Seattle Schools Community Forum

The Fight the Fear Campaign, founded by musician Brandi Carlile in 2010, is excited to announce a Sexual Assault Awareness Evening for Western Washington High School Girls.  This free event will take place on Thursday, April 28th from 7-9pm in Roosevelt High School's Performing Arts Center.  Girls will learn to recognize the red flags that often precede assault, as well as the assertive communication, self-defense, de-escalation, and boundary setting skills that are a proven deterrent to violence. Guests will hear from survivors, including Jennifer Hopper, whose story is the subject of Eli Sanders’s new book While the City Slept . FTFC is a non-profit that teaches free self-defense and sexual assault awareness to Seattle-area youth.  To get tickets for this free event, please visit our News/Events page at www.fightthefearcampaign.org < http://www.fightthefearcampaign.org/ >. (Editor's note: the book, While the City Slept , is the harrowing ac...

Want to know my number one piece of advice for young women going off to college?  Not "study hard" or "be open to meeting new people" - it's this: Do NOT attend any frat party If you do, don't go alone and don't separate from your friend.   Do not EVER accept a drink you did not open and pour yourself.   I think this Rolling Stone article explains very well why I have this policy. I wrote a letter to President Sullivan at the University of Virginia (she doesn't have an e-mail but I sent it to her aide): Dear Nancy,   I note that the president does not have an e-mail so would you be good enough to pass this along (if you have the courage of your convictions). President Sullivan, Your "response" to the allegation in the Rolling Stone magazine are tepid at best.  Why aren't the frats shut down for the ENTIRE school year?  Want to send a message?  That's how it's done. I have ALWAYS told girls going of...

At least that's an LA court's ruling. Once again, this is not about what happened.  The teacher who raped this child got three years in prison.  (And we can hope he never teaches again.) It's about the district's responsibility for the actions of this teacher.  In this case, it appears there was little to none BUT the district took the opportunity to portray the victim as a wanton harlot. (I'm not exaggerating  - read on.) (I'm also going to say that I find it hard to believe that a sexual relationship that went on for six months was unnoticed by any other adult in the school.  Hard to fathom.) NO district should treat any student this way, CYA or not. From KPCC :

Update:  I viewed the footage this morning.  Beyond fascinating. Here's what I take away from what was said: - For whatever reason, there were only two Board members who even seemed concerned around the central issue for the district to consider (at this point, I'll let Charlie take over): The District wasn't sued for a rape, but for the utter failure of the chaperones, the utter failure of the field trip approval, and the utter failure of the District's response to the report. That's all the Board should have been considering and that's all that would have been in the court case.  The girl's lawyers might gone to court contending there was an assault but it would have been predicated on the belief that it would not have happened (or been far, far less likely to have happened) if the district had done its job. Sherry Carr came the closest when she said they should not ever be talking about whether two students had or didn't have consensual...

This is a lengthy post and has new information so I urge you to read to the end. Gaps abound in the Garfield case.  You can see this just from the Times' story this morning on last night's School Board election.  (And welcome Times to this story - very late to it, no?) Some have suggested that the Times article is slanted?  I would say it is underwritten and has several parts wrong.  I can say that just from a cursory reading of it.  (The Times is not allowing comments but I think that is their policy on rape cases as the comments can get very unpleasant.) Update 1: the girl did not go back to Garfield as a student.  From an e-mail from her parents: One point, she never returned to GHS. the chat you likely read referred to going to GHS after school to see friends. She then had a huge melt down concerning the retaliation.  The District granted her a school transfer with rape as the basis (we have that document), so t...

Update: in the Board Comments, each Board member addressed this issue (in his/her own way).  There was a range of verbiage used.  I was surprised at how they spoke out now, given their silence the entire summer (except for President Peaslee's letter months ago.) Director McLaren is the only Board member to say anything nearing this: " I regret whatever lapses occurred on part of district, both in communication and systemic organizational responsibility." She is also the ONLY person, to the best of my knowledge, who has acknowledged that mistakes were made and that she is sorry it happened. A couple of Directors support several speakers' call for a taskforce of BOTH community/experts and district staff.  I could support this taskforce only IF it was run by an outside entity. Director Martin-Morris acknowledged the issue but went on to say that Seattle could be a leader in this kind of advocacy of providing information to students on sexual harassment/assault....

