Seattle Schools Community Forum

  Recently, the College Board, which sponsors Advanced Placement courses, took a stand on the issue of American history and CRT. Well kinda. They did not mention CRT in their statement but rather, what AP is and how it is taught. They do a masterful job.  Conservative writer Rick Hess lays it out.  As readers well know, AP has a massive reach. Each year, more than a million students take AP’s 34 courses in everything from calculus to Spanish to U.S. Government. Its visibility and status mean that AP’s actions can play an outsized role, as happened when an overhaul of its U.S. History framework ignited a searing  debate back in 2015. And the statement is altogether admirable, offering a principled, practical place to land amid debates over CRT, “anti-racism,” curricular transparency, and curricular restrictions.       In all of this, there’s a need to stand forthrightly against those who would stymie free thought. The statement flatly declares, “A...

 I've now read both briefs for Director Chandra Hampson's lawsuit against the district to overturn the independent investigation finding that she used her positional authority to harass/bully/intimidate two senior Black staffers. I've uploaded both to Scribed; here's the link for her brief and here is the link for the district's reply.  I'll just give a brief analysis of both and then go in-depth with both. I'll state the obvious in advance - I'm no lawyer.  My take is that the Court will decline to offer relief to Director Hampson. I think this mainly because there isn't much there, there in her brief and I don't think any court really wants to get involved in the minutia of municipal oversight.  What makes the briefs so different is the amount of verbiage used in timeline detail in Hampson's brief versus actual case law cited by the district.  One key issue - that came up the night the Board took the vote to accept the findings of the inves...

 Just a heads up.  The Board is having two Audit & Finance Committee meetings this week (one is tomorrow). Interestingly, the key topic are two policies around Sexual Harassment/Assault; one policy for students and one for employees. I will have a separate post on this topic as it's a huge one.  As usual, I requested the documentation for each meeting (you have to do that, otherwise all you see is an agenda with topics).  Buried deep in the documentation for the second meeting is this memo from A&F chair, Chandra Hampson. (See below.) To be clear, I believe this will affect not just PTA fundraising but any outside gifts like from booster clubs.  I also see that there are there grand phrases like "the values and vision of the community" and " acceptance of resources should be tied to demonstrated ability to impact student outcomes." Neither is really defined and that's troubling. I see no mention of any public engagement but I'm sure that when ma...

The New York Times reported back in June 2020 about the looming issue of charter schools that when given the opportunity, double-dipped to get more COVID dollars meant for small businesses. Like traditional public schools, they generally receive per-pupil funding from their districts, and as such, they were eligible to receive a share of billions of dollars in relief that Congress allocated to public education.   But because a vast majority are run by nonprofit companies, they also qualified for the Paycheck Protection Program.   The board chairman of one Oakland, Calif., charter school network, Education for Change Public Schools, said its $5 million loan would be a “cheap form of cash-flow financing.” And so (bold mine): Charter schools, including some with healthy cash balances and billionaire backers like Michael Bloomberg and Bill Gates, have quietly accepted millions of dollars in emergency coronavirus relief from a fund created to help struggling small businesses ...

  First, congrats to the Garfield High School girls basketball team for taking the state championship for their division! What a lot of effort and practice and discipline; great job! The district also reports:  Rainier Beach and Garfield boys teams also scored top places but had no details at that webpage . Speaking of students, the Board is looking for three Student Board "Members." I am baffled by this effort because there are many ways for students to give input; this just looks like window-dressing. And, if you read the requirements, the new "members" have to go to two Board meetings a month (oh joy) and are assigned a Board committee and have to go to that meeting once a month (double joy - very dull meetings if you don't know what's going on or who is who in the room). However, they do get paid ($17.27 an hour). Lastly, if the Board members want shorter meetings, this is not going to help.  Next, I have a new Twitter account if you are a Twitter us...

Update at the bottom of this post. There isn't a lot to get excited about when growing old but one thing that is good is learning patience. I've been at this work for a long time and, from the start, was in it for the long game. I learned early on that nothing changes quickly in public education and you'll face heartbreak if you think it will. (This is particularly hard on parents who would like change to come before their kid graduates high school.)  One issue that is especially difficult to deal with is to see the parade of people in and out of SPS especially those who actually do damage . Very frustrating. But with people who are zealots and bullies, if you wait long enough, they end up hurting themselves. Here's the best example I can give you. Many, many people have contacted me over a recent story about the former head of Ethnic Studies at SPS. What might be a fairly shocking piece to some actually didn't surprise me at all.  I am not going to provide a lin...

When we last left this story, the Alliance had been mostly bounced out of SPS. There apparently had been too much push from the Alliance on the direction of the district and it made SPS leadership uneasy. So the Alliance was left mostly managing fundraising finances for various SPS groups like PTAs, booster clubs, etc.  So I was somewhat surprised to hear Superintendent Brent Jones name the Alliance as being a partner with SPS at his State of the District speech. But it appears that the Alliance is waaaay back in SPS good graces and, from examining the Alliance's website , I can see why. (Just a heads up - some of the Alliance's links are wonky and won't open.)  Item One I had forgotten that the Alliance was paying for the Seattle Teacher Residency Program which is important for SPS to grow their own teaching corps. The STR does bring in more teachers of color who tend to work at Title One schools. This program is probably more important than ever given that post-COVID, man...