Seattle Schools Community Forum

Demography Talk The talk by SPS demographer, Dr. Natasha Rivers, on January 29th didn't have much new information.  She stated that there are links to her reports at the SPS page on demography. To note: - the district is definitely working with the City on housing trends - she stated that the district had thought they would grow by 1,000 students as they had in previous years but only gained 336.  That number seems much lower than I recall from the fall. - fun fact: the average age for new mothers in Seattle is 32 and for fathers it's 35. - the growth in SPS is not equally scattered.  Most of the growth is in the NE/NW, some in the Central area but down somewhat in the SW and especially down in the SE.

I attended the Board Work Session yesterday on Capital Programs and Plans.  It was both informative and annoying. Attending were Directors McLaren, Patu, Blanford, Peters, Peaselee and Martin-Morris.  Director Carr, like at last week's Board meeting, was not in attendance.  Staff included Superintendent Banda and the head of Capital/Facilities, Flip Herndon.  Dr. Herndon gave the entire presentation. There was a good laugh before the meeting when Director Blanford said that he had a lot of people asking him if he was Richard Sherman or Marshawn Lynch of the Seahawks (the only similarity is that they are all three black men with long hair - they don't look like each other at all.)  I later asked Director Blanford if anyone asked him if he was Lawrence Fishburne - a joke based on an entertainment reporter who this week was interviewing Samuel L. Jackson and thought he was Lawrence Fishburne.  Jackson's reaction was priceless. Dr. Herndon did two good th...

I had a good interview with Senator Ed Murray recently who will be in the General Election against current mayor, Mike McGinn.  We sat down in his campaign offices to talk. I asked him about what he believes t he role of the Mayor is vis a vis Seattle public education. He said that he believes it has changed from what it was traditionally as something of a cheerleader position to a more visible one.  He believes that the Mayor should push for discussions about changes needed in the district AND in city government to find better academic outcomes.  He said, "Only the Mayor has the position to pull stakeholders together." I told him that sounded a lot like mayoral takeover of the district.