Seattle Schools Community Forum

 Thanks to reader Watching. Action is needed here.  There is a bill affecting the rights of students at school to be searched - moving through the Legislature. This bill, SB 6023 , wants to "include searches by school resource officers and local police school liaison officers within the warrantless school search exception." From Publicola : In the runup to the this week's legislative deadline (policy bills need to make it out of committees by Friday in the state senate), the Republicans unilaterally pushed a bill through the law and justice comittee today that jeopardizes the civil rights of students accordig to the ACLU. "This is the 'policization' of our schools," ACLU lobbyist Shankar Narayan said coining a term he likened to militarization. The bill , sponsored by GOP Sens. Steve O'Ban (R-28, University Place) and Pam Roach (R-31, Auburn), would allow law enforcement officers to conduct searches of students without ...

 This week has a large number of Executive Sessions (closed to the public) for the Board.  Most are on " Evaluate a complaint against a public employee ."  I suspect some of these may be about schools in the news over the last several months who had principal issues.  Wednesday, June 6th School Board Meeting - Agenda Our first Board meeting that starts at 4:15 p.m. with the Speakers List at 5:00 p.m .  Please remember to give testimony, you should call/write tomorrow morning starting at 8 am -  252-0040 or boardagenda@seattleschools.org. The Board will run through the Consent agenda, student presentation, and superintendent comments by 5 p.m.  Then there is Public Testimony, Board comments and then Business Action Items. The agenda has some interesting items.  To note:

When I attended a DeBell community meeting a couple of months back, there were some very unhappy McClure parents.  They had numerous issues but one was that two of their students had been pulled out of class - for different reasons relating to higher level behavior issues - and questioned by administrators.  One of the fathers was upset that neither he nor his wife had been contacted about the questioning. (By higher level behavior issues, I mean things like fighting, drugs found, etc.) The father said something to the effect of " well, if it had been the police I would have been notified ."  That stuck with me and I finally got around to checking. The policy in question that answers this issue is D78.00 School-Police Relations (it is to be reviewed as part of the on-going Board policy updates). There is a section on "interviewing of students" which states that the district encourages any police questioning to take place "off school premises", ...

Parents of middle school and high school students should be aware of the resources offered by the ACLU-Washington to help protect youth. They have a great downloadable guide, "Student Rights and Responsibilities in the Digital Age; A Guide for Public School Students in Washington State"  with info on: technology and free speech including using the internet at school and off-campus recording people at school including other people's privacy and school surveillance cameras searches at school what to do if you believe your school has violated your rights They are also having their annual Student Conference on Civil Liberties on April 14th from 9 am to  1:00 pm at The Vera Project at Seattle Center.   They also have resources for teachers  including classroom speakers, free publications and a printable PDF of the Bill of Rights.   They have an online order form for free publications  including "bust cards"- wallet-sized "what to do if you are stopp...

Not an especially busy week with the Veteran's Day holiday on Friday. Wednesday Executive Committee meeting from 8-10 a.m.  Agenda not yet available. Work Session on Student Rights & Responsibilities from 4-5:30 p.m.  This is likely to be a discussion of the revisions to this section of Board policy.  Thursday Audit & Finance Committee meeting (Audit)  from 4-6 p.m.  Agenda not yet available. I'm sure you have noted the petition on the homepage of this blog in support student journalists at our high schools.  When you compare the old policy with the proposed policy, you can see how severely curtailed students' writing will be.  And, if there are minimal guidelines to principals, I'm sure the oversight may vary.  I asked this before and I ask the district again; what is the problem you are trying to solve?  I ask this of Dr. Enfield as well as it becomes part of her Superintendent policies.  What is the problem?...

Here are the highlights from the April 25th Curriculum and Instruction Committee meeting.  (I'm just behind, sorry.  I also don't have the agenda with me so I'm flying by the seat of my notes.)