Seattle Schools Community Forum

I was mistaken when I previously said there were no district meetings until August. Wednesday Audit and Finance Committee meeting of the Whole from 4-5 pm.  The only agenda item is to debate any last issues on the budget for 2013-2014 and presumably move it forward to the Board meeting. Public Hearing on the 2013-2014 Budget Your opportunity to weigh in on any topic in the budget.  If you have a real concern, it really is important to get it on the record.  You may sign in to speak starting a half-hour before the hearing. You will have three minutes to speak. Special Meeting of the Board from 5:15-6:00 pm Just one action item - voting on the new budget .  They will be taking public testimony so there are speaking opportunities for any topic.   The City Council will be debating and voting this week on whether to create a separate fund for the money from the school speed zone tickets.   So if these are about safety around schools and the City w...

Upcoming events: CoolMom's 'Think Outside the Car' Celebration , Tue Jan 15, 6:30–8:30pm, Fauntleroy Church UCC, 9140 California Ave SW, free. Education Without Borders: Transforming Learning for the 21st Century , Wed Jan 16, 4:30–7:30pm, Seattle Children’s Theatre, 201 Thomas St, free.  This one is brought to you by the World Affairs Council and will have ed experts from different countries discussing education and educational system. Also of interest, this Times article about speed cameras around school zones.   What's interesting is that the projections of the number of tickets that would be issued were much lower than what is actually happening which would lead you to think that maybe people are being really blase about speeding through school zones.   The cameras are at Thurgood Marshall, Broadview-Thompson, Olympic View and Gatewood Elementary. To emphasize that the cameras were installed to increase safety, not swell city revenues, Mayor Mike Mc...

After 3 hours the Work Session finally got to boundary discussions. This included the PowerPoint as well as a sheet which I haven't found yet online. One side as high school enrollment, overall and by clusters (which is very interesting) and the other side has what Tracy termed "dummy data" to illustrate what might patterns might occur because of the new SAP. As Tracy said, this is very complex. They listed 8 steps to the boundary planning process (slide 53). Then slide 54 listed the first step - Identify Factors (like proximity, walk zones, demographics, etc.) As I have previously said, t he Board is not going to rank or weigh any of these so you may think proximity is the most important but that's not how it will be for the Board. Keep that in mind. (I'll have an update on the proximity issue. As Tracy ran through it, I had a scenario in my head. I e-mailed her to ask her if I got it right and I'm waiting for an answer. Basically she said they are ...