Seattle Schools Community Forum:
Seattle Schools Community Forum
West Seattle Schools Were on Shelter-in-Place
From SPS Communications (tweeted 25 minutes ago):West Seattle schools were in shelter-in-place after dismissal because of shooting in the High Point. Parents can now pick up students.From comments at the West Seattle Blog:4:32 pm - All the fall athletes (soccer, cross country, swimming…) are at school still sheltering in place. 4:52 pm - I just rushed to meet my kids at 29th and High Point. They w
Seattle Schools Odds and Ends
I plan on writing a thread this weekend that is an overview of how I see the Seattle School Board today. There are certainly some interesting things being said by directors and frankly, I'm not sure I see them working as a unified body (but not the same people who usually get called out for having special interests). I listened to the Board comments and more and more, I find them quite telling.
Friday Open Thread
What's going on this weekend? What happened this week that we missed?Now is the time and place to tell about it - Friday Open Thread.
SEP 18
Operations/Executive Committee of the Whole
Update: the Discipline Appeals Council has been set with a couple of issues.One big one is that they did not get any volunteers to represent Sped. It was stated they asked internally but it was unclear to me if any Sped parent organizations were contacted. They would like a Sped teacher. Peaslee wants SPed in there. Peters said SPed is important because of disproportionality and Sped issues i
Seattle Schools having issues with websites
I see this at 2:51 pm but I don't know how long this has been going on. I'll let you know if anything changes. You can see the homepage for SPS but I assume they mean school websites.
Student Data Privacy: Where's Your Line?
From Marketplace:Meet the most measured, monitored and data-mined students in the history of education. Your children.How about this district in California, tracking every kid who uses social media. From Tech Dirt:The Glendale School District in California is facing some backlash from the recent news that it has retained the services of Geo Listening to track its students' social media activity.
SEP 17
It's Constitution Day
Constitution Day commemorates the formation and signing of the U.S. Constitution by thirty-nine brave men on September 17, 1787, recognizing all who, are born in the U.S. or by naturalization, have become citizens.Our Constitution still stands as our country's guide. I don't think that it's some kind of "in stone" document. I believe our founding fathers meant for it to be a living, b
SEP 16
Seattle Schools' Meetings Update
Tonight is the regularly scheduled Seattle School Board meeting starting at 4:15 pm at JSCEE.A few updates.One, there are only five people signed up to give testimony. If you have anything you might want to convey to the Board, this would be a good time.Two, at the end of the Board meeting, there will be a closed Executive Session for "potential litigation." This closed session will be
Public Education Updates
Get a cup of coffee/tea - there are a lot of them (and big news items at that).Good NewsThe governor of Tennessee just signed into law that every single high school grad gets a free ride for two years at a community college. From Yes!:The bill provides two years of tuition at a community college or college of applied technology for any high school graduate who agrees to work with a mentor, comple
My Take on Preschool Measures for Publicola
Update:Consider attending/viewing a debate on this issue at a Town Hall presented by Seattle Channel, Town Hall Seattle and Seattle CityClub. It's next Wednesday, the 24th at 7 pm. It's cable channel 21 (or HD 321). They will be having polling during the event. It's free but you have to register. (I am not on the panel but did a pre-recorded interview with host Brian Callanan that will be sho
Tuesday Open Thread
Yesterday, Google and Mayor Murray surprised Highland Park Elementary with a major announcement about their request via DonorsChoose.org. Google "flash-funded" classroom requests from every teacher in King, Pierce and Snohomish counties who had made a request at DonorsChoose. From Seattle.gov:Google donated $338,000 for 388 projects resulting in 295 teachers receiving materials for over
SEP 15
Director McLaren Op-Ed
Recently I learned that Director Marty McLaren had written an op-ed for the Seattle Times about the good things and hard work happening in Seattle Schools. According to McLaren, the Times encouraged her to edit her op-ed and resubmit it (which she did) but then the Times declined to print it.They then published the editorial about SPS and its leadership (and egging on the Mayor and the City Counci
Seattle Schools This Week
Update: A&F Tuesday meeting agenda. The minutes from the previous meeting reveal that the next district audit will include Ballard High and Special Education. (The previous audit included Garfield and guess what? They were found to have several volunteers not screened or had no application at all. )Also, the Internal Auditor, Andrew Medina, said this: Mr. Medina spoke about an addition
Title IX Work List from SPS
Here's a link to the current status of Title IX work as presented to the Board Audit and Finance Committee on August 19.A number of the action items on this list are familiar to those of us who have read lists of action items before. Of course the expected completion dates have all been pushed out later. I can't help noticing that a number of the "next action" dates fall before the meeti
SEP 14
Monday! Let Senator Murray know you value Student Data Privacy
The Senate HELP (Health Education Labor and Pensions committee) is negotiating over the re-authorization of the Education Sciences Reform Act. We were told that there are Democrats on the committee who are pushing for relaxing limits on access to personal student data, and are saying that researchers should be able to obtain open-ended access to complete student data sets– and that they shouldn’t
SEP 13
Seattle Schools Updates
Tweet from the district about priorities for 2014-2015:During a retreat today, the School Board picked its top governance priorities for the 2014-15 school year: bell times analysis, multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS), special education and stewardship of resources/internal controls.First, shouldn't these "priorities" have been set at the end of the school year (so that everyone come
Pre School discussion event
SEATTLE SPEAKSPRESCHOOL POLITICSJoin the conversationShould Seattle invest in prekindergarten education? Join Seattle Channel, Seattle CityClub and Town Hall Seattle for a live, televised community forum about the future of early childhood learning and hear from the supporters of two competing ballot measures—a city-backed plan to make high-quality preschool accessible and affordable and a union p