Seattle Schools Community Forum

You'd think that our state legislators would have their hands full trying to figure out how to fully fund education per the McCleary ruling.  Apparently not.  We have the "give every school a letter grade" bill and now we have SB 5242 .  It's short and to the point and I agree with the WEA on this one - it's nothing but a distraction and gives principals too much power.  (It also ties the hands of school boards because they have to follow this directive in all collective bargaining agreements.) From the WEA website: This misguided and punitive legislation allows school districts to fire teachers without any kind of fair or objective process and regardless of their job performance or experience. Administrators and principals would be allowed to transfer a teacher for any reason, and if no other principals wanted that teacher, she would lose her job. Under SB 5242, qualifications, experience and evaluations would no longer matter in staffing decisions....

There are not further details/information on the Hamilton substitute incident that occurred last week as the investigation is on-going.   SPS replied to these basic questions about substitute hiring. 1) Why did the reporter say the sub wasn't employed by the district? Is that right? We did not tell the reporter that the substitute wasn’t a district employee. We did say that because he isn’t a permanent teacher, he couldn’t be placed on leave. Instead, we would not give him any more assignments until the investigation was completed.

From The Stranger Slog (with the headline "Rodney Tom Hates Teachers"): With zero notice Sunday, just one day before it was heard by the Ways & Means Committee, millionaire state Senate Majority "Leader" Rodney Tom (R-Medina) filed a bill that would eliminate defined pension benefits for most state and public school employees , replacing them with a risky 401-K-style savings plan that would subject future retirees to the whims of the market. SB 5856 , of which Tom is the sole sponsor, would apply to all future public employees and all current public employees under the age of 45. That means if you chose a career as a school teacher twenty years ago, trading the opportunity to strike it rich in the private sector for the promise of a secure retirement, you are totally fucked . Of course, a lot of states have catastrophically underfunded their public employee pension plans. But not Washington . No, Washington has the second strongest funded pension sy...