Seattle Schools Community Forum: What is the process?

Seattle Schools Community Forum: What is the process?:

What is the process?

If you had an idea and community support for a new school program, what would you do?

The new program placement policy, 2200, for all its inadequacies, does make some things clear. It defines the terms school, program, service, and curricular focus and delineates the authority for each of them. The schools have authority to determine their curricular focus. That's why any school can decide to offer an A.L.O. or not, can choose to have an environmental focus or a STEM focus, or to offer Montessori or language immersion. The superintendent has no authority to interfere with these decisions - they are site-based. The superintendent, in turn, has absolute authority over programs and services like Special Education, ELL, APP and Spectrum. He alone decides whether to create them, close them, expand them, shrink them, or move them. Policy F21.00 makes it clear that the Board can't interfere with his decisions. The Board, in turn, has authority over the creation, relocation, and closure of schools. So it is entirely up to the Board to designate Lincoln as a school separate from Lowell. It requires a Board vote to open a new school at Genesee Hill or to relocate the STEM school now at Boren