Seattle Schools Community Forum

So I'm reading the Times online and see this story about the first levy elections after the Simple Majority passed. This will be happening in Snohomish county (and probably some others) in Feb. In a way, it's not a real first test because it will also occur the same time as the presidential primary which is likely to have high voter participation. Here's an interesting thing to keep in mind about the changeover (from the Times' article): "Snohomish County adopted all-mail voting in January 2006, but it didn't take effect until the September primary, making the seven districts the first to run finance measures under the all-mail vote. When Thurston County changed to all-mail voting in 1993, one of the first casualties was school-finance measures, said Auditor Kim Wyman. Instead of running one campaign, which often consisted of mailings and phone calls to supporters on the eve of the election, Wyman said districts had to shift to running campaigns timed to ...

This was in our student bulletin at RHS: "NEW APPROVAL PROCESS FOR ANY OUT OF DISTRICT COURSEWORK - Students who want to take ANY courses outside of Roosevelt for which they want credit towards Roosevelt graduation requirements, whether through BYU Distance Learning, Dartmoor, ETC or EA2, summer programs at UW or at Georgetown, take note: There is a new district policy which takes effect immediately, requiring students to get documented approval from their counselor and fill out paperwork PRIOR to enrolling in the course. " This kind of follows up on Charlie's questions about getting math/language credit in high school for middle school work. Looks like some new district policy has taken effect.

This article appeared in Monday's PI about the new mini-libraries in every K-2 classroom in Seattle. The plan is to extend it to 3, 4, and 5th grades. This from the article: "The libraries aren't intended to replace regular school libraries but complement them. The hope is that students' interest in reading will be sparked by the classroom libraries and, in turn, circulation at school libraries will get a boost, Coles said." A couple of things I had wondered about: -from the article: "Thanks to new libraries installed in each Seattle kindergarten, first- and second-grade classroom this fall, Meisner and her peers have instant access to hundreds of books, each labeled with a letter from A to Z to indicate its level of difficulty." Who determines an "R" versus an "S"? Isn't that a pretty detailed level of difficulty? What staff member has this job and who labels all the books? - I hadn't heard about it being extended to 3...

From a CPPS e-mail today: How High Should We Set the High School Graduation Bar? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Are our children getting a world-class education to prepare them for 21st century life after high school? The WA State Board of Education wants to hear your thoughts as they review high school graduation requirements for the first time in 22 years. Background information/presentations will be provided to help inform this critical discussion. Join this important community conversation: Wednesday, December 4 6 - 8 pm North Seattle Community College College Center Bldg Cafeteria 9600 College Way North The WA State Board of Education will use feedback from this meeting and from community meetings across the state to define the purpose of the high school diploma and to draft recommendations for new high school graduation requirements. The outcomes will be shared with the public in spring 2008 with another round of community outreach meetings pre-finalization. For...

There are a couple District Policies regarding advisory committees, E08.00 and E08.01. E08.01 requires the appointing entity to respond to the recommendations from an advisory committee within three months. The Superintendent is the appointing entity for most advisory committees, and a number of them make their reports and recommendations at the end of the school year. If a committee made their report and recommendations in July, the Superintendent's response was due in October. The Superintendent, however, has yet to make some of these responses. They are a month overdue and approaching two months overdue. There are, of course, a number of legitimate reasons that the Superintendent's response might be delayed - new Superintendent, new program managers, various outside evaluations, etc. Just the same, I would think that professionalism, courtesy, and respect would dictate that the Superintendent get in touch with these committees with an apology for the delay, an explanation fo...

So I'm watching the local news one night and, at the end, there's Ken Schram. He's a newsman (to some degree) and he basically gets to do a semi-rant about whatever politicians/leaders do that bug him. To those he really disagrees with or whose actions he finds ridiculous, he gives out a statue dubbed the Schramie. So who did he give one to this week? None other than our director of Equity and Race Relations , Caprice Hollins. He was upset about her sending a letter to teachers about Thanksgiving saying it was a time of grieving for some Native Americans and shouldn't be cast in a rosy glow. Okay, first when the first Thanksgiving did occur, there was obviously some outreach between the settlers and the Native Americans. (Before and after we became a country? Obviously, the way Native Americans were treated was a complete disaster on so many levels you'd have to be an idiot not to get that.) It seems like you could take Thanksgiving in the light of which it ...

The implementation of the school closures has been quiet compared to the discussion of the plan. Personally, the only impact I have seen has been some new children in Pathfinder who came because their previous West Seattle elementary schools closed. But I have been wondering about the schools and families more directly impacted, and would love to hear from families and teachers at those schools about what it has been like this year. The Seattle PI today, has a piece that tracks the numbers: After 5 schools closed, 157 students left Seattle district , which certainly gives a partial picture of the impact, especially financially for the district. But I want to know more. Stories anyone?