More than 35 Seattle students, parents, and community members came together at last night’s school board meeting to share their message with Seattle Public Schools’ leaders.

Several Seattle University students attended the school board meeting and talked about the discipline issue in depth.

Attendees thanked the district for its recent public commitment to include disproportionate and exclusionary discipline as topics of focus in its framework for the upcoming teacher contract negotiations.

More than 35 students, parents, and community members attended Wednesday’s school board meeting

They also urged school board members and Superintendent Banda to improve student achievement and school climate through several key strategies including:

• implementing Article II: Partnering to Close the Achievement Gap from the last negotiation cycle, and using targeted strategies that acknowledge racial bias in academic settings and in behavioral referrals;
• training teachers and principals in effective, culturally responsive discipline practices that minimize bias in the classroom; and
• using comprehensive, uniform data reporting systems so teachers and principals can ensure best practices.

Organizer Andaiye Qaasim with a sign encouraging SPS to use “solutions not suspensions”

Activists took time to submit written testimony to school board members on the issues that matter to them.

On May 17^th, advocates from across the state will need to submit paperwork to their county elections office if they wish to be considered for this upcoming election cycle.

Help us fill this table. Who is up for re-election in your district? Who is planning on running for an open chair? E-mail info@educationvoters.org and let us know—we’ll keep this table updated as we approach the May 17^th deadline.

The Founders of the Washington State government had a vision for us.

It is embedded in section 1 of Article 9 of our Washington State Constitution:

It is the paramount duty of the state to make ample provision for the education of all children residing within its borders without distinction or preference on account of race, color caste or sex.

Allowing Dream Act kids to be eligible for state need grant for higher ed in this state falls squarely within the intentions and vision of this state’s founders.

These students are not foreign students, but children residing within our borders, children who have grown up in Washington, have gone to school here, graduated from here and have their homes here. Many know no other home.

We are in a major battle in the other Washington to confront the broken immigration system in this country that has resulted in the Dreamers’ current status as members of a caste imprisoned in a Kafkaesque  limbo.

We in THIS Washington should do what we can now to fulfill the vision of our state founders to make today’s needed education, which does not end at high school, available for all children residing within our borders without distinction on the basis of race, color, caste or sex.

We need to support the future of these children. Making higher ed. available to low income Dreamers keeps faith with our past and invests in our future.

This is a favorite mantra of LEV’s CEO Chris Korsmo, who is known for her impatient optimism.

Community leaders and legislators agreed that it was time for our state to do something about persistently low-achieving schools. The time for hoping the problem would get better was over.

Today Governor Inslee signed SB 5329, which gives the state a larger role in school accountability and turnaround efforts. The legislation calls on the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) to design, a statewide system of support, assistance, and intervention for persistently low-achieving schools.

The legislation implements the second level of an accountability system created in 2010 to assist the ten most persistently lowest-achieving schools in Washington to become more accountable. School performance is based on the Achievement Index, a State Board of Education-developed accountability framework.

Thanks to SB 5329, persistently low achieving schools will receive additional support from OSPI to implement a three-year required action plan. OSPI will develop the action plan criteria and the corresponding system of supports for each level of challenged schools. If schools do not improve in three years, OSPI, working with local districts, will require additional actions to increase student achievement.

LEV worked with our partners Stand for Children and Partnership for Learning and a bi-partisan team of legislators in both chambers to develop the legislation.

KIRO News reports on the growing movement in the community to push Seattle Public Schools to address disproportional effects of discipline on students of color.

Join us Wednesday, May 8 at the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute for Stop School Suspensions: Solutions for safe, secure classrooms without removing kids to learn about alternatives to punitive discipline that are working in our community right now.

Kicking things off on Saturday at 3:15 p.m., Kelly will be hosting an hour long parent- to- parent class. The class will be divided in to six modules, allowing parents to give ten minute presentations focusing on an aspect of education funding.

The following day, Brooke and Maggie will be doing a joint presentation on discipline. During the class, attendees will learn about the failures of zero tolerance policies and their ill- prescribed punishments as well as solutions like Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) and culture competence awareness training. The pair will also discuss the importance of good, accessible, and disaggregated data and how it can help transform school discipline. The presentation is from 12:15 p.m. to 1:15 p.m.

Registration information for the convention can be found here.

Equal Opportunity Schools (EOS) Executive Director Reid Saaris detailed how his organization is helping districts get more black, brown, and low-income students into Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, and Cambridge courses and programs. Saaris announced that Seattle Public Schools has agreed to partner with EOS in four high schools to be named soon.

The next regular meeting of the Black Education Strategy Roundtable will be Tuesday, May 28th from 5:45 to 8:00 p.m. at the new Technology Access Foundation headquarters, Bethaday Community Learning Center at 605 SW 108th St, Seattle, WA 98146. All are welcome.

Below are some pictures from the event:

Minimize the negative impact of discipline policies on students.

As a brand new issue, brought forward from the community, discussions around the discipline policies in our schools have come leaps and bounds. From an issue that was barely spoken of last session to now a rallying point for many legislators eager to end racial disparities and close the opportunity gap, there is still much work to be done this year and in future years. The bills tied to this issue have been labeled NTIB (necessary to implement the budget) and will be negotiated out during the special session.

The mini-interim between now and May 13th will send legislators back to their home districts for a few weeks. As LEV continues to advocate for the policy bills and budgets still in the works, this is your opportunity to connect with your individual legislators to remind them the impacts their choices make on you, your children, and your community. Look for more updates on budget progress and key policy bills, as well as how you can stay involved as the 30-day special session kicks off.

Edsters!

Macy Olivas is a student at Whitman University in Washington, and a graduate of Preuss Charter School in San Diego, CA.

In this video, recorded when she was advocating for Washington to adopt charter school legislation in January 2012, Macy relates her experience as a student in a charter school. She talks about how the school, which drew students from across the city, changed her life compared to her peers.

“I witnessed friends that I went to elementary school with get involved in gang activity, get pregnant, and when we reached high school, even drop out,” she recalls. “Although we all grew up in the same neighborhood, our mentality of what was going to become of our future could not have been further apart.”

She talks about the support she and her peers received at their charter school that led to their success. The school offers more instructional time by increasing the length of the school day and school year; provides intensive graduation and college counseling; and requires honors and AP level coursework. But, Macy says the biggest impact made was by the faculty at her school.

This support had fantastic results. In her class of 102 students, all of whom came from low-income families across San Diego, 100 percent graduated, and 94 percent went on to a college or university.

She says ultimately her experience inspired her to become a teacher and to share the opportunities she had with other students from her background. Her charter school provided her with a great education and, she says, “a great education shouldn’t be the exception—it should be the rule.”