Seattle Schools Community Forum

 Well first, American history is NOT CRT because CRT is not curriculum. I have heard several people, including Seattle School Board candidate Michelle Sarju, say that it is. Nope. The relationship between the two - from my reading of numerous articles - is that CRT is ongoing higher-ed level research about the impacts and outcomes to Black Americans from how our history was shaped by those who had the power to shape it.  I’m willing to hear disagreements but I think we should all agree that CRT as a theory is not being taught in schools. Some of the discoveries within the CRT research - that other research has also found - are surely in many high school history or civics classes. Things like segregated schools,redlining, etc.  But are we at a place in time where a teacher can be going over the history/purpose of federal holidays, come to our newest one - Juneteenth - and then can’t give an explanation as to its origins? Ridiculous. What this looks like is fear. What is th...

 As you are aware, I am screening all comments. It’s actually tiresome because I seem to get many spam comments. I have been pleasantly surprised at the very low number of attacks on me.  I did get one recently on my post, Critical Race Theory, Where Are We Now ? The commenter is a sad and pathetic person trying desperately to make herself relevant only to find that her mad dog attacks really don’t play well at OSPI and other venues. I mean if you wear giant earrings that say “F*** off” in an interview photo, it doesn’t make you that approachable. In other words, she’s her own worst enemy.  And, she took down her own blog. Poof! It just disappeared. Of course there’s this thing called the internet where nothing really goes away plus another thing called screenshots.  What I am coming to is that if your comment has nothing to do with the subject of a post or doesn’t add to the discussion, I won’t print it. You can disagree with me up and down a wall and I’ll print it....

 I listened into the Seattle Council PTSA Seattle School Board forum Wednesday evening. It was eye-opening. All the candidates participated except for Crystal Liston in D5 and Genesis Williamson in D7. Candidate Herbert Camet, Jr. chose not to have video which would have helped and candidate Dan Harder had issues with his video, being sideways the entire forum. Sadly, there were only about 30ish other people listening in. I did notice that the president of the Seattle Special Education PTSA, Janis White, was listening in as well as Director Leslie Harris. SCPTSA had all the candidates answer the same questions with varying amounts of time given to answer, depending on the question’s complexity. They stated that no questions had been shared with any candidate. I won’t be transcribing all the answers (sorry) but I will try to give highs and lows from the forum. 

 Just tossing this out there to put on your radar. Over the last couple of years, several senior SPS staff left to become superintendents in other parts of Washington State. They include Flip Herndon, Michael Tolley, Wyeth Jessee and Clover Codd.  Now the beleaguer superintendent of the Kent School District, Calvin Watts, is leaving for a gig in an Atlanta-area district.  I think there could be a couple of senior staffers still at SPS who might be considering applying.  Maybe Keshia Scarlett, the Chief Academic Officer. I venture she might be happier with Brent Jones as SPS superintendent but she also filed a public complaint against Director Chandra Hampson and Director Zachery DeWolfe for acting in a racist manner towards her and mistreating her. DeWolfe may be going away come December but Hampson could still be a problem for her. Maybe Sarah Pritchett, a former Executive Director but now a newly-appointed co-Deputy Superintendent with Carri Campbell for the new Of...

  Executive Summary: - the Right- “That was then, this is now and everyone is equal. Oh, and we don’t see color.” - the Left - “We need to teach the good, the bad and the ugly so our children don’t repeat past mistakes. Oh and anyone who doesn’t toe the line on how to do that is a racist.” That was easy, no? I have crammed a lot into this thread but I will do a separate thread on the challenges for American History/Civics teachers, a lot of it stemming from state legislatures and proposed/passed legislation.

FYI from Katelyn Jetelina , an epidemiologist. The Delta variant is a really troubling one.  I did find the “ask your teacher if they are vaccinated” to be troubling. I think what could be helpful if schools could tell parents “75% of our staff is vaccinated.” But I doubt that will happen.

 Apparently former City Council member (and mayor for a minute) Tim Burgess endorsed the same two candidates for Seattle School Board as did …The Stranger.  That would be Vivian Song Maritz in D4 and Michelle Sarju in D5.  That’s quite the mind-meld. Or maybe they just are the best two candidates.