Seattle Schools Community Forum

A couple of items of importance have come up on the district's website as well as the agenda for Wednesday night's Board meeting. Parents and community members have a week to apply to be on the High School Boundary Task Force.  

The U.S. Supreme Court decided this week to hear the case of a student who receives Special Education services to sue for services his parents say he did not receive.  Background her e. Basically, What is the level of educational benefit that school districts must confer on children with disabilities to provide them with the free appropriate public education guaranteed by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

In this thread I want to cover:my thoughts on what I believe AL is to become (and why). Part Three will cover: - the Advanced Learning Work Session on Feb. 8th - the UW Equity Summit on Gifted Education, Feb. 9-10 Here's my groundwork on this topic (and you probably have heard me say this before):

Friday, February 24th is the last day for Open Enrollment . SPS sent out this tweet today which came as a surprise to me but perhaps I just missed reading this (bold mine): Open Enrollment ends Fri., Feb. 24, 2017. Forms submitted after Feb. 24 do not receive tiebreaker priorities.  Upcoming key dates Mon., Apr. 17, 2017: Updated Next Year Assignment Information Available Online Wed., May 31, 2017: School Choice for 2017-18 Ends Thurs., Aug. 31, 2017: Waitlists Dissolve

One bill is in Congress and one is in the Legislature.

Seattle Public Library is having an genealogy event this Saturday for African-American families at the downtown central library from 1-3 pm.  The event is free and will be a podcast later on.

Seattle Schools reports on a recent professional development day for substitute teacher around culturally responsive teaching. From NPR, Will Algorithms Erode Our Decision-Making Skills? Something to consider for you and especially, your children. Sure, such computer code aims to make our lives easier, but experts cited in a new report by Pew Research Center and Elon University's Imagining the Internet Center are worried that algorithms may also make us lose our ability to make decisions. After all, if the software can do it for us, why should we bother?