Seattle Schools Community Forum

Update from the News Tribune (by the way, want to read good reporting? read the News Tribune): That increase in the levy lid is set to expire in January 2018, causing school district officials to seek an extension . Some lawmakers argued that school district officials won’t need the increased levy authority if the Legislature meets its obligations to fully fund public schools before 2018. The compromise budget says the Legislature will revisit the issue next April, if lawmakers determine they aren’t on track to fully fund public schools by April 30.  “We have got to be committed to the solution,” said state Sen. Bruce Dammeier, R-Puyallup, who called the plan a “well-worked compromise.” Other lawmakers said school districts need more certainty than the budget provides. State Sen. Mark Mullet, D-Issaquah, said many school districts will have to plan for layoffs and budget cuts without the extension of the levy cliff. “This is a devastating blow to school di...

Next Tuesday, Feb. 9th, Seattle voters will decide on the Seattle Schools' Operations levy and the BTA levy.  Both are renewals but at higher amounts than were voted on last time. Most of you know this is a sticky wicket for me.  I've frequently spoken out frequently against capital levies but not because they aren't needed, but because I don't think this district spends the money in either levy in a transparent manner.  I'm also not sure of their priorities for spending and, given how much parent unhappiness there is out there on many issues, failing a capital levy might be a good way to get the district's attention. Let's be clear on a few things.

State Superintendent Randy Dorn continues to speak out against the "kick the can down the road" methodology of the Legislature to enact McCleary. Here's his latest press release (and please e-mail your reps and tell them NO:)

Today I received a notice about the kick-off for the Seattle Schools levies via Schools First.  They also asked for money to help support and run the campaign.  But they started out saying: Fifty-two thousand students in Seattle’s public schools need our help. And I thought, "What? That's not the number of kids in SPS." So I went to the district's Fast Facts and here's what it says:

OSPI has two  job openings of interest. - Special Education, Dispute Resolution Program Supervisor - Privacy and Records Governance Manager Yikes! the Schools First! group (the group that manages the district's levy elections) has "Mayor" Mike McGinn as honorary co-chair.  Wonder if anyone told them about Ed Murray. They have Lauren McGuire as BOTH an honorary co-chair AND a Board member. Both. She's busy. From the Wait, What? blog, Jonathan Pelto reports this: The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium has provided its member states with most of the results from the spring’s Common Core SBAC testing. Unlike Connecticut, where the Malloy administration is apparently keeping the information secret as long as possible, the State of Washington has been updating the public about the results as they came in. As of two weeks ago, Washington State had already received the results for more than 90% of its students.

It was suggested to me to have a "Throwback Thursday"where we revisit what the district was going to do at a previous place in time.  (Luckily this reader also provided the topic.  Also, because district staff have a bad habit of not dating documents, I'll guess this was about 2009.) Here is the Future BEX IV list, circa BTA III. 

Tell me what you think.  From the OSPI press release: The State is currently under a court order to produce a complete plan showing how it intends to achieve full state funding of K-12 basic education without the use of local funding. Superintendent Randy Dorn has introduced a plan makes two significant modifications to current law regarding full funding: 1), It reduces class size in grades 4 through 12, but not as much as voter-approved Initiative 1351; and 2), It extends the timeline for achieving full funding from 2018 to 2021. The extension is a realistic timeline to hire more teachers and build more classrooms to accommodate the new class-size limits. Below is a summary of the complete plan: The State must: - Complete the funding of House Bill 2776 . In their McCleary decision , the State Supreme Court requires the State to fund HB 2776, which includes statewide full-day kindergarten; lower K–3 class size; materials, supplies, and operating costs; and tra...

Let's start with the local which would be the Work Session on Seattle Schools becoming a charter authorizer.  This work session on was April 8th and the staff leads were Ronald Boyd (Legal),  Erin Bennett, Director Policy and Strategy Research, and Clover Codd, Executive Director of Strategic Planning & Partnerships. All the Board members were present as was Superintendent Nyland.  Nyland led with "From some time ago, the Board opposed them (charters) and that was then and this is now."   He said something about SPS being the biggest district.  He said the deadline to apply to to be an authorizer was in June and "we have just enough time to get on-board."   He also said SPS had " no option of not playing" as part of future levies will be going to charters (which is true).  He said SPS would want to know about charters located within district; what their focus is, location, etc.  He failed to mention that that information can be easily...

