Seattle Schools Community Forum

Yes, that's what $65+M will buy you - a sick school. According to the Times this morning, South Shore building will be closed as they try to figure out what is making students and staff sick. Students and teachers will finish out the year in one or more alternative locations, which have yet to be determined. They will be out of school for at least a week while the district figures out where to put them. The decision to close the school, made Friday evening, followed an effort earlier in the day by some parents and teachers to move classes outside Monday as a one-day protest. The school's parent-teacher association sent home a flier Friday telling parents to send their children to school in warm clothes on Monday, and asking for people to lend tarps and other equipment. What a disaster for this school - losing a week and possibly moving to one or more locations. (My thought might be to move them to John Marshall. Boren is being used already down in SW Seattle. Rainie...

Those horrible people at the Our Schools Coalition placed a guest column full of lies in the Seattle Times.

Here is the latest innovation from the Math Department, the secondary Math Pathway. It represents yet another step forward in the inexorable march towards Standardization. There are some very clear problems with this totally unnecessary rigidity. First, of course, is the fact that it is unnecessary. Who needed this? Who needs to be told that students are expected to progress from 6th Grade Math to 7th Grade Math to 8th Grade Math? Did we really need a document to inform us of that? Second, of course, the rigidity. It doesn't allow much room for exception, yet there is ample need for exception. There are students who are working more than one grade level ahead (including - but not limited to - most of the students in APP), but this document doesn't appear to allow for that. There are students taking AP Calculus BC, but this document doesn't appear to allow for that. There are students taking math classes through Running Start, but this document doesn't appear to allow f...

What's on the Big Calendar? Oh my, I almost let this one fall off my radar. The first joint City Council/School Board meeting (by my reckoning in a couple of years) on Friday, the 16th from 9-11 am in the City Council chambers. What will they talk about for 2 hours? Note to district staff; the City Council does NOT want a dog and pony show. That's what staff trotted out most of the time and the Council called off the meetings because of it. Director Martin-Morris has his community meeting this Saturday from 9:30-11:30 at Diva Espresso in Lake City. Director Maier has his from 10:30-noon, Bethany Community Church Saturday finds the first of the district's two SPS Budget Forums at Aki Kurose from 1-3 p.m. (The other one is on Tuesday, the 20th from 6:30-8:30 at Roosevelt High which is tempting because it is my neck of the woods but I do want to attend the Alliance's teacher bash, whoops, Teacher Quality Town Hall, which is the same night.) Monday is the C...

The Weekly has an article about the Alliance and its efforts to interject in the teachers contract negotiations. (For the record, I hate the photo they used - terrible idea.) It's not as well-fleshed out as I would have wanted given that Nina Shapiro doesn't mention that the Seattle Organizers Coalition existed long before the Alliance's and that the Alliance very calmly sat at that table gathering information from us before they created their own "coalition". The Alliance's attempt to put ALL student outcomes on teachers is nothing less than disgraceful and their undermining treatment of the Seattle Organizers Coalition is shoddy. (Please note: this is my opinion. I know that many in the Seattle Organizers are not appreciative of this treatment but they tend to be less vocal than me.) From the article: While the group's ideas are not necessarily new, its effort to influence the negotiations is. And the coalition may have the political clout to do j...

There has been a lot of talk about the evils of Education Reform, particularly the reliance on High Stakes Testing (which somehow comes capitalized now) and the blame heaped on teachers. On the other hand there are some real, large, and persistent gaps between our academic ambitions and the academic realities. More of what we've been doing isn't going to get us there. Something has to change. So let me begin with what I LIKE about the Education Reform movement. I like the accountability that the movement promises. Everyone who works for the District - teachers, principals, school staff and central staff - should get a meaningful performance evaluation and, if their performance is persistently poor, they should face the possibility of losing their jobs. I like the idea that some adult in the system needs to take responsibility for student achievement below grade level and needs to deliver an early and effective intervention to raise those students' performance. I believe thi...

The Seattle Times reported today that the a second floor wing of the newly constructed South Shore school has been closed because students and staff in classes there have complained of a bad odor, itchy eyes, difficulty breathing, and rashes. This is terrible, of course, and we all want the source of the problem discovered and corrected as soon as possible. In the meantime the story revealed a number of ironies. A group of students came into the library crying and holding their chests, interrupting a meeting in which District officials were telling student families that the school was perfectly safe. As we know, Dr. Goodloe-Johnson's daughter attends that school, and so do at least three of Board Director Patu's grandchildren. A number of families are keeping their children home until the situation is corrected. Seattle Public Schools has a poor record for interior environmental concern.