Seattle Schools Community Forum

As of 6:00 p.m. on 11/13, Simple Majority is ahead by 6,000 votes. Stay tuned!

There is this apparently innocuous item on the Board agenda for this week. It is titled " School Transformation Plans " and appears to be another of those routine administrative tasks that state law requires of the Board, such as approving all warrants, the personnel report, and certifying that new construction won't exacerbate segregation. Here's the language of the actual motion: " I move that the Seattle School Board approve the method of review of school transformation plans outlined by the Chief Academic Officer, accept the Chief Academic Officer’s certification that each school in the District has complied with WAC 180-16-220, and approve the schools within the District. " It appears that the Board is doing three things here: 1. Approving a method used by the CAO to review School Transformation Plans 2. Accepting the CAO's certification that there is a plan for every school and that every school's plan complies with the requirements of a state ...

Dan Dempsey sent me a link to a very interesting article in the New York Times on children's behavior and learning: Bad Behavior Does Not Doom Pupils, Studies Say . I found the whole article fascinating, but my favorite quote was: “I think these may become landmark findings, forcing us to ask whether these acting-out kinds of problems are secondary to the inappropriate maturity expectations that some educators place on young children as soon as they enter classrooms,” said Sharon Landesman Ramey, director of the Georgetown University Center on Health and Education, who was not connected with either study. One of the reasons I love my daughters' school (Pathfinder K-8), is because the teachers have appropriate maturity expectations for the children in their classes. The expectations are not low --- in fact I think they are quite high --- but they are appropriate and grounded in research on what is developmentally appropriate for small children. For example, the kids in the Bat...

I just checked the latest election results , and the "Yes" votes now only trail the "No" votes by 2620 votes. I'm betting that when all the King County results are counted, the initiative will pass. See the Simply Better Schools website for updates and information.

From the SPS Schoolbeat newsletter: The Seattle Council PTSA invites the community to its general membership meeting Monday, November 26. Tracy Libros, Enrollment and Planning Manager, Seattle Public Schools, will share the District’s plans for the next phase of the new Student Assignment Plan . Also, guest speaker Ortencia Santana, membership chair of the Beacon Hill PTA, will share some of Beacon Hill’s approaches to increasing family involvement in multicultural communities. Santana has been recognized on a statewide level for her accomplishments in family involvement. Child care and language interpreters will be provided at the meeting. For more information, contact the Council’s office at (206) 364-7430 or e-mail info@seattlecouncil ptsa.org > Seattle Council PTSA General Meeting Monday, November 26 6:30 - 7 p.m. – informal networking 7 - 9 p.m. – general meeting John Stanford Center 2445 Third Ave. S.

From the SPS Schoolbeat newsletter: The formal swearing-in ceremony for these Peter Maier, Sherry Carr, Steve Sundquist and Harium Martin-Morris is scheduled for Wednesday, November 28, 6-7 p.m. in the auditorium at the John Stanford Center. All are welcome. The first meeting of the newly elected Board is Wednesday, December 5. Carr, Maier, Martin- Morris and Sundquist will join Directors Michael DeBell (District 4); Mary Bass (District 5); and Cheryl Chow (District 7). Wednesday, November 14 will be the last meeting at which the current Board will preside. About 7:30 p.m., the Board will take a short break for refreshments and to allow outgoing Board members Dr. Brita Butler-Wall, Darlene Flynn, Sally Soriano and Irene Stewart to be honored for their dedicated service to the students of Seattle. From the PI: "House Joint Resolution 4204 has netted 690,580 votes statewide, or 49.9 percent, according to the Secretary of State's Office. There are an estimated 178,168...

I organized a parent education night at Roosevelt and we had, as our first speaker, a parent who is also a psychologist that specializes in teens and electronic addiction. It turned out to be less of a talk and more a guided discussion. It was great because many of us had the same issues about video games, ipods, cell phones and internet use (interestingly, tv never came up). The point was raised that our children have been born into an electronic world and never known differently (unless they were Amish - even kids without computers in their homes encounter them at school). For them, these items are like appendages. What is troubling to me is the long-term ramifications of some of the uses of these items. If you own a cell phone (or your child does), there is also likely a camera in it. Anyone can be shot anywhere at anytime doing almost anything and zip! There it goes up on a blog or MySpace or Facebook. And once it's on the Internet, it may be impossible to know wher...