Seattle Schools Community Forum

John Marshall Alternative School will remain open for the 2007/2008 school year. Last year during the school closure and consolidation process, Carla Santorno promised that a review of programs at John Marshall would be completed no later than December 2006 and that she was hiring a consultant to perform the work. Today's Seattle Times article, Seattle district delays closing alternative school for a year , tells a different story. "The district's chief academic officer, Carla Santorno, said the postponement gives the district time to complete a comprehensive review of programs for students who are at risk of dropping out. John Marshall enrolls about 185 students in grades 6-12." And today's PI article, A year's reprieve for John Marshall Alternative School , adds additional details. "Already, district officials plan to move two programs: The GRAD program for teens who are pregnant or parents will move to South Lake Alternative High School, and the evenin...

Henry Ford famously claimed that people could get their Model T Ford in any color they wanted, so long as the color they wanted was black. Why black? It didn't reflect heat or light and therefore dried faster than other paint colors. That's how much he looked for ways to speed production; he wanted the paint color that took the least time to dry. Where will north-end APP end up? It can't stay in Lincoln forever - the District needs that building as an interim site for the World School, NOVA, Eckstein, and all of the north-end elementary schools that they want to expand. Where can it go? You can look around the north-end for available buildings or building sites. I can only think of three: John Marshall, Wilson-Pacific, and Cedar Park. After that, you could do some real outside the box thinking and imagine the District buying property like a failed motel on Aurora or the parking lot of the Calgary church. You could even think WAY outside the box and consider building a s...

I think some of the District's urgency around capacity is real and some is manufactured. They have a real need for additional elementary school capacity in West Seattle and the northeast. They have a real need for middle school capacity in the north. The high school and central region middle school capacity needs aren't all that urgent. Outside of capacity needs, they do need to take care of the World School without further delay and the renovation to Arbor Heights cannot wait. Keeping the cash flow in mind, I would make a little re-order of the projects. The chart with the projects and their price tags is a bit misleading since the money isn't actually spent only in the year that the project completes. Still, any changes in timing have to be made with an eye to the cash flow. The big changes I would make would be to shift Arbor Heights from 2019 to 2015, to swap the order of Schmitz Park and Thornton Creek, and to delay the move from John Marshall to Pacific ...

The presentation for this Board Work Session tomorrow has been posted.  It's quite interesting.  I note at last night's Capacity meeting for the NE, it was stated that FACMAC would have their recs tomorrow. It's odd because one page is labeled "Development of Recommended Options" and lists input from FACMAC but clearly FACMAC's recommendations are not part of this presentation because they aren't even out yet. Okay, wait a minute.  Page 8 DOES have  FACMAC recommendations.  Confusing.  I do not see any link to the complete FACMAC recommendations. Under Community Feedback : mixed support for repurposing PCP spaces portables?  A surprising amount of support move grade cohorts?  largely not supported maintaining transportation grandfathering?  Mostly supported but I think this is a complete sell job to the Board and public without full information on numbers of students at each school and costs. For SW and Central Regions, FACMA...

What is the truth about what is happening at John Marshall Alternative School? The picture presented in today's Seattle Times article, One school's legacy: "There's no learning" is quite disturbing. However, during the school closure and consolidation process this past year, and in my recent class at UW's School of Education, I have met several teachers from John Marshall who seem extremely devoted to the students there and the incredibly difficult work they are doing. If you know someone connected with John Marshall, either as a student, teacher, staff person or parent, please ask them to comment on this post. The fate of the multiple programs at John Marshall is supposed to be decided this month. The students at John Marshall are the only ones in the district affected by the closure and consolidation vote who don't know where they will be next year.

Capacity Management questions, comments and concerns I believe this list summarizes the current status of my thinking. I would not complain about a decision if I couldn't offer a better one. 1. While the proposal shows evidence of capacity reduction, there is little evidence of capacity management – which would include expanding capacity where needed. Elementary capacity in the northeast is improved and elementary capacity in Queen Anne/Magnolia might be. The proposal does nothing to improve middle school capacity in the northeast or high school capacity for Magnolia, Queen Anne and the Montlake Cut. 2. This process has revealed the dishonest and unfair way that building renovations have been prioritized in the past. It’s obvious that the buildings in the worst condition were passed over for renovation in favor of other buildings in less need. District needs to acknowledge and apologize for that. The District also needs to resolve to follow a fairer process in future. 3. Althou...

