Seattle Schools Community Forum

A busy week at JSCEE with yet another meeting - this time for the Board - on Wednesday, Nov. 13th at 4:30 pm. Subjects? Agenda Work Session: Policy Governance 4:30 p.m.* Work Session: Progress Monitoring Training 6:00 p.m.* My very first question would be - who wrote these guidelines? Someone at Council of Great City Schools? They are aware that not all boards are elected and most operate within the challenges of their district. These cover: - Effective Goal Monitoring Goal monitoring is a conversation between the board and superintendent that provides boards the opportunity to evaluate the alignment between the community’s vision for student outcomes (goals) and current student performance/growth (reality). While goals and reality may not match perfectly, it only becomes problematic when there is no evidence of student growth. And even if students aren’t yet growing and making progress, that’s only catastrophic if the superintendent doesn’t have sufficiently aggressive strateg...

 Update: So the Seattle Times parsed out something that I missed in the district's announcement about community meetings for the potentially closing schools. Without openly saying it, the district seems to be saying ONLY members of that school community should attend. These meetings are to support the individual impacted school communities.   We want to make sure the impacted families have the chance to fully understand the recommendation, ask questions, and share ideas for how we could implement a potential closure and consolidation with care and support.  SPS will host more engagement opportunities for the broader community. I certainly think only members of that school community should be the ones to speak up at any given meeting. However, there may be parents from other schools - like the potential consolidation schools - who want to learn more NOW. I don't think any parents should be held at arm's length for information by the district. Again, this will ...

 From SPS website: Each school recommended for closure will have two community meetings. Initial meetings will take place on the dates below.  Sacajawea Elementary – Thursday, Nov. 7, 6-7 p.m. at Sacajawea   Sanislo Elementary – Tuesday, Nov. 12, from 6 to 7 p.m. at Sanislo  Stevens Elementary – Friday, Nov. 15, 6-7 p.m. at Stevens  North Beach Elementary – Monday, Nov. 18, 6-7 p.m. at North Beach  A districtwide, online meeting will take place on Thursday, Nov. 14, at 6:30 p.m.     Please note: These are not public hearings. Those will be scheduled in December. These meetings are to support the individual impacted school communities.   We want to make sure the impacted families have the chance to fully understand the recommendation, ask questions, and share ideas for how we could implement a potential closure and consolidation with care and support.  SPS will host more engagement opportunities for the b...

Update: I was reading a critique of the Dems campaign strategy and it said that rather than focusing on Project 2025, the presumptive president was laying out his plan that mirrors it. Here's what it says about K-12 public education: - Parents of all public schools can vote to remove a principal at any time. - School principals will be elected by parents each year. - End tenure for teachers and professors. - Increase merit pay for teachers. - Universal, national school choice for all school systems in the country. - Bible study and school prayer will be instituted in public schools. - All schools receive additional funding to "harden" them against school shooters and invaders. - $10,000 per child tax credit for home schooling.  - Teacher certification will be changed and governed by a new federal agency that will only grant certifications to teachers who "embrace patriotic values." I'm not even listing higher education actions.  S...

 Update 2: So I have seen a message from President Liza Rankin on why she, Director Evan Briggs, and Director Michelle Sarju backed out of this meeting.  In a nutshell: - She says there was no organization to the meeting which is just not true. They had a moderator lined up and naturally the board members could have set parameters for what to discuss, length of meeting, etc. All that was fleshed out. - She also claimed that if the meeting was PTA sponsored, they needed to have liability insurance to use the school space. Hello? PTAs use school space all the time and know they have to have this insurance.  - She seems to be worried about the Open Public Meetings law. Look, if she has a meeting in a school building on a non-personnel topic, it should be an open meeting. It appears that Rankin is trying, over and over, to narrow the window of access that parents have to Board members. She even says in her message - "...with decisions made in public." Hmmm - She also says tha...

A very happy and safe Halloween to all! Anybody "attend" the virtual levies meeting last night ? I'd like to hear about the questions asked. Sacajawea Elementary saw a protest Wednesday and heartbroken parents and students spoke out. Fox13 reports that State Senator Javier Valdez and State Rep Gerry Pollet were in attendance. There was this claim made in the reporting: They (Seattle Schools) say they're working to build up their enrollment numbers, which would get them more money from the state. Wait, what? Since when and what exactly are they doing?  Sanislo Elementary in West Seattle is also on the closure list and they also had a protest at their school. Their board director, Gina Topp, showed up to listen. From the West Seattle Blog : The school has 145 students, according to district data, and is proposed to be merged into  Highland Park Elementary , with 276, for a combined population of 421. It was a diverse crowd – including an immigrant parent who said that ...

 Update Looking through the Seattle Times' article, I see a couple of things I didn't know about this case. The district’s athletic director also knew Jones was working as a coach despite not being approved to do so, the complaint stated. I'll have to look up who that athletic director was at that time and if he is still working for SPS. The settlement is the largest in the district’s history, a district spokesperson confirmed. And the SPS statement is just wan and pathetic:   “SPS remains committed to its preventative trainings and to strengthening its procedures to prevent incidents like this from occurring in the future,” the statement read. Well, I guess their "preventative trainings" need to do better. Also, they don't need to strengthen their procedures - they need to enforce them. I'd bet there were several people at Garfield who knew the one coach was NOT supposed to be there. And yet, he was allowed access to students.  Just shameful. end of updat...