Seattle Schools Community Forum

It's the end of spring so, I'm spring cleaning.  That means going thru my vast SPS files and throwing out/reordering. Naturally, I found some interesting stuff (but threw out two bags of paper).  Among the things I found: - Did you know I was an education activist in high school?  Me, neither but apparently I wrote, for the school newspaper, an op-ed in support of a bond measure to building onto our school.  I mention that our high school was built for less than 1,000 students and we had over 1500.   We had 30-year old stadium lights that leaned like the tower in Pisa.  We needed science labs and a new auto shop. It was for $3M but I don't know if it passed.  - Did you know the Alliance for Education - at least in 2011 - actually included Spectrum in the feedback they received from folks attending their State of the District luncheon.  " Increase access to Spectrum and ensure consistency across the district."   - Did you k...

Still waiting for information on the Math Summative Assessment .  The questions I posed on this mystery assessment were not that hard so I'm puzzled as to why it is taking so long to answer them. As you may recall, the Superintendent recently promoted/created positions within SPS.  I had wondered (as did a few of you) what the salaries for these positions are: Barbara Robbins, Director of Project Management, $136,612 Guillermo Echeverria, Director of Continuous Improvement, $133,325 Cari Campbell, Director School and Community Partnerships, (will not start this position until end of May), $112,154 Eric McCurdy, Executive Director Athletics, $139,628. I will gently say that I believe those to be fairly healthy salaries for public jobs. Also, there is a FAQ being worked up for the Math Adoption .  That's great but given that the vote is a week from today, a little tardy.  Hopefully, they will be available by Friday so that parents who want to go talk to Boar...

I had no idea yet another test was happening in SPS but apparently it is true.  It's a two-day test called the Math Summative Assessment. The window for testing started May 12th and is to finish May 23rd. From SPS (partial to first and second grade teachers): Seattle Public Schools will administer a summative mathematics assessment this spring to all first and second graders.  The purpose of this assessment is to measure the annual progress of primary grade students toward (sic) meeting Common Core State Standards.   These new summative assessments were developed by a team of SPS teachers and members of the mathematics department with support from an independent testing consultants.  The components of the assessment were field tested in the spring of 2013 and winter of 2014. Were you notified?  Because the parent who told me said her child's teacher mentioned it in a weekly update otherwise she would not have known. I kind of doubt parents were ...