As several readers have noted, more information has come out about the suspended View Ridge teacher and how he came to this time and place.  Q13 had the story . Apparently the teacher had reached out to a 16-year girl that he knew had attended View Ridge to ask if she would like to volunteer in his classroom (it is unclear if she had been in his class when she was at View Ridge).  How he knew how to contact her is also unclear but he then allegedly sent her texts and anonymous comments in chat rooms.  The girl felt uncomfortable and did the right thing and told her parents. I report this because, as another reader suggested, parents (and teachers and school staff) should know what " grooming" behavior by an adult to a child looks like.  It is important to know that if you see inappropriate behavior, you report it.  School staff have been trained in how they should interact with children.  Sometimes an action can be innocent or even accidental but on-go...

Looks like most of the operations/technology levies for Puget Sound regional schools are passing - Bellevue, Lake Washington, Issaquah, Northshore, Mercer Island, Shoreline, Federal Way and Kent.  Bond measures for buildings - which have to have 60% to win - are a mixed bag. Bellevue's, at $450M, was passing easily while Lake Washington's is just short at 57% for their $775M measure (larger than SPS' last BEX).  Mercer Island revamped their last capital bond measure that lost in April 2012 at $196M to one at $99M.  It appears to have easily passed.  It is still a shame that our districts have to beg voters for the money needed to run our schools instead of our state legislature fully-funding those costs.  It's interesting that the state wants new initiatives like Common Core but doesn't seem to want to pay into what needs to be done to make sure they roll-out well. Speaking of capital money, Seattle legislators like Gerry Pollet and Reuven Carlyle (among...

I wouldn't call yesterday's work by the School Board especially stellar.  (I think the staff did a pretty good job on the budget but, as usual, what was left out is just as important as what was put in.) First came the Audit&Finance Committee meeting of the Whole to discuss the budget. It is unclear to me when the Board received their copies but there had been some small edits.  I am also not sure when the appendices all got put in.  Director Carr told the group she had not read the appendices as she had been on vacation.  President Smith-Blum and Director Patu were absent.  (Smith-Blum is out of town and Patu has a family illness.) I can only point out that one the Board's main duties and powers is to review the budget and then vote on it.  What I saw yesterday did not inspire confidence that the Board understood the budget they voted on. Here are some key links you may be interested in.  Budget Book Appendix A Appendix B Ore-Level Bu...

Here's the complete letter sent to Attorney General Bob Ferguson's office by the League of Women Voters, El Centro de la Raza, and the WEA.  From the first paragraph: We request that your office investigate and promptly institute legal proceedings to remedy the constitutional violations arising from ...(it continues on with the RCWs in question). Specifically, the Charter School Act improperly diverts public school funds to private non-profits in violation of the Washington Constitution and is otherwise unconstitutional on multiple grounds, including but not limited to the following: And then they put forth their arguments.  Here's my summation:

As I have often said (and found), when you starting looking for one thing, you often find another.  I wanted to see what might be being said at different middle schools about overcrowding.  I found various things but it was what I found being said about other issues that was interesting. One thing I notice is that many middle schools seem to assume in their newsletters/updates that all parents know everyone who works in the school/PTA.  I was the editor for the Eckstein PTA newsletter and I quickly realized that making assumptions about what parents do and do not know is a bad idea.  One, because it isn't true that everyone is up-to-speed on how things work for any given program/activity at school.  Two, it can lead to shutting people out because they feel dumb/frustrated for asking questions.

If you were someone who had moved to Seattle in the last year, you might be forgiven for trying to figure out what it is that the Seattle Times is doing in support of public school levies. Most of the time, according to them, the district can't do anything right (and this is over, say, the last two years when, coincidentally, there has been a majority power shift on the Board and we have a new superintendent who has received tepid support from them). First, the Times writes an editorial in support of them but with a lot of finger-wagging especially around leadership (and not, as you might suspect, around transparency of dollars spent). Then the Times has an article on the levies that mentions only one group opposing BEX.  Meanwhile there have been at least three sets of people going against the BEX levy.  Three sets.   And yet, the Times, in its reporting, said there was only one (until today that is).  

