Latest News and Comment from Education

Monday, August 11, 2014

8-11-14 Seattle Schools Community Forum Week

Seattle Schools Community Forum:






Highly Capable News
Just kidding.There are no recs in the handout at the C&I meeting.  Apparently they will be in the Friday memo sent out by the Superintendent.  So unless someone who is on the Committee wants to let us know about them, I have no idea what they are. There was a funny moment when it was pointed out how old the Board's policy is (from 1993).They will be working with secondary counselors on what 9-

Seattle Schools' Sped Director Goes on Leave
From Deputy Superintendent Charles E. Wright (bold mine):Dear Seattle Public Schools principals, teachers and staff, I am writing today to let you know that Wyeth Jessee, who is currently Executive Director of Leadership Development and former Broadview-Thomson K-8 principal, will be temporarily serving as Interim Executive Director of Special Education while Zakiyyah McWilliams is on leave. Wyet

Reclaim Your Domain - Who Owns Your Student's Work?
Ramping up to the start of school, I hope to (finally) get several threads on student data privacy going.  I also hope to draft a template letter that I'm going to offer to parents to ask their school about any kind of signing up for online groups that a school asks students to do.  I don't know why the district would not think this important enough to even inform (no less ask permission from) par

OSPI HC Program Requirements
On another thread, nitpicker referenced the Highly Capable Program Requirements for All Districts document produced by OSPI. The 2013-2014 school year was the transition year, so everything is supposed to be implemented and up and running at the opening of school in a few short weeks. We're likely to be missing some required elements here in Seattle. And that's saying something because the OSPI ha

Charters - The Gift that Keeps on Giving
There's almost something humorous about charter stories today.  They come faster and faster; stars who start charters that fail, financial scandals, and promises made and then broken.What's the funny part?  Well, the supporters of 1240 said "we have a lot to learn from charters."  I would agree and in more ways than one.  We should be the state to be uber-careful about who comes through

8-9-14 Seattle Schools Community Forum Week
Seattle Schools Community Forum:Seattle Schools Community ForumUpdates and Pondering the Issues of Capital Building in Seattle SchoolsWent to the BEX Oversight Committee meeting this morning. In terms of notable people at the meeting, Director Sharon Peaslee was there, Lead Counsel Ron English was not.Issues mentioned/discussed- Seems to be some kind of portable placement issue for Blaine and Laur