Seattle Schools Community Forum

Thirteen years ago, when I first became an activist in Seattle Public Schools, there were problems with Spectrum. There were three problems: Qualified students could not gain access to the program because the classes were full. There was lively discussion about the student identification process including issues of under-representation of minority students and students from low-income homes. There were significant inconsistencies within the program from school to school and no clear definition of the program.

Subject:  Growth Boundaries: Please provide feedback Dear Seattle Public Schools families: At a School Board work session today, draft attendance area boundaries revisions (Growth Boundaries) for elementary and middle schools will be presented to School Board directors. Student enrollment has increased from 46,000 in 2009-10 to about 51,000 this year, and we project nearly 60,000 students by 2020. We must add capacity and align boundaries to accommodate this growth. Changes for some elementary and middle schools will start for the 2014-15 school year, and others will be phased in over time. High school boundaries will be considered at a future date. There are many implementation and phasing details to be decided. For example, when the new student assignment plan was implemented in 2010, students were “grandfathered” at the school they attended the previous year.  (For example, a student in K in 2009-2010 at school X could remain at school X through the highest g...

First, the headlines: The big winner is K-5 at Boren, soon to be K-8 STEM at Boren. The big loser is Pinehurst K-8, soon to be closed and clearly treated with bad faith. APP breaks even, getting everything expected, most of it where expected, some of it in difficult spaces but with an extraordinary accommodation that should prove very beneficial in the long term. There isn't likely to be much fighting over the boundaries, the fight will be over the transition plan that dictates who goes into interim sites, when, and for how long. With regard to STEM, the District staff showed itself to be surprisingly reasonable and open to discussion. With regard to Pinehurst, the District staff showed itself to be dishonest and downright mean. With regard to the APP sites, the District staff showed itself to be surprisingly thoughtful. With regard to the transition plan the District staff showed itself to be timid, but politically savvy. The Board, at every step, showed itself to be ...

Eligibility testing begins in October for accelerated learning programs Seattle Public Schools provides opportunities for academically advanced students in grades K-8 to qualify for accelerated learning programs. Additional information and application forms for eligibility testing can be found here . Applications are also be available in school offices and in the lobby of the John Stanford Center, 2445 3rd Ave. S. Eligibility testing for the 2014-2015 school year begins in October. Applications are due by Thursday, Oct. 3.

Here's a link to a blog with more information on the activity around Horace Mann, including Twitter feeds you can follow and a Facebook page you can like.

Have at it.

The District migrated to a new enterprise software, PowerSchool. When this was pitched to the Board, they were pretty much told that they had no choice. The company that made the software they were using was bought by Pearson and Pearson stopped support of that program. They offered to help districts making the migration to Pearson's software, PowerSchool, but districts would be on their own if they wanted to move to any other software. PowerSchool would also offer a lot of attractive capabilities that were available as modules, including one that would replace The Source. This is a VERY BIG DEAL. This software collects, tracks, and reports just about all of the information for all students throughout the system. It runs everything - schedules, grades, test scores, medical information, and more. Unfortunately, the roll out of PowerSchool was less than ideal. Users didn't get enough training - some got none. The District didn't get much support from Pearson and the IT de...