Seattle Schools Community Forum

No time to do a complete write-up to several major items of note: It appears that some changing are coming to EOCs for algebra and geometry .  It looks like there will be some sort of comprehensive exam coming in the next four years.  Michael Tolley reported this as coming from OSPI and that he had had a meeting with high school principals.  Most seem on-board but a few felt there was too much testing and would only want to give it to students who hadn't passed a class. A lot of talk around the agenda for working with the State Legislature this session .  Director Peaslee asked for a clear document around the costs of services to students, where WA State ranks nationally for per student funding, and class size.  She said there seems to be a disconnect between the realities in the district and what the Seattle delegation understands.  She said a few of them seem to think the new money makes up for all the cuts and it does not.  Cliff Traisman, the ...

From SPS: Seattle Public Schools (SPS) is accepting applications from SPS families and community members interested in serving on the District’s Math Adoption Committee. The committee will advise SPS on the selection of mathematics instructional materials for kindergarten through Grade 5 students that meet the new Common Core State Standards for mathematics. The goal is to have materials adopted in time for the 2014-15 school year. The committee will be composed of mathematics teachers from Seattle Public Schools, as well as community and family members with experience in mathematics and with a wide range of skills, knowledge, experience, and working style. The goal is to ensure diversity in race/ethnicity, gender, school/student population representation, and perspectives. Applications are due to the Math Adoption coordinator no later than  Oct. 16, 2013 . Those selected as committee members will be notified by email or by telephone during the first week of November. Th...

Sitting at the Executive Committee Meeting and wondering: - if the district is a partner in the new Seattle Teacher Residency program and the first year costs are $50k and escalate up to $1M by year 5 (it's part of Strategic Plan for teacher development), why do we need TFA at all?  Why complicate things if our district and its partners are creating home-grown talent from outside of schools of education? - wondering why, if Jane Addams has a planning principal and planning team, Wilson-Pacific doesn't have a team.  Apparently Chris Cronas, principal at Wedgwood, is the planning principal for W-P middle school but I haven't heard anything about outreach to parents. That middle school will open at John Marshall for 2014-20115.  Should parents with students assigned there get to give input just like JA parents?  (Note: just because Mr. Cronas is the planning principal doesn't mean he is leaving Wedgwood.) - I still need to do a write-up of the Board retreat but I ...

Tuesday starts high school graduations. Best wishes to ALL the grads and their parents/guardians! Monday, June 10th C&I Committee Mtg , 4-6 pm, Agenda This agenda is full of interesting items like a Math Adoption Progress report. Work Session: Board Evaluation , 6:45-8:00 pm I'd love to go to this one but I doubt I can make it.  Not sure who is evaluating whom. Tuesday, June 11th Special Ed Advocacy&Advisory Council Meeting , 6:30-9:00 pm, JSCEE, Room 2700 Wednesday, June 12th Executive Ctm Meeting, 8:30-10 am.  Agenda not yet available but this is where they will decide who gets to organize/set agendas for the Board retreats.   Thursday, June 13th Audit&Finance Ctm. Meeting , 4-6:00 pm, agenda Community Meeting w/Director Peaslee , 6-7:45 pm, Lake City Public Library (note, this has been CANCELLED - but still appears on the district calendar) Saturday, June 15th Community Meetings: DeBell - 9-11 am - Cafe Appassionato near Fishe...

Linh-Co said...I know this was posted before by Melissa, but we still need lots of signatures to make the middle school math adoption happen next year. So far we only have 153 signatures we were hoping for at least 1000. Cliff Mass has helped us out by writing a blog, MJ McDermott made a YouTube video on CMP, and Bruce Ramsey wrote an awesome editorial about dumping bad math. Now we just need parents to sign the petition and forward to as many friends and families. My daughter got over 45 signatures from juniors and seniors at Ingraham. Thanks! Petition. (I will point out that I do not support Common Core standards but I agree with the premise here; it is unfair to test kids (and evaluate teachers) if they are not using materials that align with the testing.)

From the Seattle Math Coalition: FYI,  the district has changed their math adoption plan based on budget concerns.   The proposed K-8 adoption which was supposed to be in classrooms in Fall of 2014 is now only a K-5 adoption, with 6-8 to be delayed for another year!   This files in the face of common sense:   1)  CMP2 is a train wreck for families without stellar teachers or family/tutor support   2)  Despite a goal of a 7-year adoption cycle, the CMP2 materials are already at year 7.  They are a year older than EDM, yet the district feels more pressure to replace EDM.   3)  Citing poverty, $1.5M is budgetwd for K-5 adoption, however $2M additional is budgeted for Common Core training.  Will they train with old books and then replace them a year later?    4)  The big elephant in the room:  In 2014-15 academic year, state assessments will be based on Common Core.  If Seattle ...

