September '16 Open Thread

Over the past few weeks I've watched a stream of back to school photos across my facebook feed from various friends in other districts.  And here we are with still a week to go before school commences.  But there are signs of spin up. The practice bus runs are occurring in the morning. Transportation letters have gone out. Teacher assignments are also starting to appear.

Update from Dir. Sue Peters:

"I've needed to reschedule it [the next community meeting] to Sunday Sept 11, 1-3 pm at Magnolia Library (instead of Sept 3).

In the meantime, if anyone on your blog, from the HCC community or beyond, would like to share any questions, concerns or feedback about the Garfield and Thurgood Marshall plans for Honors and Social Studies (or any other topic, of course), please invite them to send them my way, and to my colleagues on the Board:
SPSDirectors@seattleschools.org = Board Directors only
or

SchoolBoard@seattleschools.org = Board, plus Superintendent, and 7 members of seniors staff.

Hope you've had a nice summer."

Cascadia Split Update

From this weeks Friday Memo more indications that a split is being planned.

"- Cascadia enrollment for Highly Capable will be going to the capacity management task force soon; with the goal of bringing a solution to the board in November. Cascadia (new) is built for 660. Decatur (being vacated by Thornton Creek) can serve 275 – making a total of 935. Current enrollment is 770 and we are growing at close to 10% per year = 840. "

The next Capacity Management Task Force meeting is on the 14th so there may be more news soon.
See: http://www.seattleschools.org/cms/One.aspx?portalId=627&pageId=11000118

Note: Given the WSS staffing formula See page 30 in: http://www.seattleschools.org/UserFiles/Servers/Server_543/File/District/Departments/School%20Board/16-17agendas/09_10_2016/20160910_Agenda_Retreat_Packet.pdf  A split school would have only .5 secretary. .5 librarian, .2 nurse etc.

Official SPS statement:.
http://www.seattleschools.org/cms/One.aspx?portalId=627&pageId=13505264

Articles about the First Day

By coincidence I saw 2 different articles on what to teach on the first day. The first was from one of my favorite teacher bloggers Fawn Nguyen: http://fawnnguyen.com/first-two-days-school/ She's one of those people I wish my kids could have in real life:

"Oh, how many of you have older siblings who had me as their teacher? Yeah? Did they say that I’m really mean? Well, your sister is a liar"

The second was a Salon Article: http://www.salon.com/2016/09/06/down-with-classroom-icebreakers-can-we-all-just-start-teaching-instead/ on the same lines:

"If you’re reading this it’s probably too late. There’s a good chance the teacher of a child you love has already squandered a non-trivial amount of instruction time by prodding a roomful of reluctant kids through a series of awkward icebreakers and/or delivering a soul-crushingly dull and dour recitation of required supplies, class rules, and tardy policies."

Upcoming Threads:

• I'll setup a testing thread earlier this year based on what I saw last time around. Note: the testing registration deadline as always is quite soon:  October 6th. See: http://www.seattleschools.org/students/academics/advanced_learning/ for more deadlines
• Since I thought the first version was interesting we'll have a building news thread maybe once a season.
• I plan to check in with TM and Garfield to see how things are going after enough time has gone by to judge.

Info on commenting

So how's it going in those last days and as school starts please post your impressions of the new year.

Editorial: Where is the Program Going?

Those of us defending Advanced  Learning never have much of a respite. There's a historical trend of egalitarianism that pushes back against any attempt to differentiate learning. Of late its coming from those concerned primarily with race and equity with changes at Thurgood Marshall and Garfield. To summarize, the various charges leveled against the program:

• The demographics don't match that of the general district.
• These represent bias in the testing and identification process.
• The presence of any self-contained, tracked program hurts those not within it which is disproportionately students of color regardless of the fairness of the identification process.
• The program is merely a modern day form of segregation and its participants are actively or unwittingly racist.

So is providing acceleration and enrichment unethical? I think the answer here is contained even within the district's goals  "Seattle Public Schools is committed to ensuring equitable access, closing the opportunity gaps and excellence in education for every student." For the advanced learning community,  excellence in education for every student remains an elusive goal and is what motivates most of the parents.  Families are searching for appropriately challenging curriculum and opportunities for their children.

