Seattle Schools Community Forum

A reader alerted me to this discussion at the HCC blog: These talking points come from one of our commenters: I've chatted with some board members on the subject and it sounds like the high school changes are fairly far along with no alternatives even on the table. So time is short to make improvements here. The recommendation was to send mail pointing out problems with the plan. I'll also summarize all the comments here in a letter to the board at a point when there are enough to makes sense. The district is considering changing all high schools to a 5 period, 3 trimester schedule (3x5) as a means of helping students meet the new 24-credit graduation requirement in WA State. Instead of a classes meeting 180 days a year for 6 periods a day, classes would meet 120 days a year for 5 periods a day. In theory, students would have the ability to take more classes per year and thereby increase their opportunities to meet the 24-credit graduation requirement. In reality, the 3x5 ...

Check out the most recent Friday memo to the Board for the test requirements for graduation. It includes this entry: Is this correct? If students have already taken and passed the EOC exams for algebra and/or geometry, they do not need to take the SBAC Math assessment to graduate. Yes. If students pass the Algebra or Geometry EOC assessments, they would meet the graduation requirement. However, the Smarter Balanced Assessment would still be required by the state for accountability. I guess we'll be seeing a lot of students opting out of an unnecessary test again this year.

I watched Superintendent Randy Dorn's press conference last Monday where he reviewed the state's SBAC scores. I found his remarks somewhat scattered as if he were trying to remember all his talking points.  (The contrast with his unflappable Deputy Superintendent of K-12 Education, Gil Mendoza,was interesting.) As I mentioned in Part One of this series on the 2014-2105 SBAC scores for Washington State, the big takeway is that people who support SBAC are very happy (or putting on that happy face) on the announcement of these scores.  ( Ready Washington - a coalition group of the OSPI, Stand for Children, Washington STEM, Washington PTA, LEV, DFER etc., a lot of people except for teachers - could not tweet out the results hard enough.) The scores were in the low-high 50s (but naturally, breakdown differently across different groups).   Highlights from the press conference:

It appears the Board agreed to bid on the Federal Reserve building .  Interesting thing, though, is that the feds have lower the opening bid from $3M to $1M. On the one hand, the district could get themselves quite the bargain if no one else bids.  Or, it may go Ebay style and have multiple last minute bidders.  The district is paying for its own appraisal and can go 10% over that amount (with these "capital reserves" that are apparently sitting around).  I'll try to find out what that amount is.  (If the district is successful, look for this project to be number one with a bullet on BEX V.) The district is looking for members for a taskforce on the new 24-credit graduation requirement. In January 2015, the Washington State Board of Education approved the district’s request for a two-year waiver of the new requirement, which will increase the number of course credits needed for graduation from 20 to 24. Seattle Public Schools students currently are requir...

The C & I meeting on Monday began with a change to the agenda. An update on Advanced Learning was added as an eighth discussion item.

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.

I just got back from a news conference where it was announced that the City of Seattle will be investing $500,000 in arts education in Seattle Public Schools.   This will advance the already established partnership between the City and SPS called The Creative Advantage. (That's Mayor McGinn's mom, Joyce, looking at students' artwork.  The boy to her right is McGinn's brother, Kevin.  McGinn is the boy hiding at her left side.) The goal is one hour of music and one hour of visual arts per week for every single student in SPS by 2020. The investment dollars came from something of a surprising source - admission tax revenue from the Great Wheel on the waterfront and the Chihuly Garden and Glass museum was higher than expected.  So thank you tourists for those dollars.  The $500k will be invested over the next two years to start rolling out the planning done under the $1M Wallace Foundation grant.  The Central district will be the first to see some doll...

Linda Shaw of the Seattle Times reported today that there are 80 high school seniors who can't graduate because they didn't pass the two state End Of Course math tests. School principals wanted superintendent Banda to seek a waiver for the students but the superintendent Banda will not. Statewide there are over 3,000 students in a similar situation.

Well, color me surprised because I just did a spot-check of graduation requirements at some of our SPS high schools.  SPS requires 20 credits to graduate.  I'm not printing everything required but here are some basics: LA - 3 credits Social Studies - 3 credits Science - 2 credits PE - 2 credits What I jogged me to look this up was a comment I read that The Center School is a "prep" high school and has higher graduation requirements than SPS.  So I checked.  Indeed they do. They require 22 credits.

There will be a lot of catching up to do this week from the loss of time from the snow days.  Also, much has happened in the media since the postponement of the School Board meeting last Wednesday the 18th to this Wednesday the 25th.  I expect that many more media may be at this meeting. I am also delighted that the speaker list carried over from last Wednesday's meeting.  I expect that some listed speakers may get pressure to give up their places to people pushing the Board policy 1620B but I think many speakers who signed up for other reasons (like Whittier) may stand their ground.  Good for them.  (I, too, remain on the speakers list.)

I attended the C&I meeting on Monday.  There were some interesting discussions.  Sadly, I missed the one on innovation schools as I misheard and thought it was struck from the agenda.  Turns out it was moved to the end of the agenda and there is an MOU between the SEA and SPS that I will write a separate thread on at a later time.

