Seattle Schools Community Forum

From Ed Week , New York State lifts disciplinary action against teachers who discuss test questions that the state has released. A reader asked about a threat at Ingraham High School in the cafeteria by a student with a backpack.  A staffer asked around and not a single student knows about this.  In this day of phones with cameras and social media, that would seem odd.  I'm thinking someone was trying to stir the pot here.  Don't do that. Last spring, Mayor Murray had his Education Summit.  I was there as were hundreds of other people.  He said this about homeless students in SPS (transcript from the Mayor's office, dated April 30, 2016):

Good morning on the start of this Memorial Day weekend.  Please consider taking a little time to explain to your children why they have Monday off from school and the sacrifices that have been made for all of us by service members in our armed forces. Interesting article on the growth of Montessori-based public schools (both traditional and charter.) As a complete opposite to the Washington State Supreme Court, the Texas Supreme Court is taking a decidedly hands-off approach to school funding in that state.  From NPR:

A very wonderful letter from a mom with a special needs child after "social skills" training in her child's school that forgot that there are many types of people in the world that we should all be kind to and show respect for.  In case you didn't know, as of Feb. 2, 2016, OSPI reports that there are 35, 511 homeless students in Washington State.  That's 3.3% of the P-12 population.  It's an over 9% increase from 2013-2014 and a 62.7% increase from 2009-2010. 

Monday, March 14th  Curriculum&Instruction Committee meeting from 4:30-7:30 pm. Agenda

Demography Talk The talk by SPS demographer, Dr. Natasha Rivers, on January 29th didn't have much new information.  She stated that there are links to her reports at the SPS page on demography. To note: - the district is definitely working with the City on housing trends - she stated that the district had thought they would grow by 1,000 students as they had in previous years but only gained 336.  That number seems much lower than I recall from the fall. - fun fact: the average age for new mothers in Seattle is 32 and for fathers it's 35. - the growth in SPS is not equally scattered.  Most of the growth is in the NE/NW, some in the Central area but down somewhat in the SW and especially down in the SE.

Hey, the Alliance for Education had their Roaring Twenties fundraiser: What a wonderful night we shared on Saturday and what a powerful statement of support to the more than 52,000 students in Seattle.  You contributed over $400,000 to support students in our public schools - wow!  This is by degrees a significant increase over the past few years and yet another compelling testatment(sic) to the generosity and commitment to high quality public education that exists in our community.  Thank you! Well, it's great that they are still saying they want to give to Seattle Schools but I wonder how?  (Oh wait, the first face I see on their photo roundup of the event is...Don Nielson.  Never mind.) Really good piece from Seattle Education by parent Carolyn Leith on the possible raise for Superintendent Nyland. As we at this blog have all seen, from the past two school board elections, counting your chickens before you count all the votes is a bad idea....

Did you know that the district has rank ordered programs/support activities in district buildings ?  The reasoning is two-fold - for enactment of 1351 for smaller class sizes in K-3 and the growth in Seattle Schools.  Here's the list from a letter that Flip Herndon sent on Oct. 13, 2015 to "Seattle Public School Partners:"

The Charter Commission - at the end of almost five hours of presentations and discussions - took a vote to revoke the charter of First Place Scholars and the vote lost, 4-3.  And at least two of those yes votes are very tenuous.  Main takeaways:

Legislative action on public education still going (anything not voted out of committee by April 1 is dead and this list in not inclusive of all ed bills): - expanding states early learning system of ratings - HB 1240 use of restraints/restraining for students with disabilities (passed out of Ed Ctm unanimously)  - SB5748 tying student scores to test scores died but, as I previously reported, an amendment to bill 1345 includes tying student scores to test scores.  That bill is still alive. - SB5419 SUPER act - Establishes the Student User Privacy in Education Rights Act; which increases the strength of safeguards protecting student information. This one got by me. Given it's from a Republican, Senator Litzow, I don't have great hope. - SB5433 Requires the creation and incorporation of curricula about the history; culture; and government of the nearest federally recognized Native American tribe or tribes. - HB1031 Dual Credit Expands eligibility for Colleg...

I'll put a notation by each of these; please consider contacting your legislative reps for your support or rejection of each bill. From the Seattle Times :

This fall we see the opening of First Place School as a charter school serving mobile, high-risk students (mostly homeless).  The Times had a stor y about how homeless students are served in schools in Washington state with an interesting question to it. The Times reports that there are about 30,000 homeless kids in our state today (and that number has steadily risen over the last decade). School can be the one constant in their lives (for as long as they may be in any given school).   There's a federal law protecting these students - the McKinney-Vento Act - and it allows students to stay enrolled in a school even if they move.  Districts have to pay to transport them to that school, no matter the distance. The feds give money for these transportation costs but naturally, it doesn't cover them all.  Seattle SD spends over $1M a year in costs (out of a state budget for transportation of all homeless WA state students of less than $1M a year). One thought is t...

From Publicola (partial) : Last month, federal agencies rejected an application from a coalition of homeless advocates to convert the old Federal Reserve building at 1015 2nd Ave. in downtown Seattle into a comprehensive homeless services center. But homeless advocates like Tristia Bauman "believe that the application was denied…in contravention of federal law” and are calling on the agencies to reconsider the fast-track rejection.

Surprise from a reader (and I agree) - a figure from a Danny Westneat column. Did this surprise anyone else? 2370 kids, about 5% of all of the students in Seattle Public Schools, are homeless ? I had no idea it was that many. From the Week in Geek :  The physics of the Winter Olympics.  Good piece to show to the kids as you watch some amazing athletes in action.   (Those kids on the snowboards give me a heart attack.)   Heads up on a coming trend in politics - more "school choice" meaning more charters and now the push for vouchers.  This from Non-Profit Quarterly . Most candidates for major local or state positions, particularly governor, scurry to charter schools to be seen as supportive of these vanguards of the school choice movement. Among Republican candidates for office, the message of charter school advocacy seems to be designed to resonate with voters frustrated with the purported inadequate performance of traditional public schools, even ...

I had posted a link to a 5-part series at the New York Times that followed a young girl and her homeless family living in NYC.  It is devastating reading. Mayor Bloomberg weighed in.  Now, he has the biggest city in the country to run and I absolutely don't expect everything to work well particularly for the poor if only because that's not the way of the world.  But a certain level of sanitation and safety, especially in shelters with babies and children, is a must.  He said nothing about the issues raised in the story about those problems. What he said was this: Mayor Bloomberg responds to the Dasani article in the New York Times: “It’s fair to say that New York City has done more than any city to help the homeless and we should be very proud of that,” declared the mayor, who went on to express optimism that the city’s public schools system would help Dasani break the cycle of poverty. “This kid was dealt a bad hand. I don’t know quite why. That’s just t...

Lots of news: - the Rainier Beach PTSA is being honored with one of twelve Champion of Change awards  next Friday at the White House.  From RBHS PTSA: We will travel to Washington, DC and stand together as we accept one of the most significant public honors for this community in some time.  Recipients of this award will enjoy a guided tour of the East Wing, Policy briefing, lunch, Champion of Change event, photo opportunity and story featured on the White House website. Yes, yes and yes!  Congrats to those wonderful leaders at RBHS, Carline Brown, Rita Green and LaCretiah Claytor.  This is how we get it done.  - it looks like Bryant has posted its teacher list at The Source.  Check it for your teachers as well. - from the Columbia Legal Services , the number of homeless students in Washington State has gone up by 19% in 2010-2011.   All but nine counties have a greater than 2% population.  Almost a third are in rural ar...