Unfortunately,  we are also cast because of the moment  into the role of defending an imperfect system. Seattle Public is a big complicated district that has much room to grow in almost every area. However, the good should not be the enemy of the perfect. Critics have seized on flaws to suggest we should throw the entire system out rather than pushing to correct them or even recognizing where improvements are occurring.

So, I will start by saying that the AL office has done a historically poor job of reaching out to minority and low income families even within the bounds of what the law allows. They often have patted themselves on the back for producing brochures in several languages and refused to acknowledge how the chaotic process of identification itself creates barriers for families. The department does not really collaborate with parents so the periodically offered suggestions on improving the process from the community haven't gone far.  One positive step has been the push for universal screening in the south east quadrant. This has apparently borne some fruit according to the statistics from the department. (30% of the population are students of color and underrepresented population have been growing by 18% a year in the program)  Most people I believe support efforts to reduce barriers here and we have to see improvements made before we can judge how much of an effect they have on demographics. Secondly, I think a lot of the criticism ignores the presence of minorities already in the program and the heavy recruitment of them by programs like Rainier Scholars out of the public system.

Testing is a very imperfect science and I tend to prefer looser systems myself for that reason. Its better to admit more students and risk false positives than restrict and shut kids out from the curriculum they would benefit from.  However, the actual tests used for identification are in use across the country and not fundamentally flawed as some assert. The programs select for a population that achieves in the upper percentiles on tests and all the standardized testing shows that is how the students continue to perform.  A lot of the critics deny this fact and fundamentally believes there are no difference in the students that requires a different curriculum.

Its also important to realize once this selection process is finished, the district concentrates the kids in a few schools.  That distorts all discussion of demographics at such sites. Its not surprising that there are lots of white students in honors or AP classes at Garfield, since we funneled all our high performing ones there from a much larger geographic area.

Moving on, tracking is a complex subject. There is a fairly large body of research both for and against it. See: http://discussapp.blogspot.com/p/i-was-forwarded-some-links-to-articles.html.   My general position which I've stated before, is that when a different curriculum is needed, tracking is generally appropriate.  Its ineffective to try to teach large numbers of students completely different lessons at the same time.  Given an impossible task, the classroom by default will regress to the mean. This is generally why families have left their neighborhood schools in the first place. Its often not that there is no differentiation there, its that its proven insufficient because of the gap between children. On top of that the home classrooms are sometimes unable to provide the social emotional supports or peer group that certain kids need to be successful

Sometimes, again because its an imperfect system, we're left with the district claiming the tracks are teaching the same material. There are two responses to that, where there is no true distinction tracking does lose its rational. Often, however, this situation is artificial. The same district has diluted or forced the curriculum into the same pathway against the complaints of the community. The proper action here is to create a class that is actually different.

Finally, are we as a group stubbornly resistant to change? First we are not monolithic. The advanced learning community has just as broad a spread of opinions as the general population.  Speaking for myself, I'd say we're looking for the following out of the district:

• Inclusion in any process.
• Healthy two way communication .
• Consideration of quality and the needs of the students within the program. 
• Systems to measure the health of the program and signs on the ground that we're moving in the right directions.

August Curriculum and Instruction Board Committee Meeting

Monday was the latest C&I  meeting. At the end, members discussed the revisions to the Advanced Learning Procedure (2190).  This included the  language to allow Thurgood Marshall to implement blended Social Studies.

Agenda:

http://www.seattleschools.org/UserFiles/Servers/Server_543/File/District/Departments/School%20Board/committees/C&I/2016-17/8.15.16_C&I_Packet.pdf

Previous Post on the subject:

http://discussapp.blogspot.com/2016/07/advanced-learning-is-looking-for.html

Official minutes will not be published until next month but from what I heard, the edited procedure was adopted with a set of concerns raised. There will be a followup board work session on October 5th regarding advanced learning and some of the larger philosophical issues.

Reactions

"Dear Thurgood Marshall Community:
Last night the School Board Curriculum Committee met to discuss changes to the Advanced Learning policy including a suggested change that would allow us to apply for a social studies waiver so that we can blend students from our various programs to learn together. Because the current policy states that Highly Capable students will be taught math, writing, reading, social studies and science in a self-contained setting, this has been a subject of much discussion and some contention. I am so happy to let you know that with much support from district central office leadership and from all of you, we have received approval to apply for our waiver!
School Board Directors Burke, Harris and Geary asked me to pass on their appreciation to our staff for their hard work and innovation on behalf of our students. They were clear that while innovation must be balanced with oversight, they did not want to stand in the way of a creative new approach that we know will benefit our students. I want to thank all of you for your involvement in this process. The social studies plan was truly a grassroots effort, begun by our Equity Team and taken up by our staff and parents. It is the positive beliefs and thoughtfulness of our staff, as well as the supportive efforts of our parents that made this a reality.
Of course, this is just the beginning! Other schools have been watching our journey to get to this place. Superintendent Dr. Nyland has repeatedly stated that closing the achievement gap is THE educational issue of our time. As we begin this work of coordinating our efforts to educate our diverse students body about social studies and to teach them the skills that will allow them to live and work successfully in a diverse community, our progress will be watched by our parents, the district, the board and others who might also want to consider changes to the ways they deliver instruction to create more equitable learning environments. We will approach this work carefully and thoughtfully, keeping and eye towards evaluation of our efforts. This is exciting work we are embarking on!

I look forward to seeing you and your children in just 3 short weeks. I’m excited to start our next year together!

Best,
Katie May, Principal
Thurgood Marshall Elementary"

Principal  May: 

I am writing this from my personal email because I cannot get on to the new Outlook system other than through my IPhone.  

I am going to be posting this to the Seattle Schools Community Schools forum blog to clarify my position about remarks attributed to me transferred from a letter from you [Principal May]  to your school that was posted on the blog from the "results" of Monday's (C&I) Curriculum & Instruction meeting. 

 I also wanted to give you the heads up that I have asked General Counsel Noel Treat to research whether or not the proposed Supt. Policy violates or conflicts with the current HCC / AL Policies that allows for a waiver for Thurgood Marshall to blend Social Studies and HCC classes.  I believe other Directors also have concerns.   

I strongly believe that this SPS SP waiver procedure is not clear and is in violation of our current policies.  Though Superintendent Procedures do not have be passed by the Board, they do need to be in synch with current policies.  If the policy is poorly written and confusing and (out of date e.g.,Spectrum and ALO) (as I believe it is) then the policie(s) should be changed and vetted.    The Board has a Committee of the Whole to address Advanced Learning on October 5th.    

I absolutely have enormous respect for our teachers at Thurgood Marshall and others in other communities who are attempting to bring forth creative changes, e.g., Garfield Honors for All in the 9th Grade, Chief Sealth a number of years ago, etc. 

 I do though as an elected Boardmember have a duty to uphold policies, attempt to change them or make them more clear, not to ignore them.  Notice of these proposed changes doesn't appear on the Board's radar until well into the process and that's distressing because then the communication, such as it is, becomes polarized and good intent is lost.  Our waiver policy for curriculum is also not clear, nor is enforcement of same, or of the involvement and counsel of BLTs in any such decisions clearly articulated.  And, the BLT process throughout the district is not consistent.  

My hope is that on Oct. 5th and before and after, we address issues such as identification processes for advanced learning and highly capable opportunities for previously unidentified children, especially those children of color and low SES; whether or not we need and should mandate differentiation professional development training in our increasingly crowded classrooms to be able to meet an even wider population of learning needs; and, where the 25-30% of Seattle's children who have chosen other educational resources are and why - have they given up and lost faith in SPS to meet their children's needs?  

That does NOT mean that I think policies and waivers done without a consistent mechanism in place and without robust engagement and notice to our families is acceptable.  I feel often that we have not identified what part of our process is "site-based management" and what accountability layers are in place or need review and examination, e.g.,  where do the Executive Directors fit in this pattern?  How do the different departments and Exs., Chiefs, and Supts. fit in?   I used to tease former Director Shauna Heath - that we should set the table for 98 other places so every school can do what it likes or needs.  The evaluation process/measurement of changes of narrowing the opportunity gap has to be looked at as well.  What has worked in the past?  What did the U of VA. study say that SPS paid big money for?   

