Seattle Schools Community Forum

The Seattle Times has added a new feature to their web site, a reporter's notebook for their education beat reporter, Emily Heffter. You can reach it through their Election 2007 web page by clicking on the "Reporter's notebook" link in the Seattle School Board section. Or you could link to it here . This is where stories that aren't big enough for a full-blown article can get published. I don't know if it is just for the election or if it will be a continuing feature, but more news is good news.

Another interesting idea from this NY Times article about a teacher in New Jersey who requires parents of his high school students to read an comment on literary selections assigned to their students. From the article "The point, he said, is to keep parents involved in their children’s ’ education well into high school. Studies have shown that parental involvement improves the quality of the education a student receives, but teenagers seldom invite that involvement. So, Mr. Frye said, he decided to help out. “Parents complain about never getting to see their kids’ work,” he said. “Now they have to.” Parents have mixed reactions: "Some parents say they like the assignments because they can spark intellectual conversation with teenagers who are normally less than communicative. “Searching for meaning in literary works is like stretching brain-cell-taffy in this household of literal interpretations and men of few words,” one mother wrote on the blog. Others refrain from compl...

I-pods in class? New ideas abound for its use in classrooms through the nation in this article in the NY Times today. The biggest use? To help bilingual kids learn English faster (thank you Black-Eyed Peas, Plain White T's and...Barry White?). It's an intriguing idea.

This article (on the front page, unfortunately for SPS) appeared in the PI today about the efforts by parents of a Hale student who had been attacked last spring by some other students because he reported being robbed by them earlier in the year. I had actually heard about this case from a friend with a student at Hale. My friend said what the parents reported in the newspaper; namely, that the previous principal (now gone, thank goodness) had not been helpful to the parents. It's troubling that the kid got robbed in the first place but to get beaten up for being a "snitch" brings it to another level of fear for that student and any others who know about it. A good perspective from the article: "Hale's Principal Marni Campbell, who took over the post this fall, is sensitive to the Sheas' case. She's developed a safety plan with the family, and the district has agreed to her request to assign extra security specialists to the school in the short term. ...

This article was in Crosscuts in late September. It's interesting reading and it's worth noting, "The Latino population of Seattle has seen steady growth: from 3.7 percent of the city's inhabitants in 1990 to 5.3 percent in 2000 and 6.3 percent in 2005." "Even these numbers, however, may not display the full magnitude of the demographic change. School district enrollments in the Seattle area show consistently higher percentages of Hispanic students than in the population at large. As of October 2006, 11.3 percent of students enrolled in the Seattle School District were Latino." "Statewide, Latino enrollments are growing faster than any other ethnic group in a large majority of school districts ."

This news comes from Kerry Cooley Stroum, staff member with Communities & Parents for Public Schools (CPPS): All-City School Board Candidate Forum Thursday, October 11 6:30 – 8:30 pm John Stanford Center Auditorium, 3rd & Lander Just as the absentee ballots are arriving in your mailboxes, here’s an opportunity to help you make an informed choice for four school board director seats up for election this year. Join us and hear the School Board candidates discuss their vision and priorities for Seattle Public Schools. The combination of moderation by the Seattle Channel’s C.R. Douglas and our broad group of sponsors should result in lively discussion and an informative forum! Childcare provided. Sponsored by: Alki Foundation Alliance for Education Asian Pacific Directors Coalition Campana Quetzal Community & Parents for Public Schools, CPPS Filipino American Educators of Washington Filipino-American Political Action Group of WA Hate Free Zone League of Education Voters League ...

This article was in today's Times. You can read it yourself and make your own judgments. I do find fault with this statement: "She micromanaged by getting involved in drinking-water-quality issues, he said, then voted against putting a bond measure on the ballot that included millions for the very plumbing problems she wanted fixed." According to my recollection, Raj and staff wanted to do little but provide bottled water (at a high cost). The water quality issue had been a problem for years throughout the district with nothing being done. The issue of voting against the bond measure in terms of water quality is nothing sort of ridiculous. The schools with the worst water quality issues weren't even on the bond. The bond is about remodeling/rebuilding schools. The money for fixing the pipes would come from the BTA and that wasn't on the ballot. Peter Maier, as head of Schools First, knows this very well and it is wrong to make this charge.