Seattle Schools Community Forum

Rainier Beach is one of three comprehensive high schools to not have a complete renovation. Chief Sealth has had major work done and got some of it via the fallout of them having to share a campus with Denny.  Ingraham is the other but Ingraham has also had major work done and has been on every single BEX and BTA.   Rainier Beach got a performing arts hall (but no performing arts curriculum or program so it sat, mostly unused for years) and had some building area upgrades but not much else. According to the Times, the Rainier Beach community isn't going to wait for the district to make their building better.  They would like to make it the greenest high school in the state.  The story in the Times . T he community’s aspirations were announced Tuesday at a news conference where Mayor Mike McGinn and Denis Hayes, president of the Bullitt Foundation, expressed their support, albeit not the financial kind.  The Bullitt Foundation doesn’t fund capita...

West Seattle Dawg recently mentioned this education documentary, Race To Nowhere . I hadn't heard of it. Here's a blurb about it: Director Vicki Abeles turns the personal political by igniting a national conversation in groundbreaking documentary about the pressures American schoolchildren and their teachers face moving into the 21 century. What started as a private family matter widened into a cogent examination of systematic pressures faced by youth and teachers today amid a focus on high stakes testing, competing in the global economy and increasingly unrealistic expectations of parents, universities, school districts and society at large. The demands have crushing, widespread consequences. Many students are disengaged, cheating is commonplace, stress-related illness, depression and burnout are rampant and students arrive at college and the workplace unprepared and uninspired. Featuring the heartbreaking stories of young people who have been pushed to the brink, parents...