Seattle Schools Community Forum

This NPR story is aptly titled, Can More Money Fix America's Schools ? The bottom line to that question is yes BUT no one seems quite sure what is the best bang for the buck and many legislators are loathe to give out extra dollars if there is uncertainty about what to do.  (But more on that in a minute.) That's a super broad question.  Does it mean:

Tuesday, April 26th International School and Dual Language Immersion Programs Meeting Chief Sealth International Schools from 6:00-7:30 pm Seattle Public Schools invites families, community members and staff to share thoughts and ideas on our International School and Dual Language Immersion programs. The district is examining these programs in order to make recommendations about potential changes in the 2017-18 school year. Boundary Change Community Meeting Roosevelt High School from 6:30-7:30 pm Mayor's community conversation on education , hosted by SEA.  Van Asselt Community Center from 5:30-7:30 pm. Mayor's community conversation on education , hosted by SEA.  Northgate Community Center from 5:30-7:30 pm.

Prince was a Jehovah's witness and that faith doesn't allow telling of good acts.  But since he has passed, friends have been speaking out. There were several letters from neighbors left at his home who said they knew it was him who came thru every time their schools in Minneapolis needed help.   He helped start, Yes We Code. Apparently, nearly every concert season, he reached out to communities in need wherever he played. His death is a loss on many levels but losing someone who cared about more than his own career and acted on his beliefs is tragic. 

From Erica C. Barnett (of C is for Crank): Tomorrow, the city council plans to fund nine new legislative assistants, one for each council member, bringing the total number of legislative assistant salaries for each office to four. (Council members can divide up those salaries however they want, for example by hiring multiple part-time aides, but council members' budgets will increase to add the new full-time equivalent position.)  The reason for the change, according to a staff report, is that council members have mor e work to do now that they represent districts, instead of the entire city. (This is the first council under the new system, in which seven council members represent geographic districts, and two are elected at large).  "The additional staff support provided by the new positions in this ordinance will be used to address the increased workload resulting from this switch to district elections," the staff report says. The legislation does...

Mrs. Clinton sat down with Newsday in Long Island for an wide-ranging interview that included the topic of public education.  Her wording was a bit hard to understand so I'm not quite sure I understand all that she is saying.  She has some things wrong (but that was the propaganda of Common Core so I don't entirely blame her.)  But she offers zero solutions and that's troubling. And she has a lot more faith in charter schools than I do but that's another thread. Common Core and Opt Out (this is how Newsday titled this section of the interview)

Clinton hasn't been entirely clear on her position on several K-12 issues but, given she like hedge funders and their money, she probably supports charter schools in some form.  But this comment is a true one.

And speaking of field trips , yet again the district cannot get the smarts to head off situation. Now it's all over the news.  This morning students at Stevens protested outside their school for about an hour.  They were protesting the very abrupt announcement that a long-time tradition of 5th graders going on an overnight field trip was not happening.  This is two weeks before the trip was to happen. The "official" explanation is that the paperwork didn't get to the district in time and, even with an extension, could not get done.