Seattle Schools Community Forum

Tuesday, September 17 Board Work Session on Growth Boundaries, 4:30-6:30pm NOTE: This will be the first look at the likely plan. Any changes from this plan will only come with great difficultly. No agenda available yet. Standardized Testing in Our Public Schools: A Discussion , Town Hall, 7:30pm Wednesday, September 18 Regular Legislative Board Meeting, 4:15 - 8:00pm Agenda Thursday, September 19 Board Operations Committee Meeting, 3:30 - 5:30pm No agenda available yet. Saturday, September 21 Workshop for Booster Clubs and Parent Groups 8:30 - noon Community Meeting, Director DeBell, Caffe Appassionato, 4001 - 21st Ave. W., 9:00 - 11:00am Community Meeting, Director Martin-Morris, Diva's Espresso, 8014 Lake City Way NE, 9:30 - 11:30am

Before school started we heard about a new peer tutoring program at McClure. How's that working out? Before school started we heard that Whitman was going to dissolve their 7th and 8th grade Spectrum classes. How's that working out? How is transportation going? All smoothed out? Are the schedules for secondary students smoothed out? Do kids still need to fill their schedules with classes? What about the school software? Is that working now?

I totally don't get Mid-Winter Break. To me, it seems not only unnecessary but an interuption. Kids just started the new semester and they will soon have Spring Break when - BAM - they get a week off in the middle of February for no clear reason. Apparently Nicole Brodeur thinks so too.

Thanks to Jason for the heads up on the new start times proposed by the transportation department at the last board meeting. This comment #42 on the list generated a lot of responses on the open thread so I figured I would give it a thread of its own. Transportation overview presented to School Board, February 11, 2009. From page 8: Assumptions: • All programs with middle school or older students will be considered as first tier programs when feasible. • Due to school closures, some elementary programs such as APP may be moved to first tier bell time for maximum efficiency. • Programs that draw from a large geographical area will have cluster-stop routing resulting in shorter ride times and fewer buses needed. • Bell time differential is currently proposed at one hour-fifteen minutes with additional work needed to verify if a one hour or shorter differential could be attained after cluster-stops and paired school splitting is accomplished. • Proposed bell times are 8:00 and 9:15...

There is an article in the Seattle Times today about the number of hours of instruction a student receives in the 10 comprehensive high schools. Only 2 of the schools meet the criteria of 150 hours of instruction per class per school year. I have to say that this is one of my biggest gripes. At Rainier Beach, we have twenty 2-hour late arrival and early dismissal days during the year. On those days, each of the 6 periods only meets for 35 minutes. I don't feel that is enough time for any sort of new instruction, so I have these days be "work and review" days. I hate this for a couple of reasons. The students get cheated out of instruction and the time the teachers spend in the morning or afternoon is usually very unproductive. Last year, for example, most of the twenty days was spent on district-mandated training for a Language Arts program called Reading Apprenticeship . Now I'm sure this is a fine program, but when I talked to our LA teachers about it, they kind of ...

This article about later start times in high schools appeared in the NY Times and was reprinted in the Seattle Times. The author, Nancy Kalish, makes many good points including: better attendance, both in students being there and being on-time lower dropout rate fewer teen car crashes higher scores on standardized tests She also points out: "So why hasn't every school board moved back that first bell? Well, it seems that improving teenagers' performance takes a back seat to more pressing concerns: the cost of additional bus service, the difficulty of adjusting after-school activity schedules and the inconvenience to teachers and parents. But few of those problems actually come to pass, according to the Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement at the University of Minnesota. In Kentucky and Minnesota, simply flipping the starting times for the elementary and high schools meant no extra cost for buses. Nor have after-school jobs and activities been affecte...