Seattle Schools Community Forum

From SPS: Today I’m pleased to announce that Sarah Pritchett, principal of McClure Middle School, has been appointed as the new Executive Director of Schools for the Central Region. Ms. Pritchett will support the principals and schools in the central region of the city with responsibilities that include coaching principals, coordinating professional development for principals and teachers, strengthening our systems for monitoring and using student data, and conducting frequent learning walks in the schools – all in service of ensuring a world-class, 21 st century education for every child in every classroom in the region. She has been principal at McClure Middle School since 2007, during which time McClure has twice been named a Washington State School of Distinction. Previously, she served as assistant principal at Rose Hill Junior High in Redmond, Washington, as house administrator at Seattle’s Mercer Middle School and as middle school re-entry teacher at S...

From Seattle.gov: Today Mayor Mike McGinn announced five new locations for future school zone speed cameras at locations across Seattle. The existing school zone cameras have led to a combined 16 percent reduction in citations for speeding across the four schools. “The public has been clear that we need to do more to protect children as they travel to and from school,” said Mayor Mike McGinn. “The data shows that the existing cameras are helping improve safety near schools by reducing travel speed and cameras should be installed at additional schools.” “Increasing safety in our school zone and beyond continues to be a high priority for me and for our school community,” said Sherri Kokx, principal of Nathan Eckstein Middle School, a potential location for future school zone traffic cameras. “School zone cameras are one more tool that can help increase safety.” Last fall, the City installed school zone speed cameras in four locations – Broadview-Thomson K-8, Olympic...

Good news from SPS: Four teams from Franklin High School’s Academy of Finance Social Entrepreneurs and Chief Sealth International’s Academy of Finance International Social Entrepreneurs won top prizes June 6 at the Youth Venture Spring Community Showcase in Seattle. Ballard High students in the Video Production Program have received eight nominations in four categories from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for the Northwest High School Awards of Excellence. This makes the seventh year in a row that Ballard High School video producers have been nominated. Last year they received seven nominations and won the categories of Long Form, Fiction and Photographer/Editor. Nova student Hailey Spencer won a National Silver Medal for a science fiction/fantasy story at the regional Scholastic Art and Writing Awards competition.  She will move onto the national competition.  She also won two regional writing awards.  There were also regional ...

Update - Blogger won't cooperate so I'll end now but full wrap-up to come. Blogger is getting wonky so I will start a new thread on it. Bob Ness, the Alliance's favorite facilitator, is leading the Board conversation on the findings. What is the goal for this discussion? Director Carr - commit directionally to some of the recommendations on slides 18 and 22.  (She does not want to "rehash" things. No one else brought up a goal but then Director DeBell spoke up about different concepts of the role of a Board member.  "We won't work together effectively if we don't agree what our role is."  He believes they could be more successful if that happens. (This is a six-month going-forward effort.) President Smith-Blum said that she hoped it was possible to believe each as a valid opinion as any other colleague.  She wants to find consensus around how they move together as a board. Reflections on what they heard: Director Patu - She sees...

I am going to attempt to do some live blogging from the Board's Work Session to evaluate their work. I had wonder how this might go and I already see some unfamiliar faces sitting in the Board waiting area (they look like consultants) and the facilitiator, Bob Ness, that the Alliance likes to use. Quite by coincidence (I'm sure), the Alliance released some study they did on "effective" school boards.   I only read the executive summary but didn't see anything particularly new or striking in the work. The meeting starts in a few minutes so let's see how this goes. The consultants are from a firm on Mercer Island called Mercer Island Group. Everyone is quite jovial. But that seems to be changing when they see the scores they gave themselves on their self-evaluation. On a scale of 1-4, with 2.55 being average, they come in about 2.7. Worst one?  Is the Board working together effectively?  1.3.  And boy, they certainly don't believe someone el...

Here's what inBloom - the "cloud" student data system that the Gates Foundation is setting up says about students: Every student is an individual, with unique knowledge, abilities and learning needs. But the technology used in most K-12 schools today can make providing personalized instruction time-consuming and cumbersome for teachers. Meanwhile, states, districts and educators implementing the Common Core State Standards have set new goals for student learning, and they need effective tools and resources to ensure students meet those goals. Better, more integrated technology and data analytics can help by painting a more complete picture of student learning and making it easier to find learning materials that match each student’s learning needs. Unfortunately, creating the technology infrastructure to do this is often too expensive for most states and school districts. That’s where inBloom comes in. I feel like many parents are out there shrugging....

Here are two utterly compelling and important opinion pieces from the NY Times (thanks to Seattle Citizen for pointing them out). This is important stuff. The first is by Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus called Who's Minding the Schools .   Both are professors and are co-writing a book about math. The second opinion piece is by Claire Needell Hollander, a middle school English teacher. If you have ever worked with students in an academic sense - as a parent, a teacher, a tutor - you will recognize the worry in this piece.   Reading and writing are such personal skills that trying to mold a child's understanding of how to read and write by providing such a narrow focus gives me a lot of worry.  Ms. Hollander's piece is called No Learning Without Feeling . Highlights from Who's Minding the Schools: - Indeed, the first wave of exams was so overwhelming for these young New Yorkers that some parents refused to let their children take the test.   These st...