Seattle Schools Community Forum

 I actually left the Board meeting last night before the last 10 minutes because President Rankin was going on and on without saying much. But I thought it important just to hear the votes so I went back and listened. Boy, am I glad I did because there were interesting statements all around. Superintendent Brent Jones asked, "When do you want this timeline?" This appeared to confuse the Board because the timeline is part of the plan so if they vote for the plan, it includes the timeline. He said, " I just wanted to make sure you are are deliberate in date you set." This was weird because the Board isn't setting any dates except the ones staff puts out.  Director Brandon Hersey broke in and said that the upcoming engagement is for "what families would want to see?" He then said, " We often times towards the end of the year get flack for like presenting new big things and folks are very rightfully so ready for summer.  So I would like to know durin...

 Here's the agenda for tonight's Board meeting. I note that people can no longer sign up to speak at a Board meeting by phone. It is strictly by online sign-up. Not good. Public Testimony seems to cover two topics. Apparently, the Chinese program at West Seattle High School is in jeopardy and there are several speakers for that issue. The other issue is, of course, school closures. There are six people on the waitlist. Here's the latest from the Times which says that " Seattle Could Close about a quarter of its elementary schools." First, that would be a heck of a lot of schools (17) and two, only elementaries? My cynical side is that the district is throwing out a big number so they can "generously" only close 10-12.  The article claims that the district is taking "$32M from its reserves" which is not true; they have no reserves. I think the reporter means capital reserves.  I'll be tuning in with updates.    4:15 pm and has the 4:15 ...

Editor's update - I had a few details wrong so I have corrected them.  I plan on writing a longer piece on this incident that came right before then-Principal Ted Howard left Garfield High School in July 2020. The basics are that in 2019 2017 there was a hazing incident by the Garfield High boys swim team by senior team members against freshman members. It involved a nudity ploy that's pretty disgusting. The student  at the focus of this case (who is on the autism spectrum ) saw this incident but it did not happen to him. However, he did worry that someday it might and left the team. He came back in 2019 and had a different bad experience which he told the coach about which did not involve the team captains on the current team. That experience was not investigated. In 2020, the school newspaper, the Garfield Messenger, decided to investigate the topic of hazing in sports. A student journalist did multiple interviews with various students including the student in question. One...

Not that a word salad is anything new in SPS but this Wednesday's Seattle School Board meeting includes a huge one. Here's the agenda. One item on the agenda concerns a contract for "applied behavior analysis therapy" for some students per their IEPs. When the district signed the contract with Crissey Behavior Consulting in August 2023, it appears it was just under $1M. But the Board is being asked to okay an additional $655K due to more students needing these services. To note: The revenue source for this motion is state special education funding including Safety Net for extraordinary high-cost needs.  There is a list of 20 students and their schools (sans names or other identifiers) included in the contract update and the BAR says that "the number of students requiring these services has increased" since the initial contract was signed. Because SPS is one of the few districts able to provide these high-level services, that is one place where enrollment wo...

It appears there two versions of the most recent Garfield High School rape story by KUOW .  Via email I learned that KUOW changed/updated the story but their website does NOT reflect any statement about that. The date on the story is April 30, 2024 at 11:34 am. Despite the changes, there is no notation of an update and you would at least see that in the timestamp. The timestamp has never changed. As I have said many, many times, I am not a trained journalist but a citizen reporter. But even I know you don't print one story, change a material piece of it, and then not acknowledge the change.  I did previously report that just this week, KUOW stated that they are laying off staff and disbanding their 20-year youth voice program. So it seems like a bit of chaos in their newsroom but that's not really an excuse for poor editorial choices.    Why is this important?  - Because of the relationship that exists between School Board director Michelle Sarju and Nyasha Sar...

Update 3: Kids, the only thing I can say at this point is that this story has legs. Or rather, a deep taproot.  Because I am not journalist (just a citizen reporter) plus where I live, I can't fully investigate it. However, I found something and when I spoke to two actual journalists, they had found the same thing. And I believe they are both going to try to get down that taproot.  What is terrible is how many people along the path of this story who looked away or just did not act on what was said to them by not one, but two students. (The second student that I speak of was not sexually abused as was the girl in this vile coach situation. However, that second student was used by adults for their purposes.) So I will continue to follow this story as more information becomes available. I can say that it may become likely that former Garfield High School principal, Ted Howard III, will look more and more culpable. And by the way, Mr. Howard is the district's Accountability Office...

According to KUOW: After spending months bouncing from shelter to shelter, asylum-seekers in western Washington have now begun settling into a camp near Seattle’s Garfield High School. It’s their latest move after money for housing ran out yet again. They first began camping at Powell Barnett wading pool earlier this week, where 300 to 400 people were staying on Monday night.   (Editor's note; this wading pool is directly east of Garfield High School about 5 blocks away.) Washington state has allocated $32 million to help address the housing issue. But that money won’t kick in until July, when the new fiscal year begins. Most of that money will be used at the Washington Office of Refugee and Immigrant Assistance to provide housing and legal services. State officials also have asked the public to help find more permanent solutions for the asylum-seekers. Unlike the federal refugee resettlement program , there is no formal infrastructure for asylum-seekers once they are ...