Seattle Schools Community Forum

Via Facebook: Through this survey , the Washington State Professional Educator Standards Board is currently seeking feedback on the first draft of the revised cultural competency, diversity, equity and inclusion educator standards.  The PESB will share the input they collect with their technical advisory workgroup. It will be used as a resource for how the standards can continue to be strengthened to better support student and community needs.    Community engagement is vitally important to inform the future of equity in educator standards. To ensure that every voice is heard, we are prioritizing opportunities for the public to engage throughout all phases of the initiative.    Through this survey, we are currently seeking feedback on the first draft of the revised CCDEI educator standards. The input we collect will be shared with our technical advisory workgroup and used as a resource for how the standards can continue to be strengthened to better support stud...

There is a story at KING 5 News announcing that Mayor Jenny Durkan and Superintendent Brent Jones have signed an letter of intent to move ahead on revamping Memorial Stadium. And, this would be tied to the passage of BTA V next February 2022. It would also be tied to a possible school on top of where the Battery Street tunnel was (and that's whole other post). KING 5 gets the amount on BTA V wrong - the $66.55M is just for renovating Memorial Stadium; the overall ask for the entire levy is $765M. Yet another issue is the revamping of Seattle Center and the future of The Center School. The City has said the planning would include The Center School but with a renovation may come more leasing costs to the district. So we have two lame duck leaders making a huge decision that affects a key area of the city.  I'll pause here to say this one thing in four words - Queen Anne High School. The high school was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985 and was an of...

  October 22, 2021 The Seattle Education Association is the voice for educators and our students, standing united to address the needs of our community and to transform our district into an anti-racist school system where every student thrives. Via an SPS parent, Special Education Students Need Structure and Stability- Not Disruption Last week, special education staff in about forty different schools were informed that special education positions would be cut due to lower-than-projected enrollment in special education programs. Many of these educators raised concerns about how the district determined these cuts and reached out to their supervisors and/or administrators to ask questions. Their supervisors and administrators did not respond or they directed educators to contact Dr. Torres. There appears to be significant confusion within SPS administration about what is going on with special education staffing.

  Folks, it would appear that either Director Chandra Hampson either learned nothing about being humble from the Scarlett/Al-ansi episode OR she is doubling down before her being president of the Board ends in December. (And if that doesn't happen via a 6-0 vote, then they are ALL insane.) First, just to note, tomorrow night will be the first in-person Board meeting in a long, long time. I'm glad to see it as I think the Board should have to look the public in the eye. I'm hoping that we do not see an influx of board meeting instigators such as we have seen around the country, yelling about masking and CRT.  (To note, there is no actual announcement of this at the website; I just saw different wording on the agenda and asked.) BUT THE MOST IMPORTANT THING FOR YOU TO DO IS WRITE OR CALL THE BOARD AND TELL THEM, "NO!" to the following agenda item. It's - spsdirectors@seattleschools.org or 206-252-0040 for the Board office.  But the most important issue is this i...

 In a fairly stunning press release, Seattle Schools appears to have a a group that appears to be using a department as their mouthpiece and urging the defunding of police. From the press release : October 14 is George Floyd’s birthday and Justice for George Day/#TeachTruth. Justice for George is a day to remember him and call for funds to be directed towards social programs and education. Now, I know what you are thinking - Melissa, where does it say "defund the police?" True, just calling for funds to be directed towards social programs and education doesn't necessarily mean defund the police. But what funds are they talking about and where are they currently directed? And, who wrote this press release? Meanwhile, over on the district's Facebook page, the message there DID call for defunding the police. (This was up last night and has since been taken down but too late; got a screenshot, SPS.) It said (bold mine): Oct. 14 is George Floyd's birthday, and in his h...

 Lincoln High reopened with great hope and fanfare in September 2019. But then the disaster of COVID came in March 2020 and it, like all other SPS schools, closed. So it’s had probably one of the rougher experiences for a school. (Of course I know that there are many more schools with populations with many challenges but reopening a school after decades closed, trying to get parents and community onboard and then closing again is tough on kids, staff and parents.) So Lincoln parents, how goes it? Parents and/or staff and/or students, please note: - You do NOT have to use your real name here but no “anonymous” - it makes comments hard to track and answer if many people use that. Call yourself Princess Leia or Ted Lasso or whatever; just put down a name. - I screen all comments now but ONLY for attacks that are racist, sexist, etc. You can have a strong opinion and I still will put it up. 

I have tried to compress the MFR Law Group investigation report because I think it is poorly formatted and hard to follow. Here's a link to the original letter of complaint from the two senior staffers to the entire Board that started this whole situation. After reading this investigation report three times, here's what I think. FFS!   Sure, you could blame racism but it probably wasn't that, not when you have egos, misperceptions, misunderstandings, lack of clarity and hubris.  Let me just state the obvious - of course this is important work but it is important to get it right. And, this was all happening in the middle of a PANDEMIC . For the SCPTSA to say a policy of this type had been put off too long, sure, but this was a PANDEMIC.  I don't think anyone at SPS was shuffling their feet.  Here's how to sum up this situation: - Hampson felt she owned this policy (draft Policy 0040) and therefore, the entire process. In short, she was trying to micromanage staff...