Seattle Schools Community Forum

Kelly Aramaki, the award-winning principal at John Stanford International School, is leaving at the end of the school year to move to Beacon Hill International School.  From a letter to parents: It’s with this utmost admiration and confidence I have in this school community that I have decided that the timing was right for me to leave the school at the end of this year in order to help our district continue to grow and strengthen international education. About one month ago, Dr. Susie Murphy, the principal who led the transformation of Beacon Hill Elementary School into Beacon Hill International School (BHIS), announced to her school community that she was retiring. BHIS is now in its third year as an international school with Mandarin and Spanish immersion programs up to 2 nd grade. Dr. Murphy and the dedicated staff at BHIS started something very exciting for a student population very different than ours; 65% of the students qualify for free and reduced lunch and 40% of the...

Today sees both the Work Session on Capacity Management and the regular Board meeting . The Capacity Management Work Session starts at 4 p.m.  These are the supporting documents. Presentation Timeline - with dates about BEX IV starting in October of this year Model Changes Sample Metrics - look! a matrix of metrics (say that fast three times) Look at the Presentation because there's a definition of Functional Capacity (collect 'em all) AND why it fluctuates.  According to the 2011 Capacity and Enrollment numbers, the district is at 97% capacity utilized with K-5 at 104%. The Board meeting starts at 6 p.m. The Board meeting looks like it could be shorter than usual with a lighter-than-usual agenda.   The public testimony list is full.  The Teaching and Learning update will be presented by Cathy Thompson on ICS and Inclusion.  I note that 6 of the speakers on the public testimony list will be speaking on the ICS program.  As previously...

Updates:  first, I was wrong about the grant money for the purchase of MLK, Jr. bldg to First AME Church as partially coming from the Department of Commerce (where Fred Stephens now works).   I had gone off of a news report and did not double-check it myself.  It turns out it is a state fund that formerly had "commerce" in its name ( not the federal Department of Commerce) and there was my confusion.  My apologies.   Also, the KING 5 story says that someone in the community is going to the Auditor.  As of this date, only I have filed a request for them to look into it.  If you want an audit of this sale, fill out the form here at the State Auditor's website.   Keep in mind, I feel certain the sale is a done deal BUT it may be a good idea to make sure everything was done properly.  We don't know precisely how Fred Stephens recused himself, if it was just something verbal, then he may have felt justified in receiving update e-mails on the...

Part two of KUOW's series on the Pottergate backstory aired this morning.  Again, just riveting.   And again, you can read the transcript but the audio is better. More backstory in case you missed it is that one of the central early warnings was not just the Sutor Report but that the Daily Journal of Commerce, two years ago, was courted by the district itself to do a story on the Small Business Works.  In doing work for the story, the reporter had found out about the Sutor Report.  That, of course, changed the story. In the story, Lee Newgent, the Executive Secretary of the Seattle Building and Construction Trades Council, raised several issues among them: "Giving out work to construction firms that didn't have construction licenses, wage violations, not doing any criminal background checks [or] fingerprinting of their employees while working with children."   He also stated that somewhere down the line " there are going to be criminal indic...

The Board had a half-day retreat last Saturday with all the directors in attendance.   Others in the room included Noel Treat, head legal counsel, Holly Ferguson, director of policy and governance, Susan Enfield, superintendent, Karen Reed, consultant, Theresa Hale, School Board office administrator.  (There was to be someone from the Alliance but she didn't show.  This was somewhat disturbing to me because even though the Alliance states they now want to guide SPS policy, I have no idea why the Board thinks this should be so.) Michael DeBell and Sherry Carr have been the lead directors around this work.  This work is slated to be finished and voted on by the Board by May./June 2011.   Karen Reed led and guided the discussion. This retreat was around revisions/additions to core policies around the Governance and Oversight Policy .  Basically, what is the work that the Board does?  Namely: Board Oversight of Management - purpose, oversigh...

Recently, Arne Duncan, the Department of Education Secretary, said that under the current NCLB law, almost 80% of our schools would be labeled failing.  From the AP via the Times today, here's what President Obama said: "That's an astonishing number," he said. "We know that four out of five schools in this country aren't failing. So what we're doing to measure success and failure is out of line."

Let's go back to last Friday when the district was hosting a "summit" with the super-peppy name of "School Improvement Superstars Summit." I asked the district some questions and here are the answers. What was the goal? The goal is to share the best practices that have led to improvements in student achievement in Title I schools so that other schools/students can benefit from those best practices. What was the cost? The event was funded with nearly $1,000 of Title One money. The coffee and rolls for about 130 participants was $646. The rest was for binders and printing. Why was it free to participants? Again the purpose is staff development, which we believe is an important component of ensuring a well-trained employee workforce, and the cost was covered by Title I. Why did this event have its own website? The website was created by a consulting teacher working in the grants office as part of her workload and as part of her own professional developme...