Monday, Feb. 11th Curriculum&Instruction Policy Committee Meeting from 4-5:30 p.m. Agenda  Tuesday, Feb. 12th Special Education Advocacy &Advisory Council Meeting from 6:30-9:00 p.m. at JSCEE, 2nd floor, room 2700.  The Open Forum & District updates portion of the meeting is from 6:30-7:30 p.m. Levy election for Operations and BEX. State of the Union speech by President Obama at 6 p.m.   Wednesday, Feb. 13th Executive Committee Meeting from 8:30-10:00 am.  Agenda .  Review of next couple of Board meeting agendas, government relations, community engagement, strategic plan.  And, the next Board Retreat agenda which I am very interested in because I am hoping to be sponsoring that retreat (just as the Alliance for Education is allowed to). Open House At Rainier Beach High School about their new IB program from 6:30-8:30 .  Any families curious about attending Rainier Beach should plan on attending.  There will be inform...

That deadline for that vote is now a little more than 36 hours away.  Frankly, I doubt there are that many undecided votes out there.  (I think no matter the outcome, the voting patterns will be interesting to watch as they may be an early warning for the Board elections in November.) No matter the vote, we do need to pull together as a district.  The unity of purpose of parents is just as important as it is for the Board or district staff.   Parents and communities ARE the best voice for our district. I think the discussion around the interim plan for next year has been interesting to view because it shows the need to find regional solutions.  To that end I would hope that PTA presidents in each of the five regions (or however many people feel is important) would join together to work for solutions.  (I know that most of the PTA presidents in the NE did indeed meet but unfortunately, it did not include all of them and decisions were made after some had...

Honestly, I just don't get the Times.  So now they have trotted out an op-ed against BOTH levies (and, gotten the name of the pro-levy supporter, Greg Wong -not Wang - wrong to boot).  It's yet another person who is late to this party of "accountability" and yet this guy even casts a bigger swath.  And he's a public school parent who wants both levies to fail.  I understand his unhappiness but failing the Operations levy won't change that.  In fact, if he wants to see our district fall to its knees, let the Operations levy fail.  He gives NO solutions to what might happen after that failure - not so helpful - but yes, he's voting against both of them.  (He also points out "big-city cronyism" from the Potter scandal.  Yes and that came at the hands of a superintendent who swept in with big changes supported by the powers that be.  Let's remember that.) I'm with him on changing how we run SPS and frankly, changing the protection...

 Update: A hugely helpful and through wrap-up of the current discussion over K-12 public education funding (and the fulfillment of McCleary) in the Legislature over at Publicola . Basically, the Republicans wanted to pass an amendment that said they approve an education budget FIRST and then a state budget.  And all without saying what they would cut elsewhere to fulfill the needs of the education budget. Even LEV doesn't like this idea.  It makes the Republicans look great - we care about education, first and foremost - when we all know those cuts would be drastic ones especially to areas of social services which have already been slashed.  Mental health services (like for people who might go shoot up someplace)? Already cut?  Insurance for poor people?  Already cut.  Higher ed?  Already cut. I'm not saying there won't be pain but it has to be clear BEFORE any vote where the pain will be. End of update. In a newbie display of id...

Update :  the district put this info up at the website.   Not sure it helps entirely (especially the "we used experts") but good for them anyway. End of Update. Sure looks like it. I was first aware of this with their tepid endorsement of the levies over "leadership."  It was an interesting reason because if that had been the issue, then they should have been troubled over many other levies. Then, last Friday, on the news roundup on KUOW, I noted that they had a quick discussion of the levies (and naturally, got a lot wrong but those pundits aren't always very up-to-date on school district facts).  Eli Sanders from The Stranger came out and very stronger stated that The Stranger had endorsed them.  Joni Balter of the Times?  Not so much.  Odd, given that the Times had indeed endorsed them. And now we have the long-awaited report from Brian Rosenthal of the Times who, even though he has been on the political beat for months, wrote this piece ...

Did you?  Still pondering?  I hear of virtually no one who is against the Operations Levy.  The reality of what the state is NOT providing is clear for all to see.  Take 25% of our General Fund away and watch the bottom drop out of our district. But BEX.  In case you missed it, there are several loose groups against it but interestingly, none of them have joined forces.  Depending on your point of view, this could be a good thing because there is not a focus or widespread message. (And the media seems oblivious to this fact which is interesting.  Either there are some lazy people or they don't really want to cover the issue in a real way.  I don't know for sure.) It seems that a lot of the issue around BEX falls into two camps - poor decision-making/misuse of funds and "the district needs to be sent a message."   There is some irony that I am the one explaining why this is a bad idea at this point in time, given my previous sta...