Seattle Schools Community Forum

From Soup for Teachers: The Center School, an arts-based public choice school is under threat of losing fine arts classes due to budget constraints.  (Editor's note; if this happened, it fundamentally changes what this school was created to be. Website description of the school: The Center School (TCS or Center) is a small public high school with a focus on the arts and community engagement.) Tuesday, May 3rd at 9am students will be walking out of school (this will be an unexcused absence), over to Westlake, then taking the light rail to SPS in SODO. They will then protest and chant outside until someone comes to meet with them. Their goal is to let SPS know how upset they are with the budget and to demand action from the district to get all the fine arts classes back.  Parents are welcome and encouraged to join for any or all part of the walkout. Please share about it on social media and spread the word! Any press would be great.  Wednesday, May 4th...

From reader Data Hungry (bold mine), letter from Dr. Nyland to principals about staffing changes. Dear principals, I am pleased to report that nearly 52,000 students are attending Seattle Public Schools this year, according to our official October headcount. That is an increase of 978 students over last year and is within 1 percent of our enrollment forecast. Now that we have the official October enrollment counts for each school, as we do every year, we are moving forward with annual staffing adjustments – up and down – based on each school’s enrollment. Some schools have additional enrollment and require additional staff. Some schools have lower enrollments than projected and require staff reductions. We also consider equity factors, such as special education, English Language Learners, free and reduced price lunch qualifications and grade and program configurations. This year our school board has highlighted resource stewardship as a board priority, refocusing th...

I hear that Eckstein had to lose a .5 FTE.  I find it hard to believe they lost enrollment but maybe they overstaffed believing it would be higher?  Anyone? And then there was this in another thread: "I just got my robo-call from Hale high school saying that they've been given 3 new staff based on student enrollment. Chemistry, Algebra II, and a 10th grade "core" teacher. Some students will see a schedule change, but classes will be smaller." That's worth looking into.  I'd love to know if Hale got filled following their new rebuild because 3 new staff is quite a lot so good for them if they did.