Seattle Schools Community Forum

Monday, Oct. 3rd Early Enrollment starts.  See SPS website for details. Tuesday, Oct. 4th Intermediate Term Capacity Management community meeting from 6:30-8:00 p.m. at Mercer Middle School, 1600 S. Columbian Way Wednesday, Oct. 5th Operations Committee mtg (meeting of the whole which I believe means the entire Board) from 4-5:30 p.m.  No agenda available yet.  School Board meeting from 6-9 p.m. Sign up to speak starting 8:00 am on Monday, 252-0040 Agenda . This includes the (late) contract for NWEA for MAP testing.  There is a torturously long explanation of why this is such a great thing which leads me to believe staff thinks there will be pushback from the public testimony.  One thing I didn't know - all students new to the district have to take the fall MAP.   Also, Mark Teoh told the C&I committee that the cost was going up by $20k but here it appears that it is $30k.  It also says this: Due to staff reductions, unfortunatel...

Franklin High School Kicks Off Centennial Year on Friday, Sept. 30th Franklin High School turns 100 years old in 2012, and one of Seattle’s oldest high schools will kick off a year-long centennial celebration in the gym Friday afternoon. The event will include a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the school’s newly-renovated gym and a proclamation by King County Councilmember (and Franklin alumnus) Larry Gossett, who has declared Sept. 30 Franklin High Day in King County. The proclamation will also recognize the school’s significant improvements in student test scores and college acceptance rates. Principal Jennifer Wiley predicts that other big-name Franklin athlete alums, along with Seattle School District leaders who are also Franklin graduates, will be in attendance. Officials of the National Achievement Scholarship Corporation named three students from SPS as Semifinalists in the 48th annual National Achievement Scholarship Program. These academically pr...

So much to talk about but I did want to put up some interesting highlights from last week's Audit and Finance Committee meeting on Jan. 13th. There was some discussion of how to get Director Patu up to speed (as she is new to the Committee and, seemingly, finance). Enrollment: district is up by 188 kindergarteners and over 900 9th graders. Wow. There was some discussion about the various ways that BEX and BTA dollars were being spent as well as the bond sale late last year to get even more capital money for the reopened schools. I tell ya, the money just gets moved around and around. So those who were waiting on the item about the Audit Response to AE3.1 conflict of interest issue. It was reported that: this was about NWEA which the Superintendent did not disclose that she was on their Board. What was said at the meeting is that the district noted that this was a specific item and not just "you did not fully disclose all the boards you sit on". the wording on audit re...

Update: found the listings for elementary tours. Very convoluted to find. Most elementaries do not have tours until late January and most go into late Feb./March. However, Bailey Gatzert has two this week (on the 11th and 13th) and Madrona has an evening tour on the 13th. I have to say that with very few elementary schools having a tour during Early Enrollment (ending Jan. 31), it might make it hard for parents to decide "do I enroll now or do I want to want for Open Enrollment?" Elementary school tours are organized by service area: Aki Kurose Service Area Denny Service Area Eckstein Service Area Hamilton Service Area Madison Service Area McClure Service Area Mercer Service Area Washington Service Area Whitman Service Area The district has put out some info on enrollment . if you are continuing at your school (or are a new student who completes Early Enrollment by Jan. 31), you should receive a confirmation letter by mid-March . Assignment letters will con...

FYI, SPS is conducting early enrollment for incoming kindergarteners as well as students who will be new to SPS next fall. Early enrollment started in October and continues thru January 2011. Open Enrollment starts is from March 15-31, 2011 with notifications mailed in May 2011. I note that Queen Anne Elementary is having a couple of kindergarten meet-and-greets, one on December 14th and one on January 5th. These are NOT at the school but at a PTA parents' home so they are limiting it to 40 people. This information comes to us from the Queen Anne View. QA Elementary has a spiffy retro spaceship logo. Please let me know if you hear of any other kindergarten events before the regular January tours start. They have already posted the tour dates for high schools. These vary. A few schools do not have tour dates posted (Hale, Garfield, RBHS). Most are having 2-3 tours with Roosevelt having 1(!) day tour and one evening event.