Seattle Schools Community Forum

On gifted education :

 I saw this notice - that the Starbucks at Oak Tree center is closing.   That center continues to have several closed storefronts and one large supermarket that is not well-used.  Interestingly, the movie theater renovated and it's very nice now.  I bring this up because the district owns that land.  I asked legal counsel, Noel Treat, about this and if it might be possible to use that land (it's large) but he says most of the leases run to 2045.

Update 2: The last I heard about SPS and the SEA is that they had not settled at Thursday's negotiations.  Luckily, SPS opens later than other districts so there is still time to avoid a teachers strike in Seattle. SPS' website says nothing so it is frustrating to not see regular updates.

The Gates Foundation tweeted that they are matching donations - by 50% - to donations made today, August 22nd , to teachers' requests on Donors Choose.

This sign - in a Houston middle school that has since taken it down - is akin to the advice that someone at Garfield paid comedian Steve Harvey to tell to Garfield's female population. I heard it didn't go over well at Garfield either.

I'm a little pissy today as the district is a continually frustrating group.  My main issue is two-fold. If I have trouble finding information at the district's website, I can only imagine the difficulty for people who don't know the district (or the less-than-clear manner in which to find links). Second, the lack of timely information. For example, I didn't know that Nate Van Duzer in the Board office got a replacement.  That would have been information that could have easily been put up on the Board's webpage but wasn't.  Here's info on his replacement: