Seattle Schools Community Forum

Interesting story on NBC last night about one of the members of Cheap Trick and his use of music to help his autistic son.  He's started a group called Rock Your Speech . Also from STAT, this story, Is the dramatic rise in autism tapering off? CDC officials found that 1 in every 68 children in the country has an autism spectrum disorder, a rate unchanged from the last CDC survey  two years ago. And while the new findings may help counter claims that half of all children in the United States will be autistic within a decade, it’s too soon to say whether the rate has reached a plateau, CDC officials cautioned. Here's yet another great story about the move to bring back more CTE (Career and Technical Education). The Tri-City Herald reports that the Kennewick School District's Tri-Tech Skills Center students built two "tiny" houses that will be put up for sale along with all other district surplus items.

Here's a link to the SPS School Beat. Seattle Public Schools’ elementary and K-8 schools will be closed from Monday, November 23 through Wednesday, November 25 for Parent-Teacher Conferences. This is the first year that all elementary and K-8 schools will be closed Districtwide for parent-teacher conferences. The new schedule will be less disruptive to student learning while also providing greater consistency and predictability for families. Interesting. I remember how difficult it was with a shortened day but I had no idea that during the entire Thanksgiving week, the elementaries and K-8s will be closed. How do parents feel? Do the parents of middle school kids in K-8s get conferences? Is so, that seems unfair that if you go to a K-8, you get a conference and if you go to middle school you don't. The High School Proficiency Exam (HSPE, formerly the WASL) for Science will be given this year for high school students on one day for 125 minutes. (This from the s...