As you are probably aware, all Seattle seniors have to complete a year-long senior project as one of SPS' graduation requirements.  One young woman in Toppenish took a decided risk and went for broke on hers - she pretended to be pregnant for 6 months. Right there, makes you think, right?  Gaby Rodriguez is a 17 year-old honors student at Toppenish High School.  She told her mother, her boyfriend and her principal but didn't tell teachers and other students, 6 of her 7 sibs nor her boyfriend's parents about her social experiment.  She revealed the secret in an all-school assembly. From the story in the Seattle Times: The topic of her presentation: "Stereotypes, rumors and statistics." "Teenagers tend to live in the shadows of these elements," she says. Before removing her fake belly in front of the entire student body, she told her audience: "Many things were said about me. Many ... traveled all the way back to me." Then, she a...

Here is the story from the Seattle Times: Gregoire signs end-of-course math assessment change The test/graduation requirement pathways are so chopped up now that I don't think anyone can recite them. It's something different for every graduating class from now for the next six years.

The Times has what they call "The Truth Needle" and Linda Shaw, their education reporter, filed a report this morning. Let me allow her to tell you: The claim: Starting in 2008, Seattle Public Schools reported that a meager 17 percent of its high-school graduates met the entrance requirements for four-year colleges. The district quietly quit using that number then recently revised it, without comment, to 46 percent. "... revised it, without comment ..." classic SPS. This is why, when you read a contract or a hard number, you should bookmark that page or print it out. It might just disappear and you'll feel like you got gaslighted (how old am I to use that reference). Now that 17% is out there in ether and even though many of us were left scratching our heads (how did all those seniors at Roosevelt get into college?), what can you do? This 17% number has been used by LEV, Seattle Foundation and many other "community" groups. What the Times f...

I was unable to attend yesterday's Work Session but several parents did. Thank you to all who put in links. I haven't looked at these documents myself but wanted to get them up so you can see them. There are three on various graduation issues and one on capacity management.

Right now, students have a variety of targets they are expected to meet by the time they leave high school. It is important to know the target for a couple of reasons. One, we should be clear about our expectations for students. Two, everyone claims that they start with the end goal and work back from there (if this is what the students are supposed to be doing in the 12th grade, then we need them to be doing this in the 11th grade, and this in the 10th grade, etc.) The kids are certainly expected to be able to pass the High School Proficiency Exams (HSPEs - formerly known as the WASL) in reading and writing. They will soon be expected to pass the math and science ones as well. These tests, however, are keyed to the 10th grade Standards - the highest Standards the state has written. Since there is no test beyond grade 10 the state has not written any state Standards beyond grade 10. Here in Seattle, however, the state Standards aren't good enough. Our students are suppose...

Core 24 is a proposal from the State Board of Education to set a new minimum for high school graduation requirements for every student in the state. If adopted, CORE 24 would require all students to earn 24 high school credits in these categories: 4.0 Language Arts 3.0 Math (Algebra, Geometry, and either Algebra 2 or an approved substitute) 3.0 Science (2 labs minimum) 3.0 Social Studies 2.0 Arts 1.5 Fitness (may be waived) 0.5 Health 3.0 Career and Technical Education (once called voc ed or occ ed) 4.0 Elective (2.0 world language and 1.0 math recommended for college-readiness) This differs from the current state-mandated graduation requirements by having an additional year of language arts, an additional year of a laboratory science, an additional semester of social studies, an additional year of art, and two additional years of CTE. That's 5.5 additional credits of required courses. The electives, however, are reduced by 1.5 credits, for a net increase of 4.0 credits. Getting ...

On Monday, May 17, the Board's Curriculum and Instruction Policy Committee will meet from 4:30 to 6:00. Here's the agenda : a. Graduation Requirements - When/how to bring to committee of the whole b. Update on STEM at Cleveland - Alternative Learning Experience process c. Performance management/Waiver Process - Establish guiding principles - Set timeline for work between now & September d. Alternative Schools Evaluation/Review - Who/when e. Policy E 04.00 - Community Schools There's something here for almost everyone. Graduation Requirements Will the District move towards CORE24? How smart is that? How are we going to get kids to earn 24 credits when we can't get 30% of them to earn 20 credits? How can we provide students with the classes needed for them to get 24 credits? Is it even a good idea for every high school graduate to have the credits needed to gain entry to a four-year university? Why is that seen as the only legitimate goal? Will the District stand...

State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Randy Dorn, is recommending that the legislature delay, yet again, the "pass the math test" requirement for high school graduation. See this news story in the Seattle Times. The Times, in this editorial , complains that this delay "lowers the bar". Instead of delay, they write that " The Legislature must exchange Dorn's plan for one that does something for students. A better effort would include more experienced math teachers and up-to-date textbooks. After-school tutoring, summer school and other ways are needed to give students more lesson time. Science must be injected into core curricula with all the teacher training and other resources required to place science on par with reading, writing and arithmetic. " Ah, the idealism of the Seattle Times. It's refreshing, if naive. They are, of course, correct. But so what? The legislature is not going to pony up any money to pay for these proposals. So after...

The Seattle PI online reports that at the Board meeting last night, they voted 7-0 to continue the the graduation requirement with a C average. Here's a story link . Here's what Cheryl Chow had to say: "(The data) very clearly is stating that when students start getting lower grades in the 9th grade, by sophomore year they don't see the light at the end of the tunnel," she said. "We need to get our PR better because a lot of work has been done for close to two years on this issue. It's unfortunate that a headline made us back up and take more time because that many more kids are going to drop out of school." Michael De Bell also noted the staff's hard work. Okay, but clearly the public and parents didn't like the idea. What does it say - to an employer - if we change this policy? So, maybe we didn't all understand the underlying reason for the position but we all see the public face ramifications. I'm glad the Board recognized ...