Seattle Schools Community Forum

(Update on Wednesday Work Session: Spoke to Joan in the Board office. The Work Session is to be about the Strategic plan as it had been previously bumped by the Integrated planning work. This is a quarterly update on the SP.) Monday afternoon is the Curriculum and Instruction Policy Committee meeting from 4-6:30 p.m. in the Board conference room. The agenda reflects the following topics: alternative schools with Thornton Creek principal John Miner presenting professional development waiver/parent/teacher conference waiver - I believe this is about not making up the days missed due to snow Board policy on school attendance schools of innovation (Susan Enfield) textual materials adoption update course of study discussion newly enrolled students school assignment's (sic) The previously canceled NW Regional meeting on Student Assignment is tomorrow night, Monday, Dec. 13th at Ingraham High from 6:30-8:00 p.m. Tuesday , December 14th is last informal drop-in session on the Tra...

From the blog , " The Adventures of the Kidde Woodward Family" , a SE family's view of the School Reports. It's long but filled with great examples, musings and anguish for what can be done. A few excerpts: First of all: I feel like your relentless reliance on quantifiable data is obscuring some of the things that really matter to me. Now, I know it's important to have specific goals and to track measurable results. But in order to get data tell you anything useful, you have to understand its context. You have to know where the numbers came from, and what their limitations are. You have to ask yourself how (and if) what they're measuring relates to what you think is important. You have to put the data in the service of human connections, experience, and judgment -- instead of the other way around. (bold mine) About South Shore's low scores last year: Do I sound like I'm making excuses? I'm not making excuses. Nor do I mean to imply that...

Okay, husband on a plane, college-age son off in his room, decorating done, so let's humor Charlie and finish the Audit and Finance summary. (This also means for my effort I get to eat some of the Theo's Fig, Fennel and Almond dark chocolate bar.) So I left off with the pending or impending) capital program management audit. Sorry, Charlie but Sherry misunderstood Michael and let Noel Treat leave. No Ethics program review. (Yes, a shame but it was an honest misunderstanding. I realize now that I also misread my notes and this occurred BEFORE the audit review information. I include this so that you know that Sherry Carr DID hear the audit review information.) They were then talking about the i ntegrated planning for the 2011-2012 budget . I didn't get the handouts so this was very hard to follow. The one data point I got was that we are losing $66M from grants not included in the previous budget update. (I do not see this info online; I will try to find it Monday...

FYI, SPS is conducting early enrollment for incoming kindergarteners as well as students who will be new to SPS next fall. Early enrollment started in October and continues thru January 2011. Open Enrollment starts is from March 15-31, 2011 with notifications mailed in May 2011. I note that Queen Anne Elementary is having a couple of kindergarten meet-and-greets, one on December 14th and one on January 5th. These are NOT at the school but at a PTA parents' home so they are limiting it to 40 people. This information comes to us from the Queen Anne View. QA Elementary has a spiffy retro spaceship logo. Please let me know if you hear of any other kindergarten events before the regular January tours start. They have already posted the tour dates for high schools. These vary. A few schools do not have tour dates posted (Hale, Garfield, RBHS). Most are having 2-3 tours with Roosevelt having 1(!) day tour and one evening event.

I did not know this but there is an e-newsletter, Arts eNews (Seattle Public Schools Visual and Performing Arts eNews). In the Dec-Jan issue, there is a survey about arts in SPS. Gotta say, a good newsletter with a LOT of grant funding opportunities for both teachers and students. Here's a link to the e-news page (with a link to subscribe).

Here's what may be happening in K-12 funding: Class size reduction for current year eliminated; schools would lose payments mid-year. Federal "Edu jobs" money absorbed into current state budget. HB 3225 summary HB 3225 bill - Both House and Senate Ways and Means committees will meet Saturday morning; members are expected to move to floor around noon. View via TVW Contact your legislator. In addition to millions in administrative reductions, cuts include: $51 million in across-the-board cuts to state universities $39 million to eliminate K-4 class-size enhancement $9.1 million in planned K-12 education reform activities $27.7 million in Basic Health Plan (freezes coverage and lowers enrollment as people drop off the plan) That federal "edu-jobs" money was to keep teachers in classrooms; it will likely get absorbed into the state's General Fund to off-set cuts throughout the system.

I wasn't able to attend the Integrated Planning Workshop of December 9, but here is the Powerpoint for your review. I just have a few notes on the slides. Integrated Timeline. * I see the annual enrollment report has been pushed out. * I wonder why the Tentative Funding for Schools Set and Tentative Central Office Reductions, which are scheduled for February 11, 2011, appear on the timeline ahead of some January things. * I see that the report to the community on the Budget Survey is scheduled for tomorrow, a Saturday. That's odd. * I see that the introduction for the Board motion on the Transition Plan is scheduled for January 5. That's before they even see the enrollment report or the capacity management report. They vote on the 19th, before they have had much time to consider them. Academic Assurances * Nothing on the whole first slide has anything to do with Academic Assurances. On the second slide only two items address the topic: curriculum alignment...