Seattle Schools Community Forum

The 2007 WASL pass rates for schools and districts were released yesterday. Be very careful when drawing conclusions from this data. There is no attribution analysis that comes with these pass rates, so please remember that there are a number of factors that contribute to a student's results on the WASL and that the school is only a minor factor, not a determining factor. Stronger factors include the student's home and the student's teachers. For example, the pass rates at Chief Sealth High School are markedly higher this year than in previous years. Is that due to a change in the teaching and learning at Chief Sealth or is it primarily due to the recent introduction of International Baccalaureate classes there? Now that Sealth is offering IB classes, the school is attracting more high performing students. The improvement in pass rates at Sealth wasn't caused by a change in the student's classes but a change in the class of student. I remember a few years ago there ...

King County Superior Court Judge John Erlick ruled on Monday that Seattle Public Schools must follow the City's permit process before cutting down about 100 trees at Ingraham High School to make room for an addition at the school. And, if the City denies them permission to cut the trees, the District must abide by that decision. Let's be clear. The judge's ruling didn't save the trees, it only binds the District to follow the law as it would apply to anyone else and subject their plans to the usual City process of hearings and reviews. There's no telling if these reviews will decide that the trees need to be protected or if the City will allow the District to cut them down. You can read about it in the P-I here or in the Times here . What is clear, however, is that the District tried to dodge the permit process and they did it with either the explicit or the tacit approval of the Board.

Due to a illness in my family, I will be stepping away from blogging for awhile. I want to sincerely thank Beth for asking me to be part of this blog. Beth has so much integrity and I was glad for the opportunity. I know that lively and thoughtful discussions will continue on with Beth, Charlie, Michael and whoever else writes here. I hope all of you continuing reading the blog and getting the message out that it exists because it is the one place in Seattle where parents and others can come and discuss the district. It's good and healthy to make these connections. Please continue to support Seattle public schools, warts and all. There are good things happening in our schools and they need our support (and tough love).

Here is a state law, RCW 28A.230.090 , which reads, in part: (4) If requested by the student and his or her family, a student who has completed high school courses before attending high school shall be given high school credit which shall be applied to fulfilling high school graduation requirements if: (a) The course was taken with high school students, if the academic level of the course exceeds the requirements for seventh and eighth grade classes, and the student has successfully passed by completing the same course requirements and examinations as the high school students enrolled in the class; or (b) The academic level of the course exceeds the requirements for seventh and eighth grade classes and the course would qualify for high school credit, because the course is similar or equivalent to a course offered at a high school in the district as determined by the school district board of directors. This is pretty clear. The law says that the credit "shall be given"; it is ...

The Board says that they want the District Staff to solicit, respond to, and seriously consider public input. They say that, but they won't put any authority or accountability behind it. They also say that they will model the behavior they want to see. So how well does the Board solicit, respond to, and seriously consider public input? Not so well. The most salient public input the Board gets is the public testimony they hear at their regular legislative meetings. What happens to that public input. What evidence can we find that they listened to it, responded to it, and seriously considered it? The short answer is: little or none. First, does the Board actually solicit public input? Not so much. You can write to them, send them e-mails or call them on the phone any time you like. I suppose you could also try to schedule an appointment to meet with them, but being available for public input isn't exactly soliciting it. And then there is, of course, the public testimony - up to t...

Yet another honeymoon comes to an end. The Seattle Times Editorial Board was in love, Love, LOVE with the new Seattle School Board and I think they wanted to have Superintendent Dr. Maria Goodloe-Johnson's baby. Yeah, well, that may be over. I don't know why, maybe it was because they crossed the Mayor (the Times's One True Love), or maybe the beer goggles wore off and the Times just woke up and discovered who they were in bed with. Either way, the Times just kicked the Board and the Superintendent out of bed with an editorial in today's paper . With today's editorial, the Times acknowledges what everyone else in Seattle has long known: Seattle Public Schools - from the bottom to the top - holds public input in utter contempt. They will squash it, suppress it, evade it, ignore it, and reject it at every possible opportunity. Let's consider the various episodes in reverse chronological order: INGRAHAM The District tried to subvert the legal process through a swif...

As a result of the kerfuffle over the BEX III project at Ingraham I found myself at the BEX III web site where I was tempted to click on the links to Denny/Sealth . Once there, I took a trip down memory lane on the Q & A from the February 4th public meeting . It's a funny thing, but here it is August, six months later, and they STILL haven't answered some of those questions. If I didn't have perfect faith in the District and the Facilities staff, I might fear that they never will. Just the same, I am curious about when they intend to answer these questions. Maybe if we could just get a timeline... Ah! And when exactly is the start time for that speedskating race in Hell? I think all you have to do is look at their record. Who is being held accountable for this? Is it the outside communications company that was hired to do the community engagement?