Seattle Schools Community Forum

Tuesday, Jan. 27th Kindergarten Enrollment night , 5:30-7:00 pm, Northgate Elementary, open to all. Wednesday, Jan. 29th Work Sessions : • Oversight Work Session: Enrollment & Planning (4:30-5:30 PM) • Work Session: Budget (5:30-7 PM) • Work Session: Series 1000 Policies (7-8 PM) Nothing attached for Budget so clearly the Enrollment Work Session is the most interesting. Fun fact: the district has no permanent Enrollment director but yes, they have a demographer (and a PhD at that), Natasha Rivers.  The interim director appears to come from an IT consulting firm.  The district has also hired a communications firm, Write as Rain , for "growth boundaries communications." Page 5 is all about Stakeholder Engagement and Public Information. Page 11 on Opportunities and Risks is also worth reading. Then we get to the percentage projections page for elementary, middle and high school.  Sober reading.  Elementary looks like the overwhelming majority of elementary sc...

I'm just on my way out the door to the Garfield walk-out and this message came up on my feed.  It's from Superintendent Nyland.  (I don't see they are saying their numbers are wrong.  Well, something's wrong if Garfield says they DID meet the district's stated goal.) Nyland also says:   We are still working through this process, and we would hope the community will allow us time to complete our process.  What? How does that help Garfield to say a process is still going on? Nyland Letter

Welcome to August - it's nice to still have a lovely summer. I note that SPS is still looking for an Enrollment and Planning Services director.  I was a bit startled that the salary is much lower than for an Executive Director (considering how important this job is).  Very entertaining interview with Project Runway's Tim "Make it Work" Gunn on mentoring in the NY Times .  Last fall, in an instantly viral Tumblr feed called “ Academic Tim Gunn ,” two Penn State academics imagined the style guru as a dissertation committee member with advice tailored to the humanities, including: “I want you to be cognizant of not overwriting this,” “That conclusion is such wretched excess” and “Your theoretical framework is Foucault, Derrida and Deleuze? That’s not avant-garde. That’s 80s.”  No Director community meetings tomorrow. MOHAI is sponsoring "Imagine Cup Day" on Saturday from 10 am-2 pm; could be fun and it's free.  Check out new technology pro...