Seattle Schools Community Forum

Where we are today? There have been two of the district's four School Bell Times Community discussion events.  (Anyone go to New Holly on Tuesday night or Garfield on Thursday night?)  I reported back on what I saw and heard at Hamilton. The district has chosen to NOT go with the Taskforce's top picks, citing the Taskforce's agreement with the district on transportation costs.  I would like anyone on the Taskforce who might be reading this to contact me (sss.westbrook@gmail.com) and let me know if this is completely accurate.  This is only what I heard from the district. The last discussion event is on Tuesday, May 12th at Chief Sealth at 7:00 pm  I'll just state a couple of things that I believe.

This fall we see the opening of First Place School as a charter school serving mobile, high-risk students (mostly homeless).  The Times had a stor y about how homeless students are served in schools in Washington state with an interesting question to it. The Times reports that there are about 30,000 homeless kids in our state today (and that number has steadily risen over the last decade). School can be the one constant in their lives (for as long as they may be in any given school).   There's a federal law protecting these students - the McKinney-Vento Act - and it allows students to stay enrolled in a school even if they move.  Districts have to pay to transport them to that school, no matter the distance. The feds give money for these transportation costs but naturally, it doesn't cover them all.  Seattle SD spends over $1M a year in costs (out of a state budget for transportation of all homeless WA state students of less than $1M a year). One thought is t...