For those who believed that Seattle Public Schools was supposed to be on a seven-year cycle for the adoption of instructional materials, and that we are overdue for a review of the math materials, you are right. Here is a memo to the Board  from Shauna Heath on the status of the adoption cycle. She intends to use the coming school year, 2013-2014, as a "curriculum mapping year" for K-12 math, then spend the following year, 2014-2015, for "evaluation" with implementation coming in the fall of 2015. She's going to take three years to recommend math texts when the work is already overdue.

Monday, April 8th Curriculum & Instruction Policy Committee meeting from 4-5:30 p.m.  Agenda .  The agenda includes two items with "BAR" and a topic.  (Anyone know what that acronym means?)  A Math Adoption Progress report will be presented as well as discussion of Board Policy #2190 around Advanced Learning.  Community Meeting for the Strategic Plan at Ballard High School from 6:30-8:30 p.m. (Interpreters available in Spanish and Somali) Tuesday, April 9th Community Meeting for the Strategic Plan at Aki Kurose Middle School from 6:30-8:30 p.m.  Interpreters available in Spanish, Somali, Vietnamese, Chinese, Tagalog, Amharic and Tigrigna Special Education Advocacy & Advisory Council meeting from 6:30-9:00 p.m. Regular Meeting Agenda includes: 6:30 - 7:30 - Open Forum & District Updates Regarding Special Education 7:30 - 9:00 SEAAC Working Group Session Wednesday, April 10th Executive Committee Meeting from 8:30-10:00 am.  ...

I attended the Budget Work Session on Wednesday.  It was pretty sobering.  Key facts: There is a projected deficit of $18.4M .  I would love to explain it all to you (and I will try to at least get the PowerPoint up by tomorrow) but frankly, I look down at the paper version and I don't know what half of it is.  Imagine my happiness (and surprise) to hear Board Directors say, "Now, what is this?" because they don't know either.  I don't know if it is the Budget office trying to use smoke and mirrors or just too much jargon but if the people who will make the final decisions don't know what you are talking about, you're doing something wrong. By April 10th, we will have the Governor's budget, the House budget and the Senate budget.  We were told that is when "the rubber meets the road."  The Governor released his budget today and it seems quite favorable to K-12 ed (if not quite the amount everyone would want).  He seems to be finding the m...

The Olympic View forum, held last night, was a small and quiet affair.  (I recall a comment that Bryant's was small as well - maybe schools in each region should join together and just do one for each region.) Before the forum, I debated Paul Guppy of the Washington Policy Center about the Families& Education levy.  (Poor guy, I feel for him because I know what it's like to be on the "no side of a school levy.  He did make some good points, though, about the district not using money wisely.) All the candidates showed up and there were about 30 people in the audience.  Each gave a one-minute statement and then they were given a question and answered in twos from their district. What I heard was the incumbents talking about accomplishments and the challengers stating the issues/concerns they saw and what they would address.  A couple of these one-minute statements stood out to me. Michelle Buetow made the point that despite all the changes, what hadn't...

The Court of Appeals for Washington State has ruled that the School Board's adoption of Discovery math was not " arbitrary capricious or contrary to law ."  From the ruling: Those challenging the Board decision bear a heavy burden, particularly because it was based on complex and technical factual matters at the heart of the Board's Arbitrary and capricious agency action is "wilful and unreasoning action, action without consideration and in disregard of the facts and circumstances of the case. Action is not arbitrary or capricious when exercised honestly and upon due consideration where there is room for two opinions, however much it may be believed that an erroneous conclusion was reached. The Court found that the Board did not fail to give honest consideration to the " alleged deficiencies of the Discovering series" . It went through, item by item, of the plaintiffs issues with the decision. One interesting item: The challengers believe th...

I suppose this is rather late, but I just got around to watching the video of the School Board meeting in which a few Board members, Directors Maier, Martin-Morris, and Carr I believe, spoke about why they are supporting the District's appeal of the high school textbook decision. Their reasons, however, were all bogus. It ain't right. We heard this reason in a variety of ways. The position that it is inappropriate for a judge to review School Board decisions. One of them, I think it was Director Martin-Morris, even quoted the law that grants the School Board the authority to make these decisions. Yeah, well, there is another law that does, in fact, give Superior Court judges this right. So get over it. It is right and it happened. I didn't hear any of them whine about the judge having this authority all of the times when the judges upheld the Board's decisions. Strike one. We did a thorough review. No, actually, they didn't. If you will recall, all four of the Dire...

