is in and super seniority is out. I think the premise here is that if you start from a place where ALL teachers are good, then you have to have some mechanism to figure out who goes if there are RIFs and the union says seniority. (Yes, I know, that's mighty big if.) On the other hand, I think the union gave in at super seniority which probabl...

Several requests have been made to have a thread on class size. Here's what I think is out there about this issue. There was a study called Project Star done in Tennessee in 1985 over 4-years which did find that class size did matter. And, from a op-ed from Oregon Live by an Oregon state professor: "Interestingly, the studies of the Tennessee experiment have found a clear rejection of the notion that a teacher aide can offset the effect of a large class: test results were statistically equivalent across large classes with and without an aide." Also: "A second study by the same team revealed that the positive effects from small classes in K-3 remained pervasive two full years after students returned to regular-size classes." From ClassSizeMatters.org ; "Class size reduction has now been successfully implemented in 30 states across the country, according to Education Week, and many localities. Since 2000-2001, the Montgomery County Public School District...