Seattle Schools Community Forum

Wishing all a merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!

I had meant to try to see t he number of hits at this blog change but I got busy and forgot.  So I missed when it ticked from 11M to now 12,202,580 hits for all its years.  Thank you to all my readers.  (Interestingly, while the U.S. is the #1 spot, Ukraine comes in second.) I note that a group of youth from the NAACP Youth Coalition spoke at this week's Board meeting about racism and inequities in the district.  One student asked why every school didn't have a Race and Equity team.  That is a good question and, at this point, I think they have them in half the schools.  One issue may just be that some schools may be dragging their feet because of the need to find people who will serve and really do the work.  But for staff who already seem to work fairly hard, it may be one more district directive that they don't have the time or support to fulfill even if it is for the best of reasons. There is the briefest of stories on KUOW about the Hamilto...

First up, Hamilton International Middle School . It was reported to me that a couple of days ago a student in a class took video of his teacher warning students about not supporting a certain, very popular YouTube channel because the channel and the ones it retweets to its 75 million (yes, million) followers can be (looks at list): racist, homophobic, mysogynistic, and anti-Semitic.  The video has had nearly 2M views. I also heard that there were reported bomb threats to the school and police came out, either today or yesterday.   I have calls into SPD and SPS but mum's the word so far. Update from SPD: I can tell you that officers were called to Hamilton yesterday shortly after noon for a threats call by school staff. Officers documented the incident after interviewing staff, but you will need to contact Seattle Public Schools for any further details.  From SPS: The ensuing responses from other social media users included some negative comments and l...

District enrollment and school tours information here. What do most speakers at tomorrow night's Board meeting want to talk about? Approval of the Student Assignment Transition Plan for 2019-20 as it pertains to Graham Hill's Montessori program I'll have a separate thread on this one because there are some notable issues.  From NBC News: While teenage girls attempt suicide more often than teenage boys, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention , boys are more likely to die by suicide. From Education Week:

The biggest news this week is the report from NPR on the first outcomes from the later start for high school students in SPS.  

Five SPS teachers won Symetra awards .  From SPS Communications :