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Title : Seattle School Board Meeting, January 3, 2018
link : Seattle School Board Meeting, January 3, 2018
Seattle School Board Meeting, January 3, 2018
I only stayed for four hours (but I thought that enough and felt for the Board who had about 16 Intro items - mostly BEX - to slog thru).I am not going to discuss the Green Dot charter school issue - a LOT going on there - and it deserves its own thread. But the Board voted 6-0-1 to pass their resolution against the City okaying zoning departures for Green Dot's new school in the Rainier Valley. There was zero discussion; they just took the vote (although, of course, President Harris asked directors her usual "questions, comments, concerns?).
The abstention was Director DeWolf who serves on the board of the Seattle Housing Authority which sold the land for the entire project of which includes Green Dot. He said he was stepping down from that work in March.
Naturally the big draw was the discussion on high school boundaries.
I'll try to expand on this thread later but here's some highlights:
- they rearranged how the Board sits which is interesting because that rarely happens. Mack is between Burke and DeWolf and it's a striking tableau. As a fellow short person, I think I'll get her a pillow.
- Deputy Superintendent Nielson sat in for Superintendent Nyland. I appreciated his short superintendent remarks. He said there were 10 new Race and Equity teams in the district; I'll have to ask which schools. He also gave some stats on the district's partnership, Seattle Teacher Residency, with several groups including SEA. He said most of the trainees are in Title One schools and 40% are POC (which is well above the district rate) and 91% are still teaching in Title One schools after six years.
- Nielson also noted the continuing upward trend of the numbers of students taking the SAT/ACT and the rising scores.
- There was a notable media presence from tv crews, there to cover the high school boundaries discussion.
- President Harris noted that there is now a live webpage for the superintendent search with a questionnaire. She also stated there would be a Town Hall on January 19th from 6:30-8:30 pm (location TBA). That date is also the deadline for taking the questionnaire. (I see the webpage says the 18th for the Town Hall so I'll check which it is.)
- Great presentation with students from South Lake High School on the program they are part of, Standing Tall. ST serves African-American males and it sounds like these young guys are on their way. Very moving to all and the Board especially so.
- The majority of comments, though, came from parents of Ballard students (current and future) on high school boundaries. The issue is largely around those between 80th and 85th who would be assigned to Ingraham. There were also Magnolia parents advocating for their students to be at Ballard. There was good, bad, and ugly.
Good was the tone from some parents about trying to find best outcomes for more students. Good was the explanation that students who live between 80th and 85th had always gone to Ballard. Good was explaining that kids who walk to school together tend to talk and interact more than those sitting on a bus, buried in a cell screen. And, that many of these kids lived less than a mile from the school.
The Bad was that, as one parent stated, the process felt like "the Hunger Games" with students vying to get into one school.
The Ugly was a couple of comments of a "sorry, not sorry" nature for Magnolia students and parents from Ballard parents- "We actually LIVE in Ballard."
Of course that's true and if our district had done the right thing - decades ago - and created a comprehensive high school for Queen Anne and Magnolia - then you could say that. But in this situation, it comes off in shrill and unpleasant.
I cannot fault Queen Anne and Magnolia parents for wanting somewhere for their children to go to high school and it's not Center School. For Magnolia, Ballard is the closest high school but it looks like most of Queen Anne could easily go to Lincoln (for 9th/10th graders). But I'm not drawing boundaries.
Hard to say what will happen but a couple of directors did indicate they lean towards allowing those students in that 80th-85th zone to go to Ballard.
- There was quite the discussion over the Intro item to change language in SMART Goal 3 from "program review" to "program summary." Staff is concerned directors took "review" as a fleshed out summary of how a program is working and think summary - which means a 1-pager with stats/date on each program is what they meant. The directors asked some very careful questions, worried that staff might not cover enough info and then try to end some programs. Michael Tolley agreed with President Harris that it may be that the Board policy around this issue may need to be changed.
High School Boundaries
The Board had decided on one hour for this issue and stuck to it. Director Mack led the discussion as she is the Chair of the Operations Committee.
I think the time was not especially well spent and I'm not sure how clear it all is. But here's what I believe I understand:
- the Board has picked two scenarios for HC students.
1) West Seattle HS, Garfield HS and Lincoln will be the pathways (with Ingraham an option) as an interim until 2021 when ALL high schools will be required to serve HC students in their population.
2) Amendment 2 from Student Assignment plan will be created in a resolution form to be presented to the Operations Committee today. Meaning, leave pathways in place as they are now until 2021
when ALL high schools will be required to serve HC students in their population.
The Board requested maps from the district in order to see what that would look like with boundaries and hopes to see that by Friday's High School Boundaries Task Force meeting.
I'll flesh out the discussion in the next couple of days.
thus Article Seattle School Board Meeting, January 3, 2018
that is all articles Seattle School Board Meeting, January 3, 2018 This time, hopefully can provide benefits to all of you. Okay, see you in another article posting.
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