Seattle Schools Community Forum:
Seattle Schools Community Forum
Young Teen Writer? Crosscut Looking for Student Voices
Crosscut has a new project called the Student Voice, aimed at finding out what young people think. They are looking for solutions and opinions. Every Wednesday, we’ll pose a “Question of the Week” on Crosscut.com and social media and in our Student Voice mailing list. (Sign up here.) All you students out there, from high school on up, are invited to respond. (Just two paragraphs, please.) Our edi
Seattle Schools To Hold Community Meeting on Special Education
From SPS Communications:When: Tuesday, July 22, 2014Time: 6:30 p.m.- 8:30 p.m.Where: Seattle Public John Stanford Center Auditorium, 2445 3rd Avenue South What: A family meeting hosted by Seattle Public Schools and the TIERS Group (Teams Intervening Early to Reach all Students) to hear about the results of an evaluation of special education services, recommendations and the revised comprehensi
Seattle Schools Superintendent Update
Dear Seattle Public Schools community, I am writing to update you on the Superintendent process. As you are aware, Superintendent Jose Banda is the finalist for Superintendent at Sacramento City Unified School District. The Sacramento Board of Education plans to vote on his contract the evening of July 17. If approved, the Seattle School Board will hold a special meeting within the next few week
U.S. School Districts and Funding
From the Center for American Progress, a fascinating (and sobering) look at districts across the country. The name of the study is Parallel Lives, Different Outcomes: A Twin Study of Academic Productivity in U.S. School Districts. (It's not light summer reading, to be sure.)For this report, “twin districts” have very similar sizes and they have the following in common:The proportion of students w
Friday Open Thread
There's a teenaged-boy with autism missing in our are. Please take a look at this photo in case you see him.In one big difference between Seattle and Spokane school districts (in addition to Spokane being a charter authorizer), apparently they don't feel the need to expand at the administrative level nor give raises. From The Spokesman-Review:As Redinger (Spokane's superintendent) said in Friday’
JUL 10
Civics Matters - Tell Seattle Public Schools
Pass it on. This is a great initiative and great effort on the part of civics teacher, Web Hutchins.On March 17, 2014 the Seattle City Council and King County Council passed tandem “Resolutions of Support for the Civics for All Initiative.” As the embodiment of local, direct democracy and the representative voices for millions of voters, the 9-0, 9-0 unanimous votes of these Councils signifies a
Seattle Schools and the Search for a Superintendent
A week from today, the Sacramento School Board (they call their members "trustees") will vote on Jose Banda as their new superintendent. (I am waiting to hear back from their Communications person on details.)I suspect they will vote to offer Banda the contract and that he will accept. I'm also fairly certain he would start almost immediately.That then opens the door for two things to
JUL 09
New Glitch in Downtown School in old Federal Reserve Building
From Publicola (partial):Last month, federal agencies rejected an application from a coalition of homeless advocates to convert the old Federal Reserve building at 1015 2nd Ave. in downtown Seattle into a comprehensive homeless services center. But homeless advocates like Tristia Bauman "believe that the application was denied…in contravention of federal law” and are calling on the agencies t
Banda asks Duncan to allow SPS Waiver
From Superintendent Banda:Dear Seattle Public Schools community,Over the last several years we have made great strides in ensuring our students graduate ready for success in college, career and life. However, much work remains to ensure that each and every student has the academic and community supports they need to be successful learners in school and beyond.In order to best serve our students an
JUL 08
Awkward and Odd; Green Dot Comes to Town
As I previously reported, Green Dot has submitted a letter of intent to the Charter Commission to open their second Puget Sound region charter school this time in "south Seattle." A couple of readers alerted me that Green Dot had two open houses this week, one in the SW and one in the SE, to meet parents. I attended the SE one held at the Boys and Girls Club on MLK, Jr. Way tonight. It
Washington State Charter School Updates
There are three letters of intent for new charter authorizers districts- Tacoma, Highline and West Valley in Yakima. In 2013, there had been 13 school districts from around the state that submitted a notice of intent to become authorizers. Only Spokane followed thru. Tacoma was in that first group but not Highline or West Valley.Spokane School district has three letters of intent. Moose Project
Tuesday Open Thread
There two good (among many) good independent bookstores I want to call to your attention. One is the new Phinney Books. I haven't visited yet but have heard great things about their ability to help you find the right book. When it comes to kids, that's a good thing. The other store is Ada's Technical Books on Capitol Hill. It's a very cool scientific bookstore with great events.Is your teen v
The History of Board Priorities
At the most recent Board Retreat, the Deputy Superintendent, Charles Wright, told the Board, in a rather elaborate fashion, that if the Board added a bell time switch to the list of Board priorities, it would have a severe impact on the staff's work. Nearly every department would bear part of the burden and nearly every current initiative would be delayed. The claims were an obvious exaggeration.I
JUL 07
Education News Roundup
North Carolina is poised to exit from Common Core. They also passed a student data privacy law earlier this year (and I'll be working to get one passed in the Washington Legislature). North Carolina was one of the first states to embrace Common Core, now in place in more than 40 states. But support among some conservatives for the standards dissolved in recent months as nation-wide opposition mo
JUL 06
Seattle Pre-K for All: Letter to the Board
Dear Directors,I am asking you - as a Board - to put forth clarification on this issue of the City's PreK for All and Seattle Public Schools.I spent the afternoon reviewing what the City has at their website and I found a lot of it deeply troubling.Of course, like many things, pre-K for all IS a good idea. (I will quibble whether Pre-K is the same as preschool as the former seems more school-like
Seattle Schools This Week
Friday, July 11BEX Oversight Committee meeting, 8:30 am-10:30 am. Unfortunately, whoever runs this group does not put up the agenda nor past minutes in a timely manner so I can't tell you what will be discussed. I've asked if that could happen and told it would but it doesn't. The last minutes are from the meeting in April and have some curious notations. - The Cost Summary now includes a Budget