Seattle Schools Community Forum

UPDATE: Just heard from President Topp who says, yes, she is applying for an open seat in the legislature but she plans on keeping her Board seat. (Yes, my jaw did drop.) She says legally it is possible but she is consulting with legal sources to make sure she doesn't tread wrongly in either direction.  She believes that acting in both roles will strengthen her ability to help in both roles. end of update   Thanks to reader, Outsider, we learned that newly elected School Board president, Gina Topp, an appointee, has now put herself on the list to fill an empty legislative spot in SW King County. I note that another candidate, Stephanie Tidholm, is also on a school board, this one in Highline. This from the West Seattle Blog: Five elected officials were among the eight people who participated in an online forum this morning meant to help the   34th District Democrats   choose nominees for one, possibly two appointments to state legislative seats. It’s part of the proc...

 From the education blog, Chalkbeat: U.S. fourth graders saw their math scores drop steeply between 2019 and 2023 on a key international test even as more than a dozen other countries saw their scores improve. Scores dropped even more steeply for American eighth graders, a grade where only three countries saw increases.  The declines in fourth grade mathematics in the U.S. were among the largest in the participating countries, though American students are still in the middle of the pack internationally. The extent of the decline seems to be driven by the lowest performing students losing more ground, a worrying trend that predates the pandemic. The TIMSS results echoed the 2022 findings of the National Assessment of Educational Progress or NAEP, which saw  major declines in math scores  among both fourth and eighth graders. American students’ scores  actually started to decline before the pandemic  for reasons that are not entirely clear. Peggy Carr, com...

 You will likely recall that sitting in Arizona has given me a front-row seat to watch the universal voucher program here play out. The voters in Arizona, by a wide margin, had said no to this nonsense but then the (barely) Republican Legislature decided voters were dumb and enacted it on their own.  I know you believe this could not happen in Washington State but we are going into a time of the Upside Down so I would not make any bets about what may or may not happen in public education. The fact that even without vouchers, many Seattle parents are leaving SPS for other types of education is fairly worrying.  Background via the Arizona Mirror: The Arizona voucher program is in its third year.  The program originated in 2012, but was expanded in 2022 from serving a limited group of about 12,000 students who met specific criteria to a universal program available to all of the state’s roughly one million K-12 students.  After the expansion, enrollment skyrocketed ...

There was only one nomination for each role - president, vice president and member-at-large - so a unanimous vote for each person.  Gina Topp is now Board president, Evan Briggs is now VP and Joe Mizrahi is the member-at-large.  It will be interesting to see how things proceed from here. 

Yet again, the Board is choosing to do their work in a random and unknowable manner.  I refer to the Approval of Board Resolution No. 2024-25-9, Educational Program Reduction per Board Policy No 0060.  (From the agenda , it is the only Action item.) If passed this means, that the Superintendent will "present a portfolio of proposed actions to balance the 2025-2026 budget." Parents cried out and pushed back on school closures which, we all know, would not have truly made much of a difference. But I wonder if the Superintendent and staff want to make it hurt so that when they ask to close schools again, parents won't push back much.  I get that the Superintendent's choices are all difficult but they do have to find the money somewhere.  What chaps my hide is that this was Intro'ed way back in September and here it is now for approval with this notation: Following introduction at the September 18 meeting, the resolution was revised to better align with the guidance p...

Update:  If you view the report at the Board agenda, they have now added their fairly short presentation that is short on detail. Hmmm, wonder why? There is a page about some poll but it is dead. Sigh. end of update In short, not good.  This according to the assessment made by the Moss Adams firm. (And boy, is the district using them more and more, almost like they are on retainer.) Reader Seattle is Lost alerted me to the addition of the Moss Adams report on SOFG in SPS. The presentation is on the agenda right before public testimony. I've read through the report and not only is the entire staff behind in using this at JSCEE, Moss Adams thinks there needs to be more staff to implement it. I love how SPS takes the adage - "You have to spend money to make money" - and changes it to "You have to spend money to save money." While positive progress has been made to adopt this model, there remain challenges to fully implementing  effective practices.   The primary go...

What is there to say at this point? Seattle Schools appears to be spiraling down. Leadership - from both the Superintendent and the Board president - seems wan and ineffective. I posit that the trust gap between district and parents is becoming ever larger.  Given that February 2025 will see an election for the district's two major levies, I want to point out yet another issue related to the election. That would be the election for BEX VI. BEX is the major school renovations levy which somehow has also become the near total funding for SPS technology.  From what is on the levy to the mission creep of the levy, you have to wonder what is really happening.  What district moves an entire (and seemingly ever-growing) department to a levy? Yes, levies pass easily in Seattle, unlike other regional districts. But what if - one day - it doesn't pass? What happens to the Technology department? The ripple effects would be felt throughout the district. How foolish is it to depend...