Latest News and Comment from Education

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Not About Program Placement

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Not About Program Placement:


Not About Program Placement

I swear, this post is not about Program Placement, but a lot of folks will think that it is.

The District staff is making a new distinction, between things that are programs and services and schools that have a distinctive "curricular focus". All of the things that they will recognize as programs and services exist to address student academic needs. They are pretty much limited to special education, bilingual education, and advanced learning. Nothing else - including a lot of stuff that you might think are programs - is a program.

Language immersion? Not a program. Montessori? Not a program. Same for alternative schools, STEM schools, and international schools. None of these are programs. There are each, instead, a curricular focus.

So what? So this: since they are not programs, they will not be governed by the proposed policy 2020, Equitable