Seattle Schools Community Forum

The Board seems super excited about this.  I mean it's great to do this out in a school but 1) it's a Work Session so you'll just be sitting there and listening - there is no public interaction and 2) wish they would do a Board meeting.

Via Twitter:  Congratulations Jasmine Gayles on eclipsing 1,000 career points!  This would be West Seattle High School basketball star , Jasmine Gayles. Have a senior? Have them open a BECU account because then they can apply for these scholarships. Amazon has a number of summer camps/internships for STEM-minded kids of all ages. 

In the Friday Open Thread, I mentioned how difficult it is for students and adults with disabilities during big weather events.   We are going into an election season for City Council that will see many new members.  I urge you to bring this up with candidates - all parts of the city need sidewalks and they need to be ADA accessible. Here are the comments from that thread that I found compelling.

I was listening to KUOW's The Record where they were discussing challenges during the snow days . Jessyn Farrell said that she believes the district and the city should talk more and earlier.

Update: Peters tells me that the AL head job description hasn't been posted yet; what is there is just some old description they have for the job.  As she points out, it is odd that even the old description says nothing about 2E students or even accurately describes the scope of the job. end of update The following is a guest post from former Board Director Sue Peters .  I note that in addition to the departure of head of Advanced Learning, Stephen Martin, SPS is also seeing the exit of Executive Director Kim Whitworth (corrected, my error).

There were 12 NOIs (Notices of Intent) submitted to the Washington State Charter Commission this fall.  I'd be surprised if more than six even submit an application; it's a heavy lift to get done. There were some surprises as I researched each NOI. First surprise? That the two assistant principals at West Seattle High School, Scott Canfield and Garth Reeves, have submitted an NOI.  That would be for Cascade:Midway High School in south King County to start in 2021.  They are getting help via the Washington Charter Schools Association which accepted them for their School Leadership and Design Fellowship.

The state of charter schools in Washington State is uneven at best. Since the original 2012 law was passed for 40 schools in five years, we are now at 12 charter schools.  The first charter school - First Place - closed in a year due to both financial and management issues.  Now, a second charter, Soar Academy in Tacoma, a K-8 school, is closing at the end of this school year, mainly due to Special Education costs. Soar's closure will end the only K-12 continuum of charter schools in the state. And yet, the Seattle Times, a local charter cheerleader, hasn't bothered to cover it.  An oversight? I doubt it. From the News Tribune on Soar's closure: