Seattle Schools Community Forum

Thank you to Grey Watch for putting this up (bold mine).  I would say, from the Superintendent's statements, that Hamilton is going to be a lot like Eckstein for next year.  June 7, 2013 Dear Hamilton International Middle School community, As many of you are aware, enrollment is on the rise throughout our school district, including at Hamilton International Middle School. At every school we must balance the safety and security of our students with the need to ensure all of our students receive a high quality education. For the 2013-14 school year, we are planning for 1,100 students at HIMS – an increase over our current enrollment of 975 . We believe we can serve this number of students in our current space. We are not planning to relocate any 6-8th grade students to other schools for the upcoming school year. The maximum capacity of the building is 1,294, and we will continue to work with the City of Seattle to ensure we are meeting all the safety codes. I kn...

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.

Here's some updates on FACMAC (capacity management). As previously announced, there is a Board Work Session tomorrow (Wednesday, the 2nd)from 4-5:30 p.m. where Dr. Les Kendrick will be giving a demographic report and PowerPoint presentation. On Thursday, November 3rd, there will be a full FACMA meeting from 3-6 p.m. in Room 2700 at district headquarters.  These meetings are open to the public as visitors.  Dr. Kendrick will make his presentation again although at a summary level since a number of the FACMAC members plan to attend the Work Session where he will give the report in full.   In doing it that way, at least half the meeting on Thursday can be devoted to options and solutions.  The presentation will be posted online at the district 's Capacity Management webpage and they continue to invite comments at capacity@seattleschools.org .   Timeline November 10th , FACMAC meeting from 10am -noon in Room 2750 at headquarters....

The district now has its committee in place.  There are about 32 members.  It breaks down roughly like this: 2 each from the 7 director district regions (14) 2 each from the four special program areas (ELL, Spec. Ed, AL, Alts)  (8) 2 from the Seattle Council PTSA (2) 2 from the City of Seattle government (2) 2 at-large community reps with technical expertise (2) 2 student reps (2) 2 ad-hoc community reps ("for communications) (2) I do know that Kellie LaRue is on the Committee and this is great news as she knows her stuff and knows how to ask the hard questions.

I didn't hear much initially but now there are reports from Ballard and Ingraham about really large classes (even for high school).   As well, there seemed to be some large classes over at Lawton with the hope they will break them up.  The question this raises is whether the district WILL break up these large classes AND if there is room and/or money for an extra class.  End of Monday will be the first reporting period the district is looking at (4-day total) and then, at the end of the day on the 21st, the two week totals in order to make any further staffing decisions. What do you hear? 

The agenda looks fairly light on Wednesday but with a few notable items.   (I note that today - Saturday the 13th - the agenda is not accessible at the SPS website but I had already downloaded it yesterday.  I'll post it when it comes back up.) Update: here's the link . The agenda was reviewed at the Executive Committee meeting held earlier in the week (which no School Board candidates attended which is unfortunate as it's where you see the real work done).

Once again, checking for one thing led to another. I went to Roosevelt's web page and there's info on their enrollment issues. From the principal: Starting next week, we will need to make some adjustments to some students schedules in order to accommodate an influx of new students to RHS as the result of the new assignment plan. We have several classes that are extremely full and closed to some students who need those classes. As a result, we have been provided with some additional staff to create new sections of classes and thus reduce the overcrowding in those classes. Starting on Monday, October 4, we will be making some adjustments to a few students who are currently enrolled in 9th Grade Science, Biology and/or Algebra 2 Honors. We are taking volunteers who may want to change their schedule. Please see your counselor if you would like to volunteer to change your schedule. In addition to the volunteers, we will need to randomly select other students ...