Seattle Schools Community Forum

Deja vu all over again (with apologies to Yogi Berra).  It's sometimes good to have been tracking this district for a long time.  Basically, it's about institutional memory and its usefulness.  Sometimes, it is frustrating, exhausting and frightening.  All at once.  I am speaking of the Board retreat going on today in reference to institutional memory.   I could have sworn that if I shut my eyes, then quickly opened them, I would see the ghosts of staff past sitting around that table.  Maria Goodloe-Johnson (that ghost comment is not in reference to her passing), Susan Enfield, Carla Santorno, even Joe Olchefske.  Because those are the people I thought might have been channeling through staff today. I often wish there was a new person in the audience, a casual observer who I could question and ask, "What did that sound like to you?" 

Update:  I am at the just-about-to-start Board retreat.  I had a conversation with the Superintendent on the math adoption.  He got quite heated about it. He says that they are fast-tracking waivers because they have to place the orders next week.  I pointed out that waivers certainly don't look to have been fast-tracked in the past. He said that if they don't grant the waivers, they violate their own policy.  Also not true.  The district has never been in a hurry before. He asked me why Seattle has such a conspiracy theory mentality. I said it didn't look like a theory if it's happening. He said they don't have the money for Math in Focus.  I said I believe it could be done.  He shrugged. So here's my take: The Superintendent and teaching and curriculum staff regrouped after the Board meeting.  (Maybe even before).  But now their plan is to encourage/arm-twist principals into hastily convening BLT meetings in order to have st...

A reader put up a letter from Queen Anne Elementary principal, David Elliott, that was written in light of yesterday's Seattle Pacific U shootings (QA Elementary is fairly close by as is Coe Elementary).  Mr. Elliott calmly explains what they did once the event became known to this (and this happened as school had just ended for the day). Apparently buses had left but there were many children and parents on the playground.  He made the parents aware of the situation.  He goes on:   After some time making sure we were aware of where all children and adults were on our campus I had time to call our SPS Security. I was informed that SPD had contacted our security department and informed them there were no schools in the vicinity and no calls needed. I was, and am, completely unsatisfied with that decision for us and for Coe, which is situated eight or nine blocks from the SPU campus. I will certainly follow up on this with both SPD and our SPS Security Depar...

A guest column in the Seattle Times today spread the weird idea that "Teacher Quality" is important and should be the focus of the school district's efforts to close the achievement gap.

There was a request to open another thread about the connections between school budgets and "underenrollment."  I am hearing from several schools that the district is saying their school is below the enrollment forecast and will be funded that way (even as many have had waitlists in the past and the district continues to grow). I suspect the district is playing chicken, hoping that there will be even growth that would not throw any one school's budget off.  They want to pinch those pennies and force principals to make the hard decisions and/or have to beg PTAs for help.  If you know parents who have school-aged children they want to enroll in Seattle schools, beg them to do it before this school year ends.  No one wants to come to school in the fall and have an unpleasant surprise about the level of support at their school.

There are two unfolding situations that could have real ramifications for many schools in the fall; one is about math waivers and the other (separate thread) about school funding (and "underenrollment"). Update: what I am hearing is that there is a thought to push a "districtwide" waver to use enVision over MIF.   I'm hoping that's not true.  It could possibly be the most unconstructive and most damaging thing that could be done. end of update. Update 2: From SPS: There is a short window of time because we have to order textbooks.  Instructional materials waivers are guided by School Board policy 2020. The Building Leadership Team is involved in the process based on the school’s decision-making matrix. Parents who have questions should contact their principals. end of update In Michael Tolley's presentation to the Board about math waivers here is what his slides said:

Tomorrow is the Board retreat; that should be interesting to attend.  It's from 10:30 am to 3:00 pm at the JSCEE.  Agenda .  It appears the bell time analysis is to be presented in the morning and prioritized.  After the math adoption, I'm sure there are priorities to be shifted.  They have lunch at 12:30 and start work again on priorities at 12:45 pm.  The rest of the afternoon is for governance/committee structure.  Nice to see a more scaled down agenda for a Retreat. Well look at that, two more states - South Carolina and Oklahoma - drop Common Core.   It is an interesting thing to see the variances in "dropping" Common Core.  Florida just renamed them but for both S.C. and OK, they are truly going to write their own standards.  As well, the number of states participating in the testing consortiums has gone down for both the PARCC and Smarter Balanced (which WA state is part of).  Are we ever going to have a discussion o...