Seattle Schools Community Forum

...both mandated and non-mandated, along comes charter schools. Yes, some mysterious Board member (I'm taking bets but remember I will win) asked staff about the district becoming a charter authorizer. Now when some Board members ask staff for analysis, staff waffles, balks or just ignores their requests.  Or, Charles Wright, Deputy Superintendent, will call them out in public for making "too many requests." That's if they don't like the topic asked about and/or the volume of work it might take to get answers. But ask about charter schools and well, staff has lots of time. The timeline on all this is a bit confusing but somewhere during the summer (while Banda was still here?) some Board member asked for info on the advantages and disadvantages of becoming a charter authorizer. So staff, at least from this memo of August 7, 2014 , sprung into action.  Because: As you are aware, staff has been asked to understand and communicate the implications o...

One update, from KUOW, is that the contract negotiations between the district and the union have hit an impasse.  The district has indicated they have given all they can. What are the issues? The SEA and the district are at odds over several issues. The union is unhappy with the district's half-hour extension of the work day for elementary school teachers because it would not result in extra classroom time for students. The union and district are also clashing over whether to require the use of students' state test scores in teacher evaluations. The last contract required that state and district standardized test scores be used as part of the teacher evaluation process for teachers of the tested subjects: reading and math. While district officials say using state test scores in teacher evaluations is a valuable part of the contract they bargained with teachers three years ago, Knapp said the landscape for teachers and students is entirely different today. ...