Seattle Schools Community Forum

Some sad news on two fronts. One item is this from Ravenna Next Door on Sunday: My daughter and her friends were playing at Bryant this morning when they texted me with concern about glass and jewelry, and "gun powder" on the playground. I walked over to see for myself and sure enough there were empty beer cans, stolen jewelry and a pile of white powder with a razor blade, etc. I called the police who came surprisingly quickly and confirmed the white substance was Meth. Ugh. They took it to the station for evidence but left the jewelry and glass suggesting that I call the parks to come and clean it up. A very surprising site to say the least. Still researching who to call for clean up. The second item is about a beloved staff member at Cascadia: Allen Greenberg, beloved recess monitor at Cascadia Elementary in Seattle, passed away unexpectedly.  Allen spent his life giving to others - always looking out for the less fortunate.  He often stopped by Solid ...

Update: here's a bit of the discussion from the last Board meeting on EEU where Director Peters asks a very direct question to Sped head, Wyeth Jessee. End of update Via the Support Big K Facebook page: I'm very sad to report the below update on EEU -  "I'm in disbelief that we are asking people to join us again (at the next School Board meeting.) Despite all of your incredible support at our last meeting, the powerful moving testimony, the passion, and the unanimous support of the school board- no solution has been reached. The Executive Director and Director of Special Education stated at a Special Education PTSA meeting 'no solution will be reached by open enrollment.'

RBHS Coding Team In support of teacher Jon Greenberg This thread will cover the last School Board meeting last Wednesday, Feb. 5th.  All directors were in attendance but Director Carr.  The Rainier Beach High School T.E.A.L. team (Technology Education and Literacy in Schools) gave a presentation on coding work they have been doing.  There was a large crowd primarily around transportation, former Center School teacher, Jon Greenberg and the NW Center Kids program. 

The School Board should reject the Annual Report on Equitable Access toPrograms and Services because it fails to fulfill the requirements of the policy. Instead of holding the required information, the report contains a lot of general information that should not appear. Either the superintendent is confused or he is attempting to confuse others. Neither situation is acceptable. Per the policy, the report is required to contain detailed information about how each program placement decision relates to the eight decision-making criteria. These details are almost completely absent from the report. Moreover, a number of program placement decisions are not even mentioned in the report. Instead, the report contains comments about a number of changes and decisions which are not, in fact, program placement decisions at all. The report is almost completely without any detailed information and it is almost completely without any mention of any stakeholder engagement. The superintendent procedur...

I picked up a draft copy of the annual program placement report at Monday's C & I meeting. It was written by Misa Garmoe, the recently hired Executive Director of School Operations. She has been on the job for about three months. This is a new job which is different from the Assistant Superintendent for Operations. The copy I saw was clearly labelled as a draft and the final report won't be released until January 31, so I won't comment on it in detail yet. That said, I think the report is seriously flawed and I have sent Ms Garmoe my suggestions for changes. I don't really expect her to make the kinds of changes that I suggest, but I did offer them nonetheless. The draft I saw included a lot of information about changes to curricular foci rather than programs. None of those should have been included. In addition, the information provided about changes to programs did not include the sort of details required by the policy. As I often say, the fact that all of m...

Oh Boy! The Curriculum and Instruction Policy Committee meeting this afternoon is going to be good! I'm going to be there for sure. Just check out this list of discussion items from the agenda : Committee Discussion Items a. BAR for Yearbook Contract (Shauna/Kathleen/Misa) b. Policy 3130, Student Assignment (Shauna/Ronald/Janet B.) c. Policy 2415, High School Graduation Requirement (Michael/Janet B.) d. Career and Technical Education Annual Report (Mary) e. BAR for RTTT Project 4 (Clover, Eric C., Anna) f. Equitable Access Annual Report (Michael/Misa) g. Math Adoption Progress Report (Shauna/Eric/Adam/Shawn) h. Policy 2090, Program Evaluation and Assessment (Marty/Shauna) Nevermind the yearbook contract (how is that even a C&I issue), nearly everything else is a hot topic - or could be.

Monday, Jan. 13th Curriculum and Instruction Policy Committee meeting from 4:30-6:30 pm. Agenda Discussion of Policy 3130, student assignment, Policy 2415, high school graduation requirement, CTE review, Equitable Access Annual report, math adoption progress report I will be unable to attend this meeting but it does look interesting. Charter Commission Charter Applicant Forum Starting at 5 pm for Washington STEM academy, 6 pm for CAL Elementary and 7 pm for Sports in Schools Team Charter.  All are to be held at South Seattle Community College, Building C, Room C122.  Public comments accepted with sign-in at the meeting and a lottery to pick speakers if there are more than there is time to hear from. Wednesday, Jan. 15th 2-hour early dismissal for professional development Work Session: Board Code of Conduct from 4-5:30 pm This was discussed at the Board retreat and I see that they have captured ideas from various sources.  I hope they can get this done quick...