Seattle Schools Community Forum

Suggested e-mail to the Board on this issue with key points; edit at will. If you want the Board AND senior staff to see your e-mail, write to : schoolboard@seattleschools.org If you want ONLY the Board to see your e-mail, write to: spsdirectors@seattleschools.org If you want to sign up to speak at the Board meeting, call at 8 am Monday morning, 252-0040 and follow the prompts or send your email on or after 8am Monday morning to boardagenda@seattleschools.org E-mail suggestion Dear Directors,

So now do I have your attention? I am going to try to channel Ernest Hemingway and write in short, declarative sentences. Send this thread to your PTA/PTO president.  If for no other reason than to notify them because Seattle Schools is NOT going to until it is all a done deal. There is a Board meeting this week on Wednesday, Nov. 4th, starting at 4:15 pm. On the long agenda is this item - Approval of the Student Assignment Plan.   Since the original overhaul of the student assignment plan several years back (dubbed New Student Assignment Plan), there have been various tweaks.  Small ones. But now the staff tried with the Board and is now trying with parents to, basically, sneak in HUGE changes that will affect every single family.  This is what I hope the NEW Board will say, no (and hell no) to.  If the current Board votes yes, it's a vote against transparency and families.  From WSDWG from Friday, October 30th: JSCEE staff slipped this...

Not so many comments but a lot of QAE parents coming in support of Principal David Elliott.  Several of them did manage to speak on QAE via BTA IV and thought acquitted themselves quite nicely.

Good morning (on a gray one).  Tell me, what is your kid going to be for Halloween ?  Probably a good idea to bring an umbrella, according to the weather forecasts. A last-minute (truly) School Board candidate forum has sprung up.  It's Monday, November 2nd from 7:30-9:00 pm at the Queen Anne Community Center (gym.)   It's being organized by the QAE community.  It's fairly late to have one of these but, then again, there are a pitiful number of ballots that have been returned. Out of 419,578 registered voters in Seattle, only 58,428 ballots have been returned with 56,948 waiting to be counted for school board races.  That's under 15%.  Speaking of school board campaigns, Director McLaren's e-mails to supporters say:

Did you know that the district has rank ordered programs/support activities in district buildings ?  The reasoning is two-fold - for enactment of 1351 for smaller class sizes in K-3 and the growth in Seattle Schools.  Here's the list from a letter that Flip Herndon sent on Oct. 13, 2015 to "Seattle Public School Partners:"

I don't know if this effort would be at all worthwhile, but I would really like to see someone try it. Given the presumption and the suspicion that the advanced learning at most ALOs exists exclusively on paper, and that blended Spectrum is no different from an ALO, which is no different from nothing... has anyone ever tried to get their child's teacher or principal to provide evidence of an advanced learning opportunity? What would happen - or, if someone has tried it, what has happened - when a parent or guardian demands evidence that a school is actually providing the advanced learning opportunity that the Board Policy 2190 and the Superintendent Procedure 2190SP requires?

I have heard from parents that assessments have started for some elementary students.  But naturally, parents aren't being informed about this. Seattle Opt-Out. Here's a link to the K-8 assessments. Here's a link to the high school assessments. Some schools still use MAP (except in high school)and some will use Amplify.  One parent said she was told that Amplify was being used for "instructional differentiation."  From the Soup for Teachers page via Erin Kinsells Klones: MAP can potentially be administered three times a year: Sept. 21-Oct. 30, Jan 4-29 and May 9-June 10.  WaKIDS can also be administered, in buildings that have all-day state-funded K, Aug. 1-Oct. 29, Oct. 30-Feb. 14 and Feb. 15-July 31.  This information is available on the District website.  Now the tricky part, the part that concerns us greatly: parents may or may not be informed. Crazy, we know, but that is part of the work we're doing. School admin at your buildin...