Seattle Schools Community Forum

[Updated 6:30 pm with links to appendixes.] So I was wrong about there being a meeting at 4 pm today. It was just a media briefing which has already happened. See Cooper on list of school-closure “final recommendations” on the West Seattle Blog for details. I'm reading the West Seattle Blog post myself right now and will add more to this post in a few minutes. Full document of final recommendations is online on district page. Changes from last time: AS#1 is not closing but Summit is. However, AS#1 must create a restructuring plan and transportation is now limited to two clusters (North and Northeast). "If AS#1 does not meet the metrics outlined in the restructuring plan we will evaluate discontinuing the program for fall 2010." Thornton Creek is not moving and expanding to K-8 ; instead a new traditional K-8 will be in Jane Addams building. TT Minor General Ed program moved to Lowell. TT Minor Montessori still moving to Leschi. And a bunch of the options discussed...

Pulling out some comments from an earlier thread per reader request: 1. Montlake principal has announced that the school has been removed from the closure list . Any other rumors out there at affected schools? 2. Dick Lilly published another article in Crosscut today arguing against the current school closure plan. Reactions? Comments? 3. The notice about the change in the enrollment timeline states that " students affected by building closure or program changes will receive their new assignments in the mail at the end of February. If they do not like their assignment they can apply for a different assignment during open enrollment." This is consistent with what some of us were wishing/arguing for in some threads in December.

[Updated 1/4/09 7:20 pm with Special Education Advisory meeting] I can't believe the kids go back to school tomorrow. We've had such a nice relaxing holiday together that I'm not excited to return to the daily grind. Luckily, my kids are excited. They love their school, their teachers and friends and miss them. But beyond my usually reluctance for holidays to end, this year I'm particularly loathe to see tomorrow arrive because it means 24 days of intense, emotional discussions and debate on the school closures proposal. Here's what's happening this month that I know about. Please add other events in the comments and I'll edit this post to include them. Two school/community meeetings scheduled for December 18th (Cooper and SBOC) were postponed and need to be rescheduled, but I haven't see new dates yet. And if any additional buildings are proposed for closure in the Superintendent's final recommendation on Tuesday, public hearings will be scheduled f...

A group, Educators Students & Parents for a Better Vision of Seattle Schools, has organized to oppose the current District Capacity Management proposal. They have an online petition to the Board asking for votes against the current plan. This group has had at least one meeting and plans at least one event. I can't say more beyond that as I am not a member, but I know that some members of the group follow this blog, so they can speak for themselves and I invite them to do so.

From District Communications: Dear Community Members, We want to let you know that all District computer and network services will be down for a planned outage starting Friday, 1/2/2009, at 5:00pm. All systems will be back on line not later than Monday, 1/5/2009, at 6:00am. This work was planned in advance to minimize interruption and inconvenience to our community and to district staff. We want to ensure that community members still have access to capacity management, so the capacity management web pages will be available to the public via an alternative web connection. Web site visitors will be redirected automatically to this site. This is critically important. A large Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) will be installed that will support the entire Data Center in case of a power outage. Once the UPS is installed, central computing and network services, including the VAX computer system, will be protected from power outages. This will significantly improve the availabi...

So we have all seen that the district staff (and the Board) have been talking about various capital projects that will be needed to help manage the capacity issues. Things like adding a science lab(s) to Cooper should Pathfinder (a K-8) move into the building, finally(!) putting money into SBOC when they move into Meany (if that happens as well), Old Hay, Blaine, etc. But where will we find that money? I mean, there may be some money still in the BTA levy (or projects could be added to the upcoming BTA levy in Feb. 2010). But that means other projects don't get done. And, of course, money is already committed in BEX III to its projects. Or is it? I guess it is if a project is working at a breakneck speed. From the November 2008 New School newsletter: "Thanks to an intense construction schedule of 10 hour days and 6 day weeks, the project is currently on schedule and New School staff and students are set to move in to start the 2009-10 school year." Now that took me...