Not too much more as I ended up covering some of it in the Enrollment thread. I am going to put the notes in italic as I have made a lot of comments here. Tracy mentioned a group of parents joining together around Sand Point (she called it a PTA but that's not really possible at this point). She also mentioned community support around McDonald from neighbors who live around it and who have been working on its playground. Michael brought up the issue of not having many Options for the NW and where would all the kids on the Old Hay option school go for middle school? When Sherry had explained her visit to McDonald , she was careful to explain that some of the money was for desks, etc. so that's why the cost is so high. Well, wait a minute. Don't we have a lot of desks left over from closed buildings? No, oh, so this is one perk from having your building renovated or remodeled; you get new desks. It's kind of like moving into a newly-built house and wanting new f...

A teacher posted on a comment on a previous thread ( John Marshall Alternative School ) that I thought was interesting enough to warrant a separate posting. Anonymous said: I wish I had found this thread a month ago...I am a teacher at Marshall, and I felt relief when the Times article was published that finally the truth is being told. There is some learning going on at Marshall, in spite of Joe Drake, because of a handful of good teachers who care very much about the students who end up at the school. The story the Times told was only the tip of the iceberg as far as the disservices that are being done to many students. The education of those who want to learn is being stolen by Dr. Drake and a few others, and because the students are mostly poor or otherwise marginalized (like Kathy Graves) their concerns are never heard by the district. I believe that the district knows that they need to get rid of Drake, and are using the school closure as an opportunity to get rid of him. He real...

This article about John Marshall appeared in the Times' yesterday. It seems they have a new principal and the spirit among the students is better. "As a result, the district forced out John Marshall's longtime principal and appointed Stacey McCrath-Smith to head the school. McCrath-Smith's rapport with the students is obvious as she strides through the hallways, stopping for hugs and to talk about the weekend, football, upcoming school events. When district evaluators visited the school, students gave them tours. She organized a student government, a basketball team, a back-to-school night for parents. Student artwork and photos fill the school's entryway, and this month a group of students took a field trip on one of the Lake Union tall ships." I was very pleased to read about the taskforce that is determine the future of the Marshall programs. "Barbara Moore is on special assignment from her job as principal of a similar high school in the South End ...

This article appeared in today's Times about the final outcome for the programs at John Marshall. All the programs will be dispersed or closed. There was no mention of what will happen to the building which has quite a large nursery in it. The re-entry program will be moved to Wilson-Pacific along with "Interim Alternative Education Setting, a program for students who get in trouble for doing something that is "a manifestation" of their disability". The Evening School will move to Franklin while the Teen Parent program will move to South Lake High School. The small (12 student) alternative school there will close and student in a behavior-intervention program will disperse to other schools. I'm not surprised by any of this movement; it seemed clear the district didn't want to keep things going at John Marshall. It is too large a building for so many small programs. I do wish that they could keep the teen parent program there as the city is big eno...

The new Advanced Learning Task Force (or Steering Committee or Advisory Committee or whatever) has had its first meeting. It's kind of a mess.

From the district's School Beat : "Director DeBell provided a summary of the final report on school closure, which is available at: Some of the highlights include: • Enrollment – just over 50 percent of students from closed schools enrolled in the designated receiving schools. Of the remaining 366 students, 154 left the District (a quarter of these were nonresidents) .• Capital costs of the move will likely come in just underbudget at $1.5 million, which includes $400,000 to build a teen parent program center at South Lake. • Long-term capital savings are estimated at $44 million for BTA-type projects and $351 million in levy projects. • General fund costs were higher than estimated at $927,000. • General fund savings in the first year, originally estimated to be $2.48 million, are $1.9 million. Savings are reduced because the Marshall building remained open for one more year, and Columbia is being used as the interim site for The New School. • $1 million of the $1.9 millio...

Here is the Excel sheet for the options for the NE middle school situation.  My understanding is it is a combo of ideas from staff and FACMAC.  During the Work Session the discussion went as follows: - They were first discussing what appeared in the presentation and what FACMAC was recommending. FACMAC was recommending an Eckstein split - North and South Annexes.   Director Peaslee clarified that this was really a split and not a temporary annexation.  The answer was yes. - There was also this discussion about Jane Addams and beefing up its middle school offerings to fill the school.   (They called this "mitigation.")  But, as Director DeBell pointed out, how long could that go on and how could the district afford it?  (And, if they did this for JA, why not all K-8s?) - One interesting thing is how the district seems very committed to making sure that Eckstein North would have the same things as Eckstein South.  Phil Brockman spoke ...

Issue #4: The urgent need for additional elementary capacity in the northeast. Possible solution A: A new attendance area elementary school eventually located at the John Marshall site (the building needs significant renovation). The program will meet at the Lincoln site until the building is ready. Possible solution B: A new option elementary school eventually located at the John Marshall site (the building needs significant renovation). The program will meet at the Lincoln site until the building is ready. The option program could house a new program or it could house the language immersion program now at JSIS, relieving the overcrowding there and providing more equitable access to language immersion. Variation: The new option enrollment language immersion school at John Marshall could be a K-8 providing language immersion through middle school and providing some relief to the north-end middle school capacity crunch (see Issue #1). Possible solution C: Reo...

