Seattle Schools Community Forum

Update:  Rally for teachers before vote from 1-3:30pm outside of Benaroya Hall where the vote is to be taken.  Doors open for teachers at 2 pm with the general meeting starting at 3 pm.

From SPS via KPLU (here's link to complete page with footnotes):

Update: I took down a recent post from a teacher upon request (and learning that the teacher, despite having put it on Facebook, didn't want it made public).  A lesson for all.  I normally check to see if an author wants something printed but took the word of the individual who had taken off a Facebook page. Please help me by not assuming that something that is "public" elsewhere can then be printed here. Monday, September 14th, Rally at JSCEE at 8:30 am Seattle Public School families, please join Special Ed teachers, ESAs, students and families to tell the district we won't allow them to divide us against one another. Wear red and bring signs that speak to our need for lower caseloads for our ESAs and better staffing ratios for our ACCESS students! Let them know we care about educating ALL our students and want to set our teachers up to succeed. Also tomorrow, Monday, September 14th at JSCEE from 8 am to noon: Join us for this district wide time of communit...

It is a fast and furious news cycle for public education in Seattle and our state. On the overturning of the charter school law, there is so much to say that I will be putting up a separate thread.  There is an telephonic Charter Commission meeting tomorrow where the issue will be discussed. On the state of the strike in SPS, the word is that, despite movement on the contract, that it seems unlikely they will get it done before tomorrow and highly likely t here will be a strike.  You will have to use your own best judgment about how you, as an SPS  parent, want to view this strike.  Of course, it would be a terrible imposition for parents - there is so much organizing of daily lives to do, explaining to your children and the worry about how long it would be for and those outcomes to your student's academic life. I do urge you to consider that the union has been careful to say that the district has dragged its feet in coming to the table over and over.  ...

Teachers working without pay because... education.  From the Christian Science Monitor: The Chester Upland School District (CUSD) has struggled with economic and academic problems for years, but now a budget impasse in the state capital , combined with the explosive growth of public charter schools in the district, have conspired to put it on the brink of insolvency. CUSD officials informed teachers and support staff last Thursday that they wouldn’t be able to make payroll for the start of the school year. That day, the roughly 200 members of the local teachers union  voted unanimously  to work without pay. Secretaries, school bus drivers, janitors, and administrators will also be working without pay.  We all have decided to work without pay,” she continues. She starts to say “until” but then corrects herself. “As long as we can,” she says. “There is no ‘until.’ ” A West Virginia high school teacher - alone and without anyone on the outside of her class knowi...

Update : District Communications says "there are no negotiations today (Thursday), the union suspended them.  We are willing to meeting with them anytime." End of update.

  From the SEA rally outside of Eckstein Middle School this afternoon. It was about 60 teachers and kids. Spoke with SEA head, Jonathan Knapp, who had no new information but said their issues were a "package deal" and "doable." He also said the teachers could strike but they also could just go to work on September 4th under their old contract and continue negotiations.  I spoke with a couple of teachers from Greenwood and Pinehurst.  Good spirits but feel that the district just chips away at both their salaries and their class time with students.  They worry that Common Core will continue that because "you teach what you test" and what happens to art, music and PE?  What was interesting is that both Knapp and the teachers spoke out about how the supporting school staff - the front office staff and the professionals like nurses and speech pathologists - are getting more thrown at them all the time (just as teachers are).  The teachers ...