Seattle Schools Community Forum

Good News Ballard's concert choir is going to Carnegie Hall in the middle of March for the second year in a row.  Their wind ensemble has been invite to play next year there as well.  Kudos to those singers and musicians. Cleveland High was named a STEM Lighthouse School by OSPI, one of six in the state.  Good job, Cleveland.  Along with well-deserved recognition, Cleveland will also receive a $20,000 grant from OSPI to serve as a mentor to other schools and school districts that are creating their own STEM environments. No director community meetings this Saturday. News Interesting piece from KPLU on the use of class rather than race for integration purposes. "Stronger Together" is not the name of the latest social-media fitness app. It's a grant proposed in President Obama's new budget, reviving an idea that hasn't gotten much policy attention in decades: diversity in public schools. When a school reaches a stable level of about 30 pe...

The Board has long delegated authority for program placement decisions to the Superintendent. Policy F21.00 made that explicit and Policy 2200 reinforced it. All the Board required was a coherent process, community engagement, and a report. Since the Superintendent has never provided a coherent process, community engagement, or a report, the Board is now preparing to take back the authority. The Board is preparing to amend the policies to require all program placement decisions to have Board approval. See the documents starting on page 58 of the packet for the upcoming Executive Committee meeting . There can be no doubt that this is a direct response to recent decisions (EEU, Middle College, InterAgency at Queen Anne) and the historic failure/refusal to conduct community engagement, provide any coherent rationale for decisions, or make sound decisions. Is this what accountability looks like?

 Update: What's the torque that the Republicans are going to use to try to do this? The levy cliff that districts face. So let's threaten to throw 1M+ traditional school students over a levy cliff to save 1,000 former charter students. I urge you to write your legislator or Governor Insee (his Twitter handle is @GovInslee) Again, I know the Supreme Court is watching.  end of update There's a great commentary over at the Washington Policy Center over what is going on in the legislature.  I'm not the biggest fans of WPC; I don't have a problem with them taking a stand but sometimes their education voice is not factually correct and overwrought. But boy, do they get it right in their commentary on some in the legislature trying to weasel in a charter school bill that will likely be many things, among them: unconstitutional, not vetted properly by either legal experts and lacking any public discourse or input. Now I'm sure those legislators would ...

Looks like our financial officer, Ken Gotsch , will be leaving SPS in about a month.  I'm pretty sad over this as Mr. Gotsch is smart, calm and patient.  He's a true professional and has always been willing to help with information. No word on his successor. I wish him well.

It's March 3rd and there is now just one more week until the end of the session on March 10th.  A new bill - 6670 - a so-called "title-only" bill that is a placeholder (along with HB 3000, also a placeholder) for something to come.  Here's 6670 - in its entirety - Sec. 1. This act may be known and cited as the public schools that are not common schools act. This Hemingway-length legislation is brought to us by the usual suspects in the form of Senators Fain, Mullet, Litzow and Hobbs. A little backstory on what this is and how it is happening comes to us via the Tri-City Herald which seems to take a dim view of this type of legislation (bold mine).

From SPS: The City is working on power issues in the neighborhood and will be shutting off our power at 2:45 this afternoon - Wednesday, March 2nd. All Jane Addams and the YMCA after school programs and sports are cancelled.

Great story at KUOW about Highland Park and their "yoga breaths and mustang money."   Kudos to Principal Chris Cronas and his staff for their work.  "Do you know what grit is?" Cronas asks the students. "It's when you work really, really hard on something and you never give up on it." Next, the deep breathing. Cronas squeezes a rainbow-colored ball as he speaks quietly. “Let’s all practice our breathing with the ball and my voice. Ready? Go. In. Hold … one, two, three, four, five, six.” "This is not rocket science. This is Education 101. Kids need to feel safe. They need to feel respected," Cronas said. “They need to know that the people at their school love them and will give them the structure they need to succeed." For the School Board meeting tonight, the public testimony list is nearly full.  Most of them, including me, will be speaking to the Seattle Preschool Program Service Agreement.  Others are speaking on disci...