Seattle Schools Community Forum

There was an interesting story from Inside Bainbridge about Bainbridge Island School district about some volunteers who were youth pastors.  An investigation was launched and the district has promised to improve its volunteer screening.  The story was about a middle school where three evangelical youth pastors had been volunteering over the last year, mostly in the lunchroom and at registration.  There were several issues to this story.

Have you ever heard of NativityMiguel Network of Schools?  I hadn't until I read a blurb in the Central District News about a feasibility committee doing surveys in the Central region this Thursday and Saturday. They have been working on this initiative for at least a year.  NativityMiguel was started in July 2006 to create a network of Catholic schools throughout the country and specifically target low-income students in struggling neighborhoods.  They are a 5-8 model with 64 schools in 27 states.  Now normally, I would not be writing about a private (and religious to boot) school.  But this fascinates me because of how much it parallels KIPP (except for cost). Like KIPP: tries to reach mostly struggling low-income students; Kipp - 85% free/reduced lunch, NM 89% free/reduced lunch mostly a 5-8 model (although KIPP has a few high schools and elementary schools) KIPP is funded mostly through federal, state and local taxes as well as private donations (1...

I think there may be an announcement soon of another top-level management person leaving the district.  My sources tell me this is pending.  I don't see any announcement yet at the SPS website.   I'll keep you updated.  Also, there was this somewhat curious announcement at the website: Seattle Schools' policy on religious holiday celebrations: Seattle Public Schools has been receiving numerous questions regarding the District's policy on the celebration of religious holidays. We have a "Religion and Religious Accommodation" policy, approved by the School Board in 1983, stating that "no religious belief or non-belief should be promoted by the School District or its employees, and none should be disparaged." There are no new District policies on religion or holiday observance guidelines. For more information, Religious Holiday Observances Guidelines Religion and Religious Accommodation Policy Not sure why the district felt the need to...

There was an article in the NY Times about research done by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (independent group) on what Americans know about religion. Very illuminating and also funny - I can hardly wait for the Daily Show and the Colbert Report will say and I was laughing at CBS news' own report. (Meaning, that even in a country that expresses itself so profoundly religious as ours, I would have thought people would do better.) The researchers said that the questionnaire was designed to represent a breadth of knowledge about religion, but was not intended to be regarded as a list of the most essential facts about the subject. Most of the questions were easy, but a few were difficult enough to discern which respondents were highly knowledgeable. They asked 3400 Americans 32 questions about the Bible, Christianity and other world religions, famous people, etc. Results? On average, people who took the survey answered half the questions incorrectly, and many flubb...