I am in absolute favor of meeting all of the learning needs of our children.  How to do that, I believe deserves very intense and thorough review for unintended consequences and should be approached in a systemic and thoughtful manner - taking into account the hard work and opinions of our teachers who toil every day.  

Most cordially,

Leslie Harris

SPS Director, Dist. 6

Leslie.Harris@seattleschools.org

206-475-1000

Exec., A&F Committees

Commenting:

I've now cut over to disqus comments.

1. To comment as a guest , start to sign in and then click on the check box titled:  "I'd rather post as a guest"
2.  This box is only visible on mobile platforms after you start to fill the text boxes out.
3. An email is required but not verified so if you're concerned about privacy you may make one up. That said, I'd prefer that you provide a valid one. This will only be visible to me and allow me to privately followup on a comment.
4. Please email me directly using the contact us button on the main page if you run into any issues and can't comment.
5. Comments by new guest posters will tend to go into moderation until whitelisted.
6. Social media accounts can be used to authenticate but are not required. 
7. The privacy and cookie policies for disqus are on their site. I don't believe there is any difference with respect to privacy if you choose to guest post and there is not much difference for an authenticated comment on blogger versus an authenticated comment on disqus.

2016 SBAC Results Released

District OSPI Data:

http://reportcard.ospi.k12.wa.us/TemplateDetail.aspx?domain=SBAC&schoolId=100&reportLevel=District&year=2015-16&gradeLevelId=7&groupLevel=District&waslCategory=1&chartType=1&yrs=2015-16

• Opt out rates appear to be up but not by a lot since last year.
• Ceilings are a bit higher.
• The previous version of this data was used by Shauna Heath's in board meetings last year to suggest that the cohort model was ineffective.

Commenting:

I've now cut over to disqus comments.  

1. To comment as a guest , start to sign in and then click on the check box titled:  "I'd rather post as a guest"
2.  This box is only visible on mobile platforms after you start to fill the text boxes out.
3. An email is required but not verified so if you're concerned about privacy you may make one up. That said, I'd prefer that you provide a valid one. This will only be visible to me and allow me to privately followup on a comment.
4. Please email me directly using the contact us button on the main page if you run into any issues and can't comment.
5. Comments by new guest posters will tend to go into moderation until whitelisted.
6. Social media accounts can be used to authenticate but are not required. 
7. The privacy and cookie policies for disqus are on their site. I don't believe there is any difference with respect to privacy if you choose to guest post and there is not much difference for an authenticated comment on blogger versus an authenticated comment on disqus.

August '16 Open Thread

As hard as it is to believe, the new school year is starting to creep up on us. If anyone has any info on school supplies lists/get togethers etc. they want to share please either post it here or forward it to me.

I'm going to put a plug out for Shakspeare in the Park: http://greenstage.org/shakespeare-in-the-park/
The productions are one of my favorite parts of summer and a fun way to introduce kids to Shakespeare.

I'm also getting close to trying out the new commenting system. See: http://discussapp.blogspot.com/2016/07/july-open-thread.html. I'd still like more folks to give it a try and provide feedback before I move to a more extensive roll out.

WAC changes

I made an inquiry and heard back from OSPI

"While there is a requirement for federally-funded programs (such as Title I) to provide services to approved private schools, there is no such requirement for Highly Capable Programs.   RCW 28A.150.220, Basic Education, speaks to what districts are to provide for "students enrolled in grades one through twelve..."  

Some districts choose to include private and homeschooled students in their identification process.  However, students not enrolled in the district do not generate Highly Capable apportionment.  The district's responsibility under Basic Education is to provide for enrolled students."

But Status Quo remains for Seattle

"We have always tested non-enrolled residents of Seattle during our annual identification process. Since they are not covered under the HCP grant funds, we charge $140 to help defray some of the costs of identifying such students."

Math For Love

I just received the summer newsletter from Math For Love.  Two items seemed of interest.

• Math for Love Sunday classes start October 2. Sign up here!
• Math in Seattle: Evelyn Lamb on Visualizing Hyperbolic Geometry, 5pm, August 22 at the UW.

What's on your minds?