Seattle Schools Community Forum

Via the SPS webpage: The public is invited to attend or stream this forum for candidates for appointment to the District 2 and 4 School Board Director seats. All finalists will have the opportunity to share why they are interested in serving on the Seattle School Board and answer questions selected by the Board and Student Members. More information about the appointment process, including a timeline and candidate webpages, can be found on the appointment process web page . SPSTV Streaming: The meeting will be  live streamed on SPSTV  and broadcast on television on Comcast 26 (standard-def) and 319 (hi-def), Wave 26 (standard-def) and 695 (hi-def), and Century Link 8008 (standard-def) and 8508 (hi-def). The agenda reflects the above wording - the meeting will be two-and-a-half hours.   The meeting will be held on Wednesday, March 27th at the Performing Arts Center at Lincoln High School, 4400 Interlake Avenue North from 6-8:30 pm.   The Board's sche...

 Even though my life wasn't personally touched by school closures, I tried to be positive with parents. I reminded them that American kids lived through the 1917 flu pandemic as well as World War II. But time continued to tick by and I became increasingly worried about kids being out of school so long.  In short, I think parents were right. Schools should have reopened sooner. That said, what was a district to do? So many teachers did not want to be there, there were teachers in so many buildings with HVAC issues, and, what if the teachers just didn't show up?  As well, were parents going to sue districts for reopening too soon? The fear of lawsuits looms large for many districts.  But my question is, where was the debriefing for parents? I'm going to do a deeper dive but, so far, I haven't found a district that sat down with parents and talked about what happened. Sure, districts needed to ramp back up for in-person fast but you can't just shake off what came in th...

This story from KUOW: Garfield High School parents want Seattle leaders to do more to protect students after a 17-year-old was shot in the leg nearby the school last week. Parents and community members want city leaders and Seattle Public Schools to take stronger action to protect students and the larger Central District community. They told KUOW they feel like they have to do something to make it clear that something must be done about escalating violence they are witnessing. “It should not be a privilege to have safety. [It] should be offered to all students," said another Garfield parent, whose name we're not disclosing to protect their child's privacy. According to a Seattle Police Department statement , the shooting on March 13 was not connected to a homicide that happened later in the day near 24th Avenue South and South Main Street. Investigators are still looking for a suspect. The student who was shot in the leg was not the intended target, according t...

Update: I probably fired off too quickly. Yes, I know that the district has SAID they aren't closing schools at the earliest in '25-'26. But listening in on Board Work Sessions on the budget, it seems to come up every time. Seems weird if it's settled that they would waste one minute on closures and yet they do. Going on decades of experience and my Spidey sense, but I don't think they will wait that long. I don't say that lightly; I know parents and school communities are worried but that hole in the budget is huge. end of update.   So I'm reading the Seattle Times this morning and there was a story about community partnerships to continue jazz and music programs in Seattle Schools. In that story was a bit of a big surprise: The district has ruled out closing and consolidating schools as part of its deficit response for the 2024-25 school year and has said that budget cuts have been mainly confined to the central office. School-level cuts were generally...

One item to throw out there is that while I did listen into the Board's discussion of criteria/selection and community meeting for the two new Board members, I didn't listen to the Work Session that followed on public engagement. I have been told there were concerning statements made by some directors so I will follow up on that soon. According to the district the next budget update will come at the Board meeting on March 20th. It is getting closer and closer to the time when the "central office leadership team" will have to reveal their plans around school closures.    I note that there was a story in the Seattle Times that Interagency would be closed but that was swiftly denied by the district . But I have to wonder if staff at Interagency were worried about what they were hearing and leaked it.  As the fentanyl crisis claims the lives of more and more teens each year — three times as many Washington teens died in 2022 relative to 2019 — advocates say Interagency ...

 From KUOW, a sorry story: Two former coaches from Garfield High School in Seattle have been accused of sexually assaulting a girl who played on the school’s basketball team. One assaulted the girl when she was 13 in 2013, the other coach in 2017 when she was 17.  The first coach is Walter Junior Jones and the other is Marvin Wayne Hall. A Seattle Public Schools investigation found Hall committed sexual misconduct and boundary violations with students, including telling another girl he had a “crush” on her. That girl reportedly told her father, an assistant coach on the team. Hall has not been charged with a crime. Tomás Gahan, the personal attorney for the now 24-year-old woman, called the school’s athletic department a “predatory environment,” and said that the woman is only now grappling with the toll it took on her childhood. “Her middle school and high school experience was defined by serial molestation, or serial rape, by people ...

President Liza Rankin just announced this at the Special Meeting for selection of board directors. Here is the info from SPD: As of 4:14 pm Seattle police are investigating a shooting at a bus stop in the 400 block of 23 rd Avenue near Garfield High School. Officers were called to the scene at 2:40 p.m. on March 13. It was reported shots were fired from an SUV as it traveled southbound on 23 rd Avenue and turned onto East Jefferson Street. Investigators learned that a female juvenile was struck in the right leg. Seattle fire crews arrived to the scene and provided first aid. The victim was transported to Harborview Medical Center with non-life-threatening injuries. After the shots were fired, nearby schools including Garfield High School, went into a shelter-in-place. The scene was secured. Right now, there is no clear suspect information available. No one else was injured in the shooting. Anyone with information about this shooting is asked to call the SP...