Seattle Schools Community Forum

I've seen an interesting invitation to an event sponsored by Stand for Children. Its title is "Help Stand for Children Move Education Reform Forward" and it is scheduled for tomorrow night. The recommended donation is $250 (gulp) but all donations are welcome. It is being held at a private home with the speakers being Dr. Goodloe-Johnson and Rep. Reuven Carlyle. Here is the stated "goal" but I couldn't say if it is the goal of the evening, the goal of Stand or the goal of Dr. Goodloe-Johnson and Rep. Carlyle: Our Goal; With your help, we can build the political influence necessary to elect education reform champions and advocate for policies to improve performance in our public schools. Now there's a mouthful. Is it Dr. Goodloe-Johnson's job to attend private fundraisers to exert political influence? What is an "education reform champion"? And, lastly, is the inference that the current leadership in SPS is NOT advocating for polic...

Discuss anything. Starting topic: anybody attend the Board meeting and/or any Board member community meetings today?

I'm not sure what this means and I'm not sure what community engagement was involved (if any), but according to a press release: Superintendent Maria L. Goodloe-Johnson, Ph.D., has announced the designation of Chief Sealth High School as the district's first international high school, completing a K-12 international program pathway in West Seattle that reinforces Seattle Public Schools' commitment to international education. Here's the whole press release: Seattle – Superintendent Maria L. Goodloe-Johnson, Ph.D., has announced the designation of Chief Sealth High School as the district’s first international high school, completing a K-12 international program pathway in West Seattle that reinforces Seattle Public Schools’ commitment to international education. In 2009, Concord Elementary and Denny Middle – both in the same attendance area as Chief Sealth – received International School designations. Now all three schools will offer major components of an internation...

Seattle Public Schools has scheduled two community meetings to provide information about how schools are funded and strategies to close the funding gap for the 2010-11 school year. The district will also seek feedback on plans to address the shortfall. In addition, families are invited to share their ideas on what SPS programs and services are most important for them to have protected as the district begins to address a projected $26 million budget gap for the 2011-12 school year. Interpreters will be available at both community meetings, which will include a question-and-answer session. The meetings will be Saturday, April 17, from 1 to 3 p.m. at Aki Kurose Middle School, 3928 Graham St., and Tuesday, April 20, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at Roosevelt High School, 1410 N.E. 66th St.

Hello I know many of you are involved with this. I was wondering if we could get some clarity about who is involved with who and what each group is trying to accomplish. I know there was a post about this acouple of weeks ago, but it is time for an update. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/education/2011532748_schoolscoalition06m.html

There are a couple of interesting Board meetings this week. Wednesday the 7th - Board Work Session on Infrastructure and Maintenance from 4-5:30 pm Sadly, I will be unable to attend this one. If anyone else is able to attend, please take notes and let us know what is said. After that meeting is the regular Board Meeting at 6:00 p.m . The agenda will likely be available Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning. Thursday, the 8th - Audit and Finance Committee Meeting from 4-8(!) pm. There must be a lot on the agenda here. Again, I can't be there but I hope someone can attend at least part of this one because there must be a lot of important items to be discussed for it to be this long. Director Meetings on Saturday the 10th: Director Carr - 8:30-10 am Director DeBell - 9-11 am Director Smith-Blum - 10:30-noon See their webpages for sites. Also, Mayor McGinn and Estela Ortega, the Executive Director of El Centrol de la Raza, will be hosting a community caucu s on the Mayor's Youth ...

Here's something that I don't really get: How will the District spend $3.1 million on Performance Management? I mean, where will the money go? Will it be spent on computers? on salaries? on consultants? When I think about Performance Management doesn't it just come down to supervisors doing meaningful performance evaluations of their employees? Why does that cost $3.1 million? I know that it shouldn't cost anything and that it should already be happening, but even if it isn't happening now, why does it cost money - and so much money - to make it happen? I know that a lot of the Performance Management work is misguided and has been misdirected into evaluating schools - an absurd idea - and that this somehow requires the collection and dissemination of data, but why does that cost $3.1 million? Don't we already have that data? How much could it cost to upload it to a database and run a few queries? I've seen the school scorecards (still in their draft state) a...