Seattle Schools Community Forum

There's an article in the Times this morning about IB funding, particularly at Rainier Beach High School.  It reflects a pattern in Seattle Schools that truly has to be addressed.  That pattern is for the district - with a flourish and applause - likes to roll out new and "innovative" programs that are usually wildly popular.  And fund them with seed money and then expect them to continue on (finding the funding themselves.) I truly dislike that the district - and many school boards - like to start programs that they have no idea how to continually fund.  

From the West Seattle blog; Two eighth-grader girls from Denny International Middle School say older boys/men “grabbed and pushed” them on Monday. That’s according to this letter just sent to Denny and Chief Sealth International High School families by Denny principal Jeff Clark (who shared it with WSB) and Sealth principal Aida Fraser-Hammer :

MTSS - Multi Tiered Systems of Support - is a fancy way of describing this practice: Try the standard curriculum with the kids. It will work for most of them. Check to make sure. It won't work for some, so, just for them, try something else that's more their speed. Check to see if that works. If that doesn't work then try something more. Check to see if that works. So why is Seattle Public Schools having such a hard time implementing it?

Not often, but sometimes, newspapers allow their political reporters some free reign and here's one of the best on the current legislative session from reporter Melissa Santos of the News Tribune in Tacoma.   Pretty funny.  (And I'm going to miss Kyle Stokes of KPLU who has the funniest tweets ever. That traitor is moving to Southern California.) Also from the Tribune comes the story that their superintendent, former CAO for SPS, Carla Santorno , has been nominated for a top award, Women in School Leadership, from the American Association of School Administrators.

I know from the Soup for Teachers group that a couple of childcare groups are involved in the fight over the possible closure of up to 19 sites located at SPS sites.  But I have also heard from many concern parents especially around how late they are hearing about this issue, for both themselves and their childcare provider (the former to find childcare and the latter to relocate.)  I also know that there has been some outreach to members of the City Council.  Naturally, parents can reach out to whoever they feel might be able to help but the lines of governance and oversight are fairly clear here.  The City has nothing to do with this issue except, of course, that they, too, want SPS space.  Not exactly neutral parties. My suggestions are to: 1) Go to one of this week's district meetings (see Seattle Schools This Week thread) and hand Dr. Nyland a letter with your concerns.  2) Find like-minded parents at your school and get as many signatures on a...

From the City of Seattle via Catherine Weatbrook who sits on the steering committee for Youth Voice, Youth Choice. What would youth 11-25 do with $700,000 of the City's budget?  Youth Voice, Youth Choice is a new Participatory Budgeting (PB) Initiative from the City of Seattle. PB is a democratic process where community members directly decide how to spend part of a public budget that focuses on engaging people who have not historically been involved in government, budget processes, or represent underserved communities. A new project from the City of Seattle called Youth Voice, Youth Choice, empowers youth ages 11 to 25 to share their ideas at one of six upcoming idea assemblies. From those assemblies, project delegates will be selected from the youth in attendance, and those youth all be coached into creating a high level project descriptions. City-wide, those project ideas will be voted on by the youth in our city. The top vote-getters w...

It's an interesting week at SPS. Monday, January 25th  Understanding the School Budget - presented by the finance team at SPS.  It's at JSCEE from 6-8 pm.  I hope people go to this event because the district is trying to help further understanding of this important subject.  They’ll share helpful information such as: When the 2016-17 school planning dates occur An overview of the budgeting process How funding is determined and schools are staffed, including understanding information around class sizes and the process for parent involvement Also, Elliott Bay Book Company is having an event about becoming an activist for any topic.  It's at 7 pm. Now in When We Fight, We Win : Twenty-First-Century Social Movements and the Activists That Are Transforming Our World (The New Press), longtime social activist Greg Jobin-Leeds joins forces with AgitArte—a collective of artists and organizers—to capture the stories, philosophies, tactics, and art...