Oh look, this from the Times about Issaquah's adoption of Discovering Math. or this from an email from Sara Morris, head of the Alliance for Education: So you have the facts, the polling currently in-field is new and not a redux of the Survey Monkey survey. It’s a statistically valid survey being administered by a professional market research firm. I look forward to sharing the results with you. Weigh in on that or any other issue. (To note, the entire district seems to die down during breaks which I find a mystery. The schools, okay but why is it hard to contact people in the administration during breaks? )

A story in today's Seattle Times reports that the math textbook adoption committee for Belleveue School District has recommended Holt materials. Here are some critical lines from the story: " Teachers and parents on the committee said they feared students struggling with math, and those who speak English as a second language, would not fare as well with the Discovering series. " " district teachers could do well with either textbook series. But he said the district should select textbooks that are best for students when they aren't in class. 'We need to get off the issue that the book has to fit the teacher' " " Several teachers Thursday night argued that the Discovering textbooks would do a better job if taught in small classrooms, but because classes are large, and expected to grow because of budget cuts, they considered Holt the better option. "

For entertainment value read the Discovering Math Q&A in this article in the Seattle Times. The Discovering Math guy (1) doesn't always answer the question asked, (2) answers but doesn't address the topic properly - see the question on if Discovering Math is "mathematically unsound" and (3) sounds like he works for the district. Here's one example: The Discovering books have been criticized by parents, but they've been the top pick of a couple of districts in our area, including Seattle and Issaquah. Any thoughts on why the textbooks seem to be more popular with educators than with parents? Ryan: I think because (parents) lack familiarity — this doesn't look like what I was taught. I don't know how you get students to a place where more is required of them by repeating things that have been done in the past. That's not how we move forward in life. What? I thought the Holt person was able to answer the questions in a more straight-forwa...

I'm going to re-post some items from Director Martin-Morris' blog that I think are worth noting: This is from a thread called "Sinapore(sic) Math in the district" Charlie Mas said... What are the rules for materials use? To what extent are teachers required to use the district-adopted materials? Must they use them at all? Must they use them some minimum portion of the time? To what extent are teachers required to use the district-adopted supplemental materials? Must they use them at all? Must they use them some minimum amount? To what extent are teachers free to use other materials? May they use them at all? Are they restricted from using them more than some maximum amount of time? Could a teacher exercise the academic freedom to primarily use his or her own supplemental material instead of any district-adopted materials? A math teacher at Washington had used the same textbooks for over fifteen years. Could he still use those books if he so chose? Teachers have been...

I attended Harium's Community meeting and the 43rd Dems meeting (partial) yesterday. Here are some updates (add on if you attended either or Michael DeBell's meeting). We covered a fair amount of ground with Harium but a lot on the math ruling/outcomes. Here's what he said: t he Board will decide what will happen from the math ruling . I asked Harium about who would be doing what because of how the phrasing the district used in their press release - "In addition to any action the School Board may take, the district expects to appeal this decision." It made it sound like the district (1) might do something different from the Board and (2) the district had already decided what they would do. Harium said they misspoke and it was probably the heat of the moment. He seems to feel the judge erred. He said they did follow the WAC rules which is what she should have been ruling on but didn't. I probably should go back and look at the complete ruling but it see...

There was a story in the Times on February 13, 2010 about how the Court decision on Seattle School Board's selection of high school math textbooks is having an impact on similar decisions being made by other local school boards. It's pretty clear that most people are completely misunderstanding just about everything here. They are misunderstanding the roles of the School Board, the OSPI, the State Board of Education, the teachers, the District staffs, and, most of all, the Courts. No one seems to misunderstand things worse than the Times. The Times either misunderstood the two recent decisions or they are trying to intentionally muddy the water on them. I see the two decisions and I see that they both went against the Discovering Math series very hard. One said that Seattle's choice to adopt the books was arbitraty, the other said that the OSPI's decision to drop the books from the recommended list was well-considered. Two different Courts spoke against these books in ...

Now that the decision-making of the Board has been given a bright public spotlight via the math adoption ruling, I thought it might be worth going over what each Director had to say last Wednesday on the NTN $800,000 contract ruling. First, Dr. Enfield gave a CAO report on NTN. She had a chart comparing different programs similiar to NTN but she zipped through it so fast, I had no time to read it. She also claimed that staff, community and parents support NTN. My notes reflect: "I'd like to see the data on that." I'm sorry but I sincerely doubt that they asked parents and community about which program to buy. Her points on NTN: all-school package with project-based learning timeline planning development national network of other schools web-based resources I didn't do research and maybe Dan D. did so maybe he can help us out. But one of the biggest points (if not the main point) is the NTN is the only source of all that we need to lay the foundation to get ...

Amazingly, the Times came out with an editorial backing the King County Superior court decision to remand the review of curriculum for high school math back to the Seattle School Board. In fact, they say that the district shouldn't appeal the decision. From the editorial: "This is a kind of judicial activism, and as a method of selecting or rejecting math books it makes us uneasy. Normally a judge would defer to the School Board. But the four members on the School Board who voted for the books were deferring as well. In the crucial School Board meeting last May, none of the four members voting for Discovering — Cheryl Chow, Steve Sundquist, Peter Maier and Sherry Carr — argued that the constructivist method of teaching is superior. They accepted a decision presented to them." I don't see this as judicial activism because it wasn't selecting or judging the quality of the math materials. It was judging the quality of the process used to select them. That th...