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Wednesday, October 14, 2015

‘Half-baked sale’ protest over Seattle teacher reassignments | The Seattle Times

‘Half-baked sale’ protest over Seattle teacher reassignments | The Seattle Times:

‘Half-baked sale’ protest over Seattle teacher reassignments

Seattle students, teachers and parents held events to protest the district’s plan to reassign two dozen teachers.



Parents, students and teachers protest teacher reassignments at Seattle Public Schools headquarters Tuesday. (Lindsey Wasson/The Seattle Times)


Though the official list of Seattle schools who may lose — or gain — teachers in a budget-related shuffle hasn’t been released, parents and lawmakers are asking the school district to halt plans to move anyone.

Students, teachers and parents held a “half-baked sale” and staged a protest Tuesday outside Seattle Public Schools headquarters to bring attention to the planned reassignments of about two dozen teachers, which the district said last week is largely tied to lower-than-projected enrollment.

“Parents were already unhappy (from the strike),” Alki Elementary parent Amy King said. “This pushed us over the edge. This made us angry.”

Earlier Tuesday, a newly formed group called Teacher Retention Advocate Parents — T.R.A.P — held a “half-baked sale” on the lawn of Seattle Public Schools headquarters to protest the reassignments. Parents sold items like “packed-class pralines” from a table with a sign that read “How many cookies do we need to sell to raise $90,000?”

The purpose of the sale was to “highlight the absurdity of funding basic education with carwashes and bake sales,” said Carolyn Leith, whose two children attend Olympic View Elementary School and Jane Addams Middle, both of which are slated to lose staff. Although the district has yet to announce which teachers will move where, a number of schools have already announced they expect one or more of their teachers to be transferred.

Outside the district’s headquarters in Sodo, parents and other supporters talked about the division that occurs when some schools raise more money than others. Some schools are trying to raise the $90,000 it would take to keep a teacher, but don’t expect to reach that level. So far, Alki Elementary, with the help of a donation of $70,000 from a Ballard parent, is the only school known to have reached that goal.

The need for fundraising puts pressure on all schools, said Erin Murphy, who will find out later this week if her first-grader, who attends Concord International Elementary School, will remain in a first-grade class, or ‘Half-baked sale’ protest over Seattle teacher reassignments | The Seattle Times:




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