Seattle Schools Community Forum

Remember all that hair-pulling and finger-pointing when the Washington Supreme Court issued its ruling on the charter school law right before school opened last September? Well, I sat down and watched the interview with Chief Justice Madsen on TVW . (You should watch the whole thing.  She is quietly deferential to the other branches of government and careful about what she says.  The second half of the show was Rep. Matt Manweller and Rep David Frockt talking about the McCleary issue.  Rep. Manweller could not have been more disrespectful to the Court.  It's fine to disagree but if anyone is taking this to a constitutional crisis, it's some in the legislature.) But I digress.  That point I wanted to make was brought up when host, Austin Jenkins, asked about that timing of the ruling? Chief Justice Madsen pointed out the average time for most cases to go thru the Court and that the charter school case was, indeed, about average at 90-120 days. Then she sa...

I attended the Work Session on the City Pre-K last Wednesday.  An alert reader found this at the Seattle Schools' Facebook page just about a day ago. (bold mine) Seattle Public Schools is looking to expand our partnership with the City of Seattle, Mayor Ed Murray , and the Seattle Preschool Program to start up more preschool opportunities for families. In 2014, ‪#‎ Seattle‬ voters overwhelmingly approved an initiative to fund quality preschool throughout Seattle. Since then, SPS' Department of Early Learning and the City's Department of Education and Early Learning have been collaborating to operate three preschool classrooms. Right now, preschool is offered at Bailey Gatzert Elementary School, Van Asselt Elementary School, and Original Van Asselt. So first, when staff speaks of "Seattle Public Schools," doesn't that include the Board?  I'd like clarification on that because that was always my impression.

Public disclosure requests can sometimes yield the oddest things (seemingly not related to your request, no matter how narrowly you tailor it.)  Such is the case with my public disclosure request from OSPI around charter schools. One e-mail in one batch was from sent in late Nov to various people in education from several districts including SPS about a meeting to discuss how to get attract more people of color to  teaching.  The e-mail was from the Gates Foundation's Edie Harding, Senior Program Officer, Pacific NW Initiative about their "DEW" work (Diversify the Educator Workforce.) The one SPS invitee was Karen Harris who is an assistant principal at Beacon Hill Elementary.  (Ms Harris appears to have worked for the Martinez Foundation whose principal mission is to support teachers of color.  The Martinez Foundation has been moved to the Technology Access Foundation.)  I did ask the district if they knew about this effort but no one has answered bac...

Still nothing new on the charter bill front.  As I reported yesterday, there is some last ditch bill - still sans any link/info about it except it appears to be a funding bill for a year - out there.  So what's left? Monday, Feb. 29, 2016 - Last day to read in opposite house committee reports (pass bills out of committee and read them into the record on the floor) from House fiscal committees and Senate Ways & Means and Transportation committees. Friday, March 4, 2016 - Last day to consider (pass) opposite house bills (5 p.m.) (except initiatives and alternatives to initiatives, budgets and matters necessary to implement budgets, differences between the houses, and matters incident to the interim and closing of the session). Thursday, March 10, 2016 - Last day allowed for regular session under state constitution. So if you considered this latest bill as part of the budget, then next Friday would be the last day anything could be done.   The Times...

Here are the latest org charts that I could find for SPS departments (as requested by one reader.)

 Update#3:  The representative who didn't vote on putting 6194 back on the House Ed agenda yesterday was  Rep Sam Hunt, D-Olympia.  Interestingly, Rep Larry Springer, D-Kirkland, who was the co-sponsor of the House version of 6194, voted no.  Apparently he had doubts about the ability for it to hold up in court.  (And I believe that many of those who voted no probably felt the same way.  Once bitten and all that.) But Springer does want charters to go forward but was worried if a second law was overturned, it would doom the whole effort.  He is apparently trying to figure out a way to get local control AND funding AND state authorizations possible as well. As I said before, that's pretty much a whole re-write of the bill.  Is there time for that?  Given the record of those who have been writing these initiatives/bills, I don't think so. By the way, have you gotten your robo-call?  After the third one, I called WSCSA and told t...

From Cascadia Weekly : YOU HAD ONE JOB: With fewer than 20 days left in their short legislative session, a nearly paralyzed state House and Senate in Olympia passed watered-down education funding plans on razor-thin margins divided along extremely partisan lines hours before a cutoff deadline that would have stalled the bills in their houses of origin.