The District is dragging out a number of decisions that should have been made already. In most cases they should just make the decision because they have only a single viable option. There's no decision to be made. 1. Re-open John Marshall as an elementary option school and the site of north-end elementary APP. They need to bring north-end APP up north and there is no other building that will hold the 500 students in the program. John Marshall would allow space for the APP students and a small general education program as well. That would help to relieve some of the overcrowding in the northeast. Enrollment in the general education program should be by choice only. That would bring a lot of advantages. It would give preference to APP siblings and keep families together. It would allow the District to cap the enrollment of the gen ed program so they aren't guaranteeing enrollment to two different groups. It would evade any need to alter the attendance area boundaries. If the ...

Quick reaction to the CAC's revised closure list : Thank goodness the CAC dropped the ridiculous plan to move TOPS to Thurgood Marshall and Montlake to the TOPS building. Glad to see Summit K-12 left in its current building. Staff and parents want to be more centrally located, but were opposed to the decrepit Wilson-Pacific building as a new location. Pleased that High Point and Fairmount Park have agreed to merge. However, we still have: Two of three autism programs slated for closure. (Graham Hill and Viewlands) A school with strong community support (Sacajawea) slated for closure despite demographic predictions of increasing student population in that area. No suggested solution for the only south end Montessori program (Graham Hill). The report says "opportunities for relocation may emerge during the District's closure process." Vague and unhelpful. No suggested solution for the 4 programs currently in the John Marshall building serving very difficult to serve pop...

Olympic Hills Capacity Mtg on Monday night Packed house, I was almost surprised they had it such a small school but it was cozy.  Attendees - SPS staff, Directors Peaslee and Carr (but oddly, not Martin-Morris as one of the central issues was Eckstein that sits in his district) and FACMAC co-chairs and other members of the Committee.  Rep. Gerry Pollet also was in attendance.  The room was packed full. I liked the way this meeting went.  There was just a brief presentation, then principal Zoe Jenkins did a roll call of sorts of what schools were there.  She listed them on a blackboard, plus a spot for community input.  She then handed out a card for each school to anyone who wanted to speak.  In that way, we had input from all schools plus a rotation of speakers.   There were about 12 schools represented. What I did hear firmly: - Pinehurst is to stay in place.  No mention of exactly what that would then mean for Jane Addams....

My thinking about the proposed Highly Capable policy 2190 has evolved. At first I just wanted the Board to fix the obvious flaws in the policy. Clarify the "school-age" language and the language about "individual learning rates and styles", remove the superfluous second paragraph that isn't specific to highly capable students, and change the third paragraph so it requires the superintendent to submit a grant application rather than requiring the Board to approve it. Once fixed, the policy won't do any good, but at least it won't do any harm. Then I thought that this policy, even when fixed, will, in fact, do harm. It will create the illusion that the topic has been addressed and stall the action that really needs to be taken. I believed that the Board should reject the proposed policy until the proper process has been followed. The Board needs to first articulate a Vision for all of Advanced Learning before drafting any policy to implement it. Then the ...

Facility condition: what does it mean to reopen a building?  what buildings are going to be considered under BEX IV and how much will capacity management needs influence the list?  This press release was just put out by SPS Communications: Seattle Public Schools was listed among the nation’s major city public school districts which have substantial construction, renovation, modernization, and deferred maintenance needs because of the age and size of their school buildings, shifting populations, and the need to devote substantial resources to instructional personnel to meet their core academic mission. The Council of the Great City Schools, the nation’s primary coalition of large urban public school districts, surveyed its 65 member school systems to determine the scope and scale of that need. The average age for Seattle Public School Buildings is 50 years old. The list does not include all Seattle Public Schools needing renovation, repair, modernization and de...

Wednesday, March 6th  Announcement of Charter Commission members by the Governor, Lt. Governor and Speaker of the House. Two-hour early dismissal for SPS. School Board meeting at 4:15 p.m.  Agenda .  It includes: - action on approving the contracts for the Arbor Heights rebuild (at about $24M which is much more in line with the costs in other districts) as well as for Cedar Park, Van Asselt*, John Marshall**, Thornton Creek (or "equivalent site), Pinehurst*** and Wilson Pacific (at about $62.5M). I also note the introduction of an item to renovate Jane Addams with 5 new classrooms.  I think that shows that JA is running close to full (or will within another year).  *I am a bit confused on this one.  Is the current Van Asselt population moving back here? **I note that my concern over a new daycare at John Marshall may have been heard.  The action item is amended to say " minor revisions to existing child care space for before and and after...