I'm going to try some live blogging tonight as it is Superintendent Nyland's first meeting AND I believe that the district - via legal counsel - will have something to say about the Garfield field trip rape and Title IX issues. I attended the Audit & Finance Committee meeting yesterday and boy, what a meeting.  But that's another thread. I will note, however, that lead counsel, Ron English, gave out a "Legal Action Log on Title IX Issues."  It is lengthy and troubling.  The district is to create a "Crisis Response Team" for such incidents. Superintendent Nyland gave his first superintendent remarks.  He talked about the Garfield fieldtrip rape issue and read a letter from the district.  The letter will be available on the district website soon.  It was fairly vague and nothing new that we haven't heard after OTHER incidents.  There was a gap between the beginning of the meeting and Public Comment.  I asked if I could speak with the Sup...

I've been out of town so a bit behind on this. I see that teacher John Greenberg has been reinstated at The Center School (this from a story in the PI ).  The story does NOT say what if he will be teaching his Citizenship and Social Justice class.  The petition for a new principal at Garfield (on the heels of the outrage over the investigation of a rape on a Garfield overnight field trip) has over 2,000 signatures.  I hope to talk to some alum next week about this move. Is ballet a sport? Under Armour thinks so with this great video of ABT's Misty Copeland and an apparent letter she received about becoming a ballet dancer.  It's good to defy the odds. What's on your mind?

Update:  Both KIRO-7 tv and KING-5 tv have done stories on this issue.  I think that the story has legs and that they may continue on (especially now that the Title IX and the Department of Education has gotten involved.)  I note that the KING-5 piece says that the district couldn't get access to the FBI investigation and that the parents of the girl refused to allow the district to talk to her.  (This because the girl had been out-of-state at a residential facility to help her.)  Therefore, the district "did not have the evidence to fully support her claims."  This seems to be a different story than below but I find the wording suspect below so I would need a timeline to decide. end of update. From President Peaslee:

Between the issue of the Pre-K mission study junket and the appalling action (or lack thereof) on the issue of the Garfield field trip rape case, it's hard not to feel very angry.  As you may recall, in the e-mails about the Pre-K mission study, there was a lot of back and forth over where the money - about $2700 per person - was going to come from to pay for the trip.  Well, I found out where the "temporary" money came from.  I say temporary because there were funds used from one pot that will now have to be paid back to that pot by finding another pot of money. Here's how it breaks down (from SPS Public Disclosure): Budget codes that were charged Charles (Wright) - baseline funds (meaning not grant-funded) from the Office of Strategic Planning Keisha (Scarlett) - South Shore funds (Title I, I believe), “borrowed” due to the time crunch to get good flight prices, meant to be paid back Laurie (Morrison )– ditto Cashel (Toner) – Teaching and Learning, “bridg...

Is it me?  I don't think so.  Lately there have been a swelling of stories that involve misogyny.  First up, is this story from ThinkProgress from West Virginia where a high school brought in a faith-based speaker to talk to the teens about abstinence.  I think all high school should be talking to teens about sex and abstinence can certainly be part of that discussion.  But this discussion was not just saying "wait kids."  In fact, the fliers that advertised it said "God's plan for sexual purity."  Stenzel has a long history of using inflammatory rhetoric to convince young people that they will face dire consequences for becoming sexually active. At GW’s assembly, Stenzel allegedly told students that “if you take birth control, your mother probably hates you” and “I could look at any one of you in the eyes right now and tell if you’re going to be promiscuous.” She also asserted that condoms aren’t safe, and every instance of sexual contact...

A number of news stories have crossed my path this month about boys and girls.  This thread is about issues that happen to kids outside of school. One heads up I wanted to give parents of girls is the movie, Spring Breakers .  Now, you don't have to get too worried because it's rated R so I would hope most of your students could not just go to see it. Spring Breakers is about a group of college girls who want a spring break, have no money, rob a restaurant and they're off and running.   However, you should be warned for a couple of reasons. One, this is NOT a comedy.  It's pretty serious stuff.  Trailer . Two, it stars some very familiar (to young tweens and teens) actors like Vanessa Hudgens (High School Musical), Selena Gomez (Disney Channel) and Ashley Benson (Pretty Little Liars).    I read an article in the NY Times and for most of these young actresses, this is a breaking-away-from-type movie for them and their careers....

What is the standing of women and girls in the world today?  It's hard to know. On the one hand, we now have more women in Congress than ever before.  There are now 20 women in the Senate (although as The Stranger points out, that's a group that has been around for 200 years and yet it has taken this long).  New Hampshire state government seems to be an all-woman squad at this point.  Many European countries have long had female leaders. Yet, throughout the world, rape is still a harsh and terrible tool used against women and girls.  The young woman in India who died from her injuries (and I had wondered why that was until I read that a metal rod had been used and torn her internal organs apart) has now caused women in India to say enough.   But will it be enough when you still have men who say "don't wear dresses and don't go out after dark?" Now what has been happening in the U.S.  Well, there's this from Congress via The Atlantic: AWA, which...