Seattle Schools Community Forum

 In what feels like somewhat toned-down endorsements, the Seattle Times has endorsed Laura Marie Rivera for the District 4 seat and Michelle Sarju for the District 5 seat.

As you may have heard, the Supreme Court of the United States handed down an opinion this week that a cheerleader’s rant on SnapChat after she did not make the varsity squad was speech protected by the First Amendment.

After Barrack Obama became president, there was this after-glow as if “now we’re in a post-racial time in America.” But that wasn’t true, was it?  Things changed in 2016 when Former Guy came into office. He  took the lid off of what was already a simmering pot of injustice, spit into the pot and then watched it boil over. The discussion around Critical Race Theory comes from this confluence of two things. The so-called woke movement and the very real white nationalist movement via the Former Guy.  The white nationalist movement which desperately wants a continuation of the codification of the white gaze of U.S. History and knows that the way to keep that going is thru public education. And that means kids. I may have used this paraphrased quote before - from Hitler, no less - “ If I have the children, I don’t need their parents.”

 Hello from sunny Arizona (it’s now down under 100 degrees so bearable but I see Seattle is heating up)!

Time for a discussion.  I had decided to research CRT (in this case, Critical Race Theory, but there is also Culturally Relevant Teaching) because of the tsunami of arguing, bill writing, etc. in the news.  I am hoping to do this as a series of posts because there is a lot to cover. This first post - for those who would like to learn more - is made up of links to provide information, both pro and con. I do want to note that back in 2013-2014, SPS  had an issue with a teacher at The Center School, Jon Greenberg, who had been teaching about race and equity for a long time before one family objected. The SEA stood with Greenberg.  What it seems to have come down to then, as in now, is teaching versus preaching. 

  Vaccination progress as of Friday, 6/18:

It is great that SCPTSA has been lending a hand to directors in organizing community meetings. If you have joined one of these meetings, you can see there can be 50,75,100 participants (one meeting had 300 people!) This, of course, is far more any regular in-person meeting. However, I also see that SCPTSA tends to call on people we hear from all the time. And SCPTSA knows who these people are.  And note to directors, it is YOUR job to make sure that multiple outlets know when you have a meeting. There is nothing about this at the SPS website. That’s on Director Dury.   Via SCPTSA Facebook page: Dear Community, The school year is almost over! Seattle Council PTSA is working with school board directors to set up community meetings to facilitate engagement with their constituents over the summer. Last year we hosted a Student Town Hall with over 300 participants. We are working on a similar event - stay tuned! We will be hosing a community meeting with Erin Dury, School Boar...