Again, I'm confused. If Montlake is now part of the Lowell package and Lowell's building isn't closing, shouldn't the closed building (Montlake) have the public hearing? Or are both ideas still on the table (close Lowell building and disperse the students to two other sites OR close Montlake, move them to Lowell and take half of Lowell's population to one other site)? Even if both are on the table, that would mean, legally, that the district couldn't close either building without the formal public hearing for each and yet I don't see one scheduled for Montlake? Montlake also has a nice " Save Montlake " site. Sadly, their school survey closed. It had some interesting questions especially the hypothetical one about whether parents would be willing to pitch in to pay for a new building (can they do that? That would be one for the record books).

Just like the Superintendent, I keep coming back to accountability. The difference is that for her, it is all in the future, while for me it is all in the hypothetical. The Superintendent talks about accountability - and she talks about it incessently - as if it were something that we should expect next year or the following year. It's something that she is going to insist upon. The Board seems to have caught the accountability bug, too. They throw that word around like seed for chickens. But I haven't seen them look for any, expect any, or demand any. I keep wondering what they are waiting for. They have had opportunities. There was supposed to be a set of accountability requirements for the Southeast Initiative. They were about a year late - to the point that the first year's numbers came before the first year's benchmarks - and no one has mentioned them this year. No one mentioned the specific targets that were required to continue the expanded transportation for the...

I am, frankly, confused on one issue (just one? for purposes of this discussion, just this one) about this round of closures. We had a couple of mergers in the last round (Viewlands/Broadview-Thompson and High Point/Fairmount Park). (There was also TT Minor and MLK but that was worked out by principals and not the communities themselves.) I'd have to ask at these schools how that worked out. High Point and Fairmount Park got a new name - West Seattle Elementary - and so they may have forged a new joint identity. I know that Broadview-Thompson has retained its name. I haven't heard the word "mergers" used a lot this time around and although there's a lot of movement of different groups of students around, it doesn't sound like schools are merging. But wait! Carla Santorno muddied the waters by saying at the last Board meeting, when she was explaining these program design teams, that schools would bring parts of their own identities and they would joi...

This was posted elsewhere but I thought it needed more attention in case you are interested in attending. Educators, Students, & Parents for a Better VISION of Seattle Schools (ESP VISION) Are you against the school closures? Come join us to plan the next steps in uniting all of the schools together against the closures. We are asking parents, educators, and students from any school -- whether your school is on the chopping block this time or not -- to come with ideas for how we can save our schools and improve public education in Seattle! Organizing Meeting: When: 6pm, Monday, December 29th Where: Garfield Community Center (corner of Cherry and 23rd) Contact: Vicky Jambor (vjambor@msn.com) 206-851-4862 ...Because Teachers, Students, and Parents know that... School closures will not achieve "Excellence for All" 3 Classes the Seattle School District should take to understand why school closures will not lead to "Excellence for All" Basic Math: You don't hav...

I think the district, because it's a holiday period, and then we have to shake off the snow blues and the post-holiday stupor, is hoping that no one will be talking about closures. I really doubt if the newspapers will be covering much until school starts. There are no meetings to attend. But I've read through the minutes of the hearings so far and there are few surprises (although some interesting reading). Yes, we need to plan on how to say farewell (and, in my case, good riddance) to 2008. But let's not let it all go and then suddenly try to snap out of it on January 4th. Because, folks, that's exactly what the district is counting on. Let's keep up, shall we? This is not a dead zone here.

From the News and Calendar section of the district's website: Lowell hearing rescheduled to January 20, 6:30 to 8:3p.m. School Board Policy H01.00 sets forth that public hearings be held for all buildings proposed for closure in the Superintendent's Preliminary Recommendations. Individuals who were on the public testimony list for the original hearing of Dec. 18 (rescheduled due to inclement weather) have first priority to testify. Individuals on the original list will be contacted by phone and/or email. Others may sign up to testify on a space-available basis. Email hearing@seattleschools.org or call 206 252 0042. Sign-ups will be accepted until NOON on the day of the hearing. After that time, sign-ups will be accommodated on a first-come, first-served basis at the building site if space is still available. If any additional buildings are proposed for closure in the Superintendent's final recommendation - due to be announced on January 6, 2009 - a public hearing will be sc...

Just saw on the West Seattle Blog that all Seattle School meetings are cancelled for today. That includes the hearing at Lowell on the APP split and the program meeting at Cooper on the proposed closure. On the district website I also saw that the Operations Committee meeting scheduled for today is postponed until after Winter Break.

