Seattle Schools Community Forum

From the Stranger Slog : A Central District high school was locked down yesterday afternoon as police responded to reports that a former student and suspected gang member had assaulted several peers and had allegedly pulled a gun on one student.  Students from Nova High school and the World School, a multilingual school for newly arrived immigrant and refugee students that shares space with Nova, were locked into the building at around 2:30 p.m. yesterday, after teens reported seeing a bloody, brass-knuckle-fueled fight between at least four high school students on the schools' playfield. "A 14-year-old student who used to go to the World School had basically been kicked out and was going to Chief Sealth school, but he wanted to be re-admitted and the principal had turned down his request," confirms Teresa Whipple, a spokeswoman for SPS. "He’d apparently shown up at the school to confront some students. He said they were spreading rumors that were...

I found something interesting on the SPS website this morning.   It's an SPS communication called "Data Confidentiality: How Seattle Public Schools Protects Student Information."  Interesting that it was released while the district is on Spring Break. I think this deserves more investigation (and indeed is on my reading/writing list as I have piled up some articles).  This is becoming almost as big an issue as opting out of assessments.  I'm putting this up now to get it on your radar but there will be a part two to this thread. It's a fairly carefully worded piece but it does seem to dodge/leave out a few things. First, they say: As a District, we strictly adhere to the Superintendent Procedure on Student Records and Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) requirements to protect the confidentiality of student information.   Then they say: The Superintendent’s Procedure builds upon the FERPA law with detail regarding how ed...