Seattle Schools Community Forum

 As I previously reported, the district/Board spent over $20,000 in October 2022 to send six Board members and one Board staffer, as well as one senior district manager, Dr. Rocky Torres, to a Council of Great City Schools conference on Student Outcomes Focused Governance in Orlando.  It was stated by the CGCS that "all directors in a SOFG cohort will be required to attend for two days" prior to the conference and then attend the conference itself. Either Director Leslie Harris didn't get that memo or ignored it because she was the only one not in attendance.  What I have been waiting on was costs for two other conferences that Board members attended that year. (It is entirely possible that some directors attended other conferences not associated with the CGCS.) One of those other conferences was in December of 2022 when President Brandon Hersey went for three days to a CUBE conference to pick up an award for the Board. This cost around $2,000 but at least he didn't...

This is serious stuff. If you have been tempted to buy one of these e-bikes for your teen, please read these articles first. Both come from the New York Times.   I'm pretty sure that most of you would see the folly of this kind of bike for a child/teen in Seattle that - to me - has some pretty challenging traffic patterns. I could see maybe a parent saying, "Well, it's just for around the neighborhood" but their kid then goes further afoot. The first story is about a 15-year-old boy in California who died in traffic on an e-bike.  He had been riding from home to shot-putting practice. The e-bike, a model made by Rad Power, had a top speed of 20 miles per hour, but his route took him on a busy road with a 55-mile-per-hour limit. While turning left, he was clipped by a Nissan van and thrown violently. As a transportation solution, e-bikes seem promising. “I’m really bullish about middle and high schoolers being able to use e-bikes,” said Ms. Hultin of Bicycle Colorado....

Two important stories that should worry school officials, both public AND private. Both stories come from the New York Times. I put these stories forth, to show some parents are fighting back and getting some measure of justice for the loss of their child and it may encourage parents who have kids being bullied not to give up on the system. That it took lawsuits to get there isn't good but it puts every kind of school on notice. The first story came out in April of 2023 about Jack Reid, a 17-year old "at one of the nation's elite boarding schools" who killed himself. On Sunday, the anniversary of Jack’s death, the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey offered an extraordinary admission of failure, publicly acknowledging that it had been aware that Jack was being bullied by other students, but that it had fallen “tragically short” of its obligation to protect him. “The school acknowledges that bullying and unkind behavior, and actions taken or not taken by the school, li...

This time the issue is the near-destruction of the Advanced Learning program. The editorial does a good job in laying out its case. Lots of people are confused about the idea of equity, apparently including those at the helm of Seattle Public Schools. Ouch. Rightly criticized for maintaining a separate program of high-achieving students filled with white and Asian kids, Seattle’s education leaders have chosen not to widen the pipeline into their Highly Capable Cohort. Instead, they are dismantling those classrooms in the name of fairness. That’s a flawed interpretation of the concept. It should mean giving a boost to students who start out with less in order to even their access, not diminishing opportunities for all. But Seattle Public Schools, rather than making individual classes dedicated to accelerated learning more available, is simply taking them off the table. Equity shouldn’t require shrinking the playing field. Done right, it could mean opening advanced-learning opportuni...

As part of elections work, King County allows candidates a two-minute video presentation and then uploads them for the public to view. I have now watched all the videos that were made and have these highlights to offer. (All the videos are unedited. Several candidates did not have videos; I assume the other two candidates either declined to create a video or didn't show up.) All the candidates spoke confidently and I saw no real issues in their ability to communicate to the public. District 1 - There are videos only for Debbie Carlsen and Liza Rankin. Debbie Carlsen Both Carlsen lays out her past experience and frankly, comes out looking pretty good for someone who hasn't spent all her time in PTSA. She said she wants to be "a strong LGBTQ voice" and help all kids to feel safe in their schools. Liza Rankin Rankin makes many claims on what she has done and I do want to call out a couple of things.  One is "access to outdoor learning." This seems like it wou...

 Great reporting on this day-long event on Tuesday by the West Seattle Blog . The hearing examiners said she would give a written judgment within 20 days. It's my experience that Seattle Schools generally wins the day on this kind of thing but I found the arguments compelling. The background is that Seattle Schools is rebuilding Alki Elementary to be a much larger school - going from X to X. Like the other elementary schools they are greatly enlarging - like Viewlands, Rogers and Montlake - the district has never clearly explained why this is necessary if they are losing enrollment.  (As my spidey sense tells me, it's because they want to close near by small schools and move those small populations into these larger buildings. I have looked at the map for Alki and I'm not sure I get why it is happening there.) But Alki is really a special situation as the entire school will have zero parking with a single ADA spot available across the street. What seems odd is that the clos...

  KUOW is interviewing candidates by district in the races for Seattle School Board. They are getting some illuminating answers that might be of interest to voters. This round is for candidates in the District 1 race , Debbie Carlsen, Blaine Parse, Michael Christophersen, and Liza Rankin. NOTE: These responses have been minimally edited to improve clarity and style. Christophersen did not submit answers to KUOW's questionnaire.   Editor's note: I am going to pick out highlights for each question. Please go to the KUOW site for full answers. As well, kudos to KUOW for questions that don't exactly speak well of the current Board. 1) If you’re elected to the school board, what would be one of your top priorities and why is it important to you?   Carlsen: The board should be able to explain the budget in a digestible way to the public, SPS families, and state legislators. To ensure our schools are fully funded, the board needs an independent party to examine the di...