Seattle Schools Community Forum

There will be a Work Session today from 4-5:30 pm that could be of some interest as it covers a variety of topics.  It's the Oversight Work Session on Coordinated Health, Safety & Security  (Coordinated Health and Safety & Security are two different presentations).  This is Pegi McEvoy's area and she tends to be fairly straight-forward so at least there's a fighting chance of understanding the presentation. I do have to wonder, though,  at the ability of staff to cover such large presentations AND allow for questions from the Board. As usual the S.W.O.T. page has the most intriguing information  (that would be Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats/Risks).  From the Coordinated Health presentation:

If you blinked, you might have missed it. The Times does some really weird thinking on how long they allow education opinions/op-eds to stay (1) on their front page of their website and (2) on the Opinion page of their website.  I've seen some stay for just a day, some for a week or more and some, you cannot find even if you search. This one is a bit of a record as it was just there this morning on their front page webpage and now it's not. But, of course, the Times wants the NCLB waiver issue to run to their view and this, well, doesn't. In fact, President Sharon Peaslee, rather than arguing the rightness or wrongness of having the waiver, does the opposite.  She talks about how one score will not achieve better outcomes for anyone. And, she's right. She even puts in a throwdown to Common Core, saing that Common Core should be "decoupled" from high-stakes testing.  But, it's not because Common Core is bad:: The testing is putting the Common...

And guess what?  These numbers are different from previous ones. Yes, we all know that forecasting numbers is not an exact science but we all also know how many times SPS has gotten it wrong.  Very wrong.  Tell me again why we should put faith (not to mention tax dollars) into these forecasts? And again, why are these numbers kind of weird to begin with?  Most projections are generally round numbers (with a + or - projection).  It's almost like someone feels they can get it down the the last student and it's just not possible to do so. Of course, these numbers come out conveniently before tonight's Wilson-Pacific meeting.

The Seattle International Film Festival Opens this week.  They have some great programming for families in their Films4Families section and FutureWave section for teens (note: some of this section's programming is for mature teens - check out the films before you send them off).  Anyone attend a Director community meeting this weekend?  What's on your mind?

Here's something that happens when you move: you handle all of your stuff and you have to ask yourself if you should keep it, sell it, gift it, or toss it. You handle ALL of your stuff. For me, that meant a lot of handouts that I have received from Seattle Public Schools at meetings over the past fourteen years. Among these documents were a number of supposedly important decisions the District had made about Advanced Learning. They included a copy of the bound report "Review of Highly Capable Programs 2000-2001" which was the genesis of my activism. Three different versions of the report from the Second Highly Capable Review delivered the following year complete with recommendations. A March 24, 2003 letter from Dr. June Rimmer to all fifth grade families clarifying that only programs with self-contained classes are Spectrum and those without self-contained classrooms will be designated as A.L.O.s. A description of the accreditation process that all advanced learning pr...

There was a story in the Wall Street Journal on May 3 about Race to the Top grants that casts them in a rather dim light. A number of grant winners did not actually move forward with the promised reforms and a number of the reforms did not actually provide any positive outcomes. Surprise, surprise, surprise. A lot of this might be just the usual government incompetence and the hit-or-miss range of results from innovation, a good deal more of it is the result of politics taking precedence over pedagogy. That works just fine in legislation and grant documents but not so well in classrooms. Here are a few noteworthy quotes from the article: "Rick Hess, director education-policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington think tank, worries that some policies, such as some of the new teacher evaluation systems, might unravel because they were 'half-baked' and passed simply to win cash. "The 'problem with bribing states to do thin...

From Seattle Neighborhood Greenways, some stats on the Bike to School Day: Stats from Walk.Bike.School for May 7 2014 Bryant K-5                            200+ Whittier K-5                          155 Alki ElementaryK-5            150 Salmon Bay K-8                 136 Laurelhurst K-5                  121 McDonald K-5                    120 Stevens K-5                        101 JSIS K-5                                91 Pacific Crest K-5                 70 Eckstein 6-8         ...