Seattle Schools Community Forum

SoulNerd writes about Mary Bass . Is she an insightful and effective advocate or is she an ineffective objectionist?

The OSPI has released the WASL pass rates for the tests taken in the Spring of this year. In general, the results are not good. Of the 48 different pass rates for the high schools (12 high schools with a reading, writing, math and science pass rate for each), 33 of them are down and only 15 of them are up. And 6 of those 15 are in science, which is still in the early growth phase. Areas of particular concern are the schools in the Southeast Education Initiative. All four pass rates for Rainier Beach High School were down, some down sharply. Rainier Beach has the lowest pass rate for all of the high schools in three of the four categories. I don't know what the accountability goals were for Rainier Beach around WASL pass rates, but there is no way that the school met the goals. Cleveland high school saw an increase in two of the four pass rates - for math and science. Of course they are still next to last in reading (only RBHS is lower), next to last in math (only RBHS is lower), an...

September's not long away now. We're wondering what concerns are crowding your thoughts as you prepare to launch projects or put children into school, or both. What's on your personal agenda for the fall? What challenges are you facing? What issues and concerns are often in your thoughts? Carolyn Adolph KUOW | 206.221.0746 publicinsight@kuow.org

A couple of education news items in today's Times. First, a big whoops. Looks like the contractor remodeling Hale doesn't think it rains much in the summer. "About 18 classrooms at Seattle's Nathan Hale High were damaged Monday when rain came through tarps covering a part of the roof that's under renovation. The extent of the damage is still being assessed, but school is expected to open on schedule, said district spokesman David Tucker. Hale is in the middle of a major renovation project, set to run through 2011." Now, obviously, it would appear the contractor is liable but you'd be surprised the number of times the district has lost in arguments with contractors and sub-contractors about these kinds of things. I'll have to see if the district loses any money on this one. The second article was about an early-learning center in White Center that is getting an infusion of money from the Gates Foundation. From the article by Times' repo...

This interesting op-ed appeared in today's Seattle Times. I didn't know but apparently the IDEA regulation for special ed to be provided to kids in both public and private schools did not extend to religious private schools. And, Superintendent Dorn is set to change that and will have a public hearing for comments on it. I don't want to see anything to bring religion into public school classrooms but this is giving a service to a student who needs it. For me, if we pay for services for kids in a secular private classroom, we should pay for students in a religious classroom. (And this becomes a bit more complicated because the Supreme Court recently ruled that a student does not have to enroll in public school first before choosing to move to a private school where the services have to be paid for by the school district.) However, I did read the Comments section and agreed with this: "I find it ironic that those who discriminate, like not hiring qualified teacher...

The School-Family Partnership Advisory Committee met last night. Among the topics we discussed was a new Vision for the Committee. Membership In addition to the individuals who volunteer and serve on the Committee we would like to see the Committee have members who are delegates from the various advisory and advocacy groups in the District. Groups like the Seattle Council PTSA, the Special Education PTA, the GLBTQ Advisory Committee, the APP Advisory Committee, the Spectrum Parent Advisory Panel, the Migrant Education Parent Advisory Council, the Native American/Alaskan Native Advisory board, the Alternative Education Committee, CPPS, Powerful Schools and all of the others. There are a lot of them. In case you're thinking that this would be a pretty big committee with 30-40 people, yes, I think it would. We need that many to be representative and we will need that many to do more work. Purpose There are a lot of things that the District does that they want - and need - to engage th...

The District is moving forward with the customer service initiative in the Strategic Plan, "Excellence for All". Like everything else the District does, this is all about accountability. As you know, accountability means having objectively measurable goals and assessing performance relative to those benchmarks. Now they need people - lots of people - to make those assessments. They need people to act as secret shoppers to check and report compliance with the customer service protocols. It's not a big commitment - a few minutes of training, a few minutes of asking for service and a few minutes to report on your experience. Did the staff respond promptly? courteously? correctly? If you're willing to be one of the army of hundreds of secret shoppers they need to assess the standard of customer service in the District, please contact Bernardo Ruiz at bjruiz(at)seattleschools.org.