Seattle Schools Community Forum

I ask because I'm seeing various comments on this issue.  So let us know what you have heard and seen at your school (across any grade).  For example, one reader said that Garfield had a couple of late starts this week ....at 11 am. That's pretty late for the school day to begin.  Maybe leadership there thought it better for students to NOT come and have to hang around doing almost nothing rather than coming later. I also heard from a reader at Ingraham who said her daughter took the test (as a junior) and didn't find it all that hard but that she was very annoyed with sitting around for 45 minutes.  It all adds up to lost instructional time of which there are several factors: - the actual time to take an untimed test - the actual time for set-up to take the test (which apparently can be anywhere from 15 minutes to almost an hour). - time that is test prep (how you take the test) - time that is test prep (for what is on the test) Not to mention down time...

Rainier Beach is one of three comprehensive high schools to not have a complete renovation. Chief Sealth has had major work done and got some of it via the fallout of them having to share a campus with Denny.  Ingraham is the other but Ingraham has also had major work done and has been on every single BEX and BTA.   Rainier Beach got a performing arts hall (but no performing arts curriculum or program so it sat, mostly unused for years) and had some building area upgrades but not much else. According to the Times, the Rainier Beach community isn't going to wait for the district to make their building better.  They would like to make it the greenest high school in the state.  The story in the Times . T he community’s aspirations were announced Tuesday at a news conference where Mayor Mike McGinn and Denis Hayes, president of the Bullitt Foundation, expressed their support, albeit not the financial kind.  The Bullitt Foundation doesn’t fund capita...