Seattle Schools Community Forum

  In what is the biggest story for our district (and all districts in this state) is the likely reality of the Legislature going into a Special Session to complete the budget.    The impacts of this delay to our school districts is big and those impacts should have been considered at the start of the session.

It appears the Board agreed to bid on the Federal Reserve building .  Interesting thing, though, is that the feds have lower the opening bid from $3M to $1M. On the one hand, the district could get themselves quite the bargain if no one else bids.  Or, it may go Ebay style and have multiple last minute bidders.  The district is paying for its own appraisal and can go 10% over that amount (with these "capital reserves" that are apparently sitting around).  I'll try to find out what that amount is.  (If the district is successful, look for this project to be number one with a bullet on BEX V.) The district is looking for members for a taskforce on the new 24-credit graduation requirement. In January 2015, the Washington State Board of Education approved the district’s request for a two-year waiver of the new requirement, which will increase the number of course credits needed for graduation from 20 to 24. Seattle Public Schools students currently are requir...

Monday, May 5th Community meeting with Director McLaren from 6-7:30 pm at the High Point Community Center. Tuesday, May 6th Special Education Advisory and Advocacy Council (SEEAC) Meeting starting at 6:30 pm at JSCEE in room 2700. Wednesday, May 7th School Board meeting starting at 4:15 pm.  Agenda - I see from the Personnel report that there is a new Director of Capital Projects and Planning, Richard Best.  The sheer number of capital projects - just on the meeting agenda - should keep Mr. Best busy. - on the Intro items, I see one of the first tech contracts keying around wireless services for all schools.   This particular contract is for $1.7M.  Of course, I'm a bit confused because in one place in the BAR it says: Fiscal impact for this specific contract will be part of the $6.5 million dollars of BEX IV Levy funding for wireless deployment. But elsewhere, it says: Levy voters approved $9.6 million dollars to support the deployment of w...

Both the Operations and Audit&Finance Committees have meetings tomorrow, Thursday the 13th.  In addition, there is also a Work Session.  Audit&Finance and Operations both start at 4:30 p.m. and the Work Session on Technology starts at 6:30 pm. I call this out because Operations and A&F did not have their agendas out until yesterday.  Again, I have to smile and wonder.  These are very lengthy agendas.  There is truly no possible way to cover everything in them except as a brief update.  The Board is supposed to use these committee meetings to go over - in detail - issues.  I realize a lot needs to get done but I wonder why these agendas are so lengthy for such a short period of time. Operations agenda .  Items to cover: - wireless network deployment - various upgrades/renovations/repairs at several schools - one item that caught my eye is Olympic Hills where there is a "resolution" about the new construction but also a "resolu...