Seattle Schools Community Forum

From the Seattle PI : Teacher convicted of raping student wants to teach again Mary Kay Letourneau, a former Washington State teacher, said she is trying to get her name removed from the sex-offender registry and wants to return to teaching . All together now - no and no. From Seattle Education blog: Census Bureau Reports Majority of STEM College Graduates Do Not Work in STEM Occupations

They need keyboards for the SBAC testing? I will note that both Orca K-8 and Dearborn Park came begging to the Board at the last School Board meeting for help.  They need their counselor because of the high numbers of students in need.   But, as I said quoting one principal, every - single - year nearly every - single - principal and staffs at schools are faced with a Sophie's Choice of what (or who) to cut. This is no way to run a district.  There should NOT be one more single administrative hire in a new position until schools and classrooms have what they need. From the North Beacon Hill Council: Dearborn Park Elementary desperately needs school supplies. Please share what you can. Thank you. The post below has been shared on multiple Beacon Hill group l ists. "This school is in DIRE need of school supplies in order to save funding for a counselor position. Dearborn has 89.5% Free and Reduced Priced Lunch qualified students this year , which seriousl...

A reader asked for a separate thread on the district possibly creating an annex at Lincoln for Hamilton overflow.  From my original post: From a parent who attended the SCPTSA meeting on Monday, Flip Herndon told several parents that they are considering an annex for Hamilton.   There is space at JAMS and Eckstein but rather than admit the enrollment made a mistake by sending 5 feeder schools to Hamilton, the smallest, least flexible middle school, they are going to plow ahead with an un-workable and expensive facilities solution to an enrollment planning goof. My only comment is that these issues are and have been known to the district.  Why it feels like capacity management appears to have no real vision or explainable thought pattern is troubling.   Comments from capacity expert, Kellie LaRue:

OSPI's Top Ten SBAC reasons - oh Arch Stanton, if you are out there, please make one for us. Good article in Education Week from former SPS CAO Carla Santorno , now superintendent of Tacoma Public Schools. And the biggest devil in the details is called "poverty".   We have more social economic disparity than any other country.  The difference between the "haves" and "haves not" in the U.S. is a gap unparalleled in the Western world.  We are the most powerful and wealthy society in human history and yet somehow we have tolerated the discarding of a large portion of our children to lives of poverty.   One of my principals at a high-poverty high school recounted that he recently took 15 freshmen to an exhibit at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle, 40 minutes away, 30 miles.  For 13 of the 15 students it was their first visit to Seattle.  The Mayor is having a Youth Opportunity Summit on Saturday, from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm at Rai...

From a parent who attended the SCPTSA meeting on Monday, Flip Herndon told several parents that they are considering an annex for Hamilton.   There is space at JAMS and Eckstein but rather than admit the enrollment made a mistake by sending 5 feeder schools to Hamilton, the smallest, least flexible middle school, they are going to plow ahead with an un-workable and expensive facilities solution to an enrollment planning goof. At least two letters in support of the Africatown MOU say that Africatown should be returned to "Horace Mann upon completion of the renovations."   One of these was from the head of the Seattle/King County branch, Gerald Hankerson.  I asked him about it and he said that former Superintendent Banda gave an "verbal agreement" this would happen.  And if it doesn't? Is Africatown going to sue the district? Those of you with suggestion that more room for Garfield could be found at Mann may just be out of luck. Why would Director McLa...

I'm behind on my threads about work sessions and meetings so in playing catch up, I'm going to combine two alike topics.  (The Families and Education Work Session, however, was a combo with two other disparate topics but I will circle back as there is definitely a feeling of a consolidation of power that may signal a speeding up of, well, someone's agenda for public education in Seattle.)

April 9, 2015 Garfield High School Seattle, WA WE THE STUDENTS OF GARFIELD HIGH SCHOOL, are leading a movement in protest of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC.) Here are several reasons why we oppose the SBAC and its consequences.  The SBAC is unnecessary and not required for graduation if a student has passed the High School Proficiency Exam (HSPE.) Data from initial SBAC testing indicate that only 30 to 35 percent of students are expected to pass. This is setting up 70 percent of our students for failure and will lead to increased student anxiety and a decrease in student morale. Students who choose not to opt-out of taking the SBAC will miss two full days of valuable class time to take the reading and math portions of the SBAC. This interferes with preparation for final exams and Advanced Placement exams.  All of our computers will be unavailable to students and teachers during the week of SBAC testing because the assessment is administered on compu...