Seattle Schools Community Forum

There was an editorial and an article in the Times today of interest. The editorial , titled Education: Congress Needs a Clear Plan, Not a Blank Check , refers to the $23B Congress had planned to send to states for emergency public school aid. Arne Duncan says that 100,000 to 300,000 education jobs are at risk (includes support staff). The choice is keep teachers or increase class sizes. The Democrats are sponsoring this measure in both house of Congress and the Republican response is that throwing more money at a problem without seeing results from previous money spent isn't the answer. Ground zero is California with a $19B budget deficit. Their school budget ends summer school, music and art classes, bus routes, days in the school years and teachers. The Times seems to feel that there aren't going to be that many teachers laid off (maybe not in Washington state but what about elsewhere?). They rightly point out this will increase the national debt. I would give cr...

I did not attend the Board meeting but did watch some of it from home. (I taped it but naturally got the wrong station for the first 30 minutes.) I only got the tail end of the public comment period. But there were two interesting comments. One was by Jane Fellner who is a long-time parent advocate in this district. She was telling the Board that Garfield is going to be overloaded next fall. She had looked at the enrollment data and they are getting 200 more students than the functional capacity. She said that Garfield would love to share its program with as many students as possible but that truly, the building does have a capacity. (This got commented on later. See Board member updates below.) Another was the ever-smart Meg Diaz who, once again, made an impact. (And Meg, help me out here to flesh out what you said.) What really stuck with me is her determination to make the Board understand that Central Administration has not cut back all that much and the data proves he...

From Dan Dempsey: Today, June 4, 2010, union members of Sanislo Elementary voted “ no confidence ” in the Seattle School District Superintendent. They approved the following motion by a vote of 18 to 1 with no abstentions.

This update from the SPS website: The Bilingual Family Center is relocating to the John Stanford Center. The BFC's last day at Aki Kurose Middle School will be June 22, 2010. They will reopen at the John Stanford Center on June 28, 2010. Reminder: Waiting for Superman , the ed reform documentary, plays tonight at 7 p.m. and tomorrow at 1 p.m. at the Seattle Int'l Film Festival Cinema ( on Mercer just next to the NW Ballet). I checked and there are only rush tickets left (meaning if people holding tickets don't show up, they will let you in). This means a big interest in this topic so I'll be interested to see the reaction in the theater. Open Thread - what's on your mind? End of school fever? (Also to note, the publicity about the Superintendent's review is higher than for any other review I have ever seen. The rally before the Board meeting seemed to peak the TV stations' interest as well as the teachers' vote of no confidence at Ballard. Yes,...

Charles Mudede, a writer for the Stranger, reported that his 8-year-old daughter was removed from her APP classroom at Thurgood Marshall and placed in a non-APP classroom at the school because a hair care product she was using purportedly sickened the teacher. I won't make conjecture about anyone's motivations here, but I have to believe that there could have been another resolution than removal from APP. The weird thing about this - other than everyone feeling the need to lawyer up - appears to be how uninformed school officials appear to be about the situation. Reports about the situation are thin.

Roosevelt principal Brian Vance sent home a letter to parents about the rape at Roosevelt (it is also posted online). I plan to write a detailed thread about this incident because it raise a lot of issues that all parents should understand about what can and can't happen in our schools. It may inspire us to tell our legislators to change notification laws. But to address this letter, I have a continuing troubled feeling here. On the one hand, the district was very clear, in its statement to the press, that the school knew of this student but did not tell the district. (The law requires the Sheriff's office to notify the school, not the district. Dumb? Yes.) My first reaction, because I worked with Brian for two years when I was co-president of the RHS PTSA, is that there is no way Brian wouldn't have done due diligence on this work. He is a good principal, a decent man and a detail-oriented person. I find it very hard to believe he overlooked telling the district ...

I was just told of a straw poll, not an official staff survey nor an SEA staff survey , but just a poll of Franklin High staff about Dr. Goodloe-Johnson's effectiveness as a superintendent. 27 Yes (no confidence) 1 No 2 Abstained 2 Blank ballots I wonder how many other schools may gain confidence from these couple of schools willing to stick their necks out.