There is a historical trend by Seattle Public Schools whereby the administration forces change on a community and eases the change - or supresses dissent - with promises of mitigation. Then, when the time comes, the District fails/refuses to fulfill those promises. This has been played out countless times. The District gets what they want right now in exchange for what the community wants some time down the road, then the District doesn't actually come through with what the community wants, but the community has no recourse. We are seeing this story again with the current round of closures. Communities are raising a lot of concerns - legitimate concerns. The District is answering those concerns with promises. We need to document those promises and we need to put some meaning into them. How? The only promises from the District that count - that are in any way enforcable - are things the Board resolves. So the language of the Board resolution to approve the closures and consolidation...

The Times printed an op-ed this morning by a Lowell parent, Al Sanders, who thinks Lowell APP should be split up but proceeds to use the 7 stages of grief to pick apart arguments against splitting and moving Lowell. Mr. Sanders' student has been at Lowell 3 months. Unfortunately, he doesn't really give his reasoning why it's a good idea and what APP students are getting out of it. He says: "I would rather work toward the goal that if it can work at Lowell, with the right conditions, it can work at Thurgood, Hawthorne or any other Seattle school. I think that maybe, just maybe instead of focusing on trying to prevent the inevitable, that people would start accepting it and begin working on trying to make it successful at the next school our community is going to be part of." I note that phrase "with the right conditions". Just like Thorton Creek is worried, I think Lowell is justifiably worried. These are three huges moves (one for Thorton Creek...

See the Superintendent's Update slide presentation for details on the budget, high school closure, special education and functional capacity updates. 7:50 pm Meeting continues, but I'm signing off for the evening. See the West Seattle Blog for more details. 7:37 pm Functional Capacity Analysis; Brad Bernatek; reviewed process and timeline; talked again about "building walkthroughs." Final functional capacity done by January 13th. Elementary & K-8 process different than for secondary schools. Work done in consultation with principals to make sure fully understand spaces and uses. Existing portables are included in functional capacity. 7:33 pm Special Education update; Carla Santorno; special education student assignment information connected to closures will be released in the final capacity management recommendations on January 6th. In addition, we have really looked at making some changes based on our audit and students will be reassigned based on service del...

Here is a link to the TT Minor Public Hearing transcript. I was pretty impressed with the remarks and feel sad for this neighborhood that lost MLK and now may lose TT Minor. One remark that you may want to know about is that there is a meeting to discuss schools in the area. It was hard to understand from the transcript but it appears there is a meeting at noon, at Garfield, on Saturday. I would check with TT Minor parents or at Garfield before you go.

(Here's a link to the excellent coverage of the Genesee Hill public hearing last night over at the West Seattle blog .) A reply in a recent thread lead me to another blog (let's call it Blog S) where the closures are being discussed. Now I had initially thought to provide a link because our blog strives to give as much information and coverage as possible on Seattle education. However, when I popped over to it, I found a LOT of anger and vitriol and near-slander. I posted one thing and promptly got flamed. It is a very angry blog. None of you are children but I don't even want to give out the URL (you could find it if you tried). The tag line of the blog is "You can disagree, but I’ll still be right; that means, I don’t need you to agree with me for me to be right." (That pretty much says it all.) So why am I bringing it up? I'm posting about it because there are claims that no one is covering the story that Steve Sundquist allegedly worked with pare...

First, a quick thanks to Beth Bakeman for allowing me to join the Seattle Public Schools community blog. As I mentioned over on my recently-shuttered Chalkboard blog (aren’t closures all the rage these days?), I’m excited to join a vibrant online community focused on our schools. ----------------------------- When it comes to Thornton Creek’s proposed move to the Jane Addams building, ends up we can’t trust the ground beneath our feet. Or rather, the ground poses a snarl for the possible move. I learned at a school meeting last night that the Decatur building (Thornton Creek’s current home) and Jane Addams building ( Summit ’s current abode) are both due to get new floors over the summer 2009. According to Thornton Creek’s principal, in order for the district to replace the floors, staff will have about 24 hours from that last dismissal bell to vacate the building for the summer. And because Jane Addams is getting a floor makeover, too, it means that theoretically,...

Open thread for people to post on their experiences at any of the three public hearings on Tuesday: Genesee Hill, Mann and Old Hay.