Seattle Schools Community Forum

Rep. Reuven Carlyle on the ongoing budget issues during the Legislative Special Session: I have been unrelentingly  critical of the 2015 Senate budget that is predicated on an extraordinary level of marijuana revenues. Unfortunately, thanks in part to a quirk of timing, the non partisan Economic & Revenue Forecast Council is projecting marijuana tax collections that are astronomical and, in my view, based on faulty assumptions. This, in effect, implies that the state Senate’s heavy reliance on marijuana taxes is reasonable. Regardless of the past, marijuana revenues are too new, too uncertain and too unpredictable to be a responsible basis of an education budget. I find it ironic that on the issue of marijuana taxation it is Democrats–who generally supported I-502– who are more cautious and fiscally conservative and  Republicans –who generally opposed I-502– who are acting more like big sp...

Here are the toplines.  The district is to have a press conference on Thursday that I hope to attend and the survey with all results will be released then (bold mine). Among the survey results:

KOMO tv is reporting this: A disturbing trend has been identified in Seattle public schools, where marijuana now makes up most of the disciplinary actions involving students. Between the start of the school year and Jan. 7, marijuana made up 77 percent of all disciplinary actions taken against students, district officials said. That's a big number.  What seems to be the issue? Lately, school officials have faced a new threat: Marijuana edibles dressed up as sugary treats. Everything from pot-infused caramels to drug-laced lemonade has been confiscated. That's in addition to the pipes and joints collected. The article doesn't explain how/why KOMO came across this news.  I'll have to ask the district. Reader Mary G said this: If this is true, this is a stunning statistic, but how would one know? The district has been unable to produce any reliable statistics for the last two years, and certainly not any resembling real time statistics...

On the pot watch: - here's what Superintendent Randy Dorn had to say about the legalization of pot and public schools: The passage of I-502 changes nothing in public schools in Washington state. Certain drugs, including marijuana, continue to be illegal on school property and to anyone younger than 21 years old.  To receive federal funds, districts must abide by the   Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act   and must have a Drug and Tobacco-Free Workplace and a similar student policy in place. Each district’s policy has a number of common requirements about marijuana and other drugs, such as not allowing any student to:  Be under the influence  Possess Distribute Manufacture Any student caught will be disciplined according to local district policy and local law enforcement as required. Fines can also be doubled if the arrest occurs within 1,000 feet of a school facility.  I-502 changes state law but has no effect on federal law....

So we find out that Michael Phelps does it. Heck, Rick Steves, the travel guru, does it as well. Statistics show just under a third of high school teens try/use pot in a year (about 18% in a month). Alcohol use is much higher at about 66% in the last year and 44% in the last month. When the Michael Phelps story came out, I wasn't particularly shocked in that he's very young and has been in a largely sheltered life of being an athlete. (Not that athletes aren't around drugs but if you are that high a caliber of athlete, you won't have time or desire to do drugs.) But just like our ol' pal Alex Rodriguez who recently admitted to taking some kind of performance-enhancing drug (but he says he just doesn't know what it was or what it did), it's hard to believe that Michael Phelps (when he was training) would put something in his body that might affect his abilities as an athlete. (C'mon A-Rod, someone gives you something to ingest and you have no ide...