Seattle Schools Community Forum

As we come upon different holidays, I want to wish everyone a safe, peaceful and happy time. The blog will be quiet for this weekend but, as promised, next week I will have posts on issues of "segregation," HCC, and 10,000 foot view of the district. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and Happy Kwanzaa (not to mention the just-passed Winter Solstice.

On the subject of gift giving....

From Ed Week , New York State lifts disciplinary action against teachers who discuss test questions that the state has released. A reader asked about a threat at Ingraham High School in the cafeteria by a student with a backpack.  A staffer asked around and not a single student knows about this.  In this day of phones with cameras and social media, that would seem odd.  I'm thinking someone was trying to stir the pot here.  Don't do that. Last spring, Mayor Murray had his Education Summit.  I was there as were hundreds of other people.  He said this about homeless students in SPS (transcript from the Mayor's office, dated April 30, 2016):

So what's up with this story about Washington Middle School and security cameras in the cafeteria?  From the South Seattle Emerald : (In late November) the principal of Washington Middle School said she thought so, announcing the installation of “video surveillance throughout the school.”   “We intend to identify kids who do not fulfill their clean-up responsibilities,” said Principal Susan Follmer. “Who wants to sit at a crumb-ridden table?” In another e-mail Follmer said:

Worried about what comes next for our country and public education?  Great uplifting words from the Gadfly on the Wall blog Why should we despair when we behold the glass menagerie of fools Trump has assembled to populate his administration? Glass breaks. Why despair when hearing the tired rhetoric of Nazi Germany and the Jim Crow South coming out of his mouth? We defeated both! We can do so again. Yes, we don’t have any political party that supports us. So we’ll either take over the Democrats or build our own legislative network.   “Fate whispers to the warrior ‘You cannot withstand the storm.’ The warrior whispers back ‘I am the storm.’ ” – unknown

A reader recently referenced the high PISA-like scores for students in Bellevue School District; I read about it in the Times via this article: If the Bellevue School District were a nation, its high-school students would rank among the top of the world’s developed nations on an influential international exam.

Update from Politico: Billionaire Betsy DeVos has been unabashed about using her wealth to advance her own agenda. “ We expect a return on our investment,” she once wrote about her family’s massive political contributions. After giving millions of dollars to politicians over the past two decades, she now heads into her Senate confirmation hearing for education secretary with a clear advantage: DeVos and her husband, Dick, have donated to the campaigns of 17 senators who will consider her nomination — four of whom sit on the Senate education committee that oversees the process. end of update Billionaire Betsy DeVos has been unabashed about using her wealth to advance her own agenda. “We expect a return on our investment,” she once wrote about her family’s massive political contributions. After giving millions of dollars to politicians over the past two decades, she now heads into her Senate confirmation hearing for ...