Seattle Schools Community Forum

Board members, district staff, parents and teachers are busy this week with the 9 site closure hearings happening Monday through Wednesday. I attended the Graham Hill site closure meeting tonight, at which 40 parents, staff, and community members presented a compelling case for keeping Graham Hill open. Below are two recent articles on the school closure process: Parents stand firm for school School closure suggestions to be announced July 5 I am confused by the mention in the "Parents stand firm for school" article that some Emerson teachers are against the proposed merger of Rainier View into the Emerson building. I thought I heard at previous School Board meeting and public hearings that the idea was suggested by Raininer View and Emerson staff as an outcome preferable to having Emerson close and the kids dispersed.

The tag line for this blog is, "Joining together across Seattle to fight for public schools that deliver academic excellence for all." But, imagine we are successful. What would that look like? I would fight strongly any effort to define academic excellence by WASL scores alone, but I recognize and acknowledge the need to measure outcomes (what students can do), and know how difficult and time-consuming that can be to do well in a way that honors individual learning styles and differences. I think academic excellence can be described, in part, by the range of school offerings or programs. For example, for Seattle schools to be academically excellent, I believe there need to be strong AP offerings, six periods of real classes a day at high school (not credit for helping the gym teacher sort equipment, which is what I have read is currently happening in some schools), rigorous and inspiring music and art classes, challenging hands-on science classes, and more. Describing academ...

At last week's Board work session, Raj repeated his statement that the district is hoping to identify one school out of four in the Central cluster (T.T. Minor, Leschi, Thurgood Marshall or Bailey Gatzert), and one school in the Northeast to close by Fall 2007, on the same timetable as the other schools identified through the current school closure process. First of all, how does the district put a school (T.T. Minor) that is going through a merger this coming year with M.L. King on the list of possible schools to close? Can you imagine telling the MLK kids they need to change schools again after 1 year? And secondly, if there is not currently enough capacity in the Northeast to close Sacajawea, then how will enough capacity be found to make it possible to close an additional school in the Northeast? Also, I just don't get the rush to make additional closures happen. Even COO, Mark Green, commented that this timeline is "ambitious." When questioned by Irene Stewart ab...

From what I heard at this week's Board meeting, the math curriculum adoption decision for middle schools is incredibly upsetting to many people. Today's article in the PI, Schools move toward uniform math lesson , has some details. Can anyone who has been involved in this issue either post comments here or send me some information to post?

At yesterday's Board work session, I heard three likely changes to the closure plan, all of which I consider positive: Graham Hill to remain open . The main issue seemed to have been how many different schools the students would have been dispersed to, along with the point that Raj made that the students live south of Graham Hill, but most available space would be north of Graham Hill. Emerson to remain open with Rainier View merging into that building . According to district staff, both school principals and staff support this idea, which is consistent with what I heard from Emerson staff at the last Board meeting. I also heard the New School was supportive of that idea, not wanting to displace a school program to get its promised space. Pathfinder will not move to Boren building . I even heard a Board member say that suggestion never made any sense. The problem, of course, is what will happen to the Pathfinder program. The current Genesee building is in horrible shape and the m...

By Viewlands parents Julie Howe Gwinn, Doug Lidz, Lynn Miller, Ron Wang, and Kathryn Wenke. Passing on the Seattle Schools building debt to our kids is another painful lesson from the District. Let’s review a couple of interesting points about that $50 million Seattle Schools headquarters building. Original cost: $30 million. Final cost: $54.5 million. Actual cost: $ 104 million . The $54.5 million new school headquarters in SoDo actually cost $104.5 million, the District confirms. Officials just prefer not to mention the $50 million in loan interest that taxpayers will be paying over 25 years. We don’t need a calculator. $54.5M + $50M = $104.5M. That’s why the monorail folks thought they had a sure thing going. They learned from Seattle Schools District. Originally, the building was to be paid for by the savings and income from consolidating operations. Now it won't be. The rosiest projections leave the district $33 million short, and Steve Nielsen (2003 Finance Director School Di...

Although most of my posts from now until July 3rd will focus on the pressing issue of school closure, today I want to address a broader issue: How can we successfully work to reform Seattle public schools? Some of my friends have told me that working to reform public schools is like hitting your head against a brick wall. Many, many people have tried for years, and little has changed. In a report entitled, " Put Learning First: A Portfolio Approach to Public Schools ", Paul Hill writes: "The problem for reformers is that our current public school system is a lot like a building designed to withstand an earthquake. It has multiple, independent structural supports that flex and bend, dissipating outside jolts of energy. While this makes for a very stable educational system, it also diffuses pressures for positive change—most notably, efforts to reform schools to meet the shifting needs of students and society. He identifies the following items which have constraints placed...