This comes via KVI host Ari Hoffman's Twitter page: 7 men were arrested in a child sex-trafficking operation in Renton, WA & "one suspect who was a vice principal in the @SeaPubSchools was arrested for prostitution"  This was in Sept & no one knew until today because the media is dead & doesn't have crime beat reporters anymore. The SPS employee is Alex Diaz Rios who worked as an assistant principal/504 coordinator at TOPS K-8. SPS has taken down his page but you can see it in a search.  Rios was also a member of the Portland Community College Board of Directors in Oregon ..read more

 "Life Ready" is just one of the key goals under discussion at tomorrow's Special Board meeting to set "Goals and Guardrails" to use from 2025-2030. Agenda Please allow me to digress for a minute. If "life ready" is a joined idea, it needs a hyphen. So it would be "life-ready."  Here are the basics: The Superintendent is recommending a total of three goals, each of which are detailed below. In narrowing the proposals, the Superintendent prioritized goals and measures the can be used to drive progress and organize strategies. These goals will: • Put students on a trajectory towards l ..read more

In some good news, a former SPS student, Mathew Law, joined the cast of the popular show about an elementary school, Abbott Elementary. The show has been recently nominated for a Golden Globe. From the Times: At the same time, the public schools he attended in Seattle are where he first fell in love with movies.  “I attended Greenwood Elementary, Whitman Middle, then Ballard High. … I had teachers who introduced me to Hitchcock in middle school.” On December 4th, a West Seattle SPS student was killed by gunfire, the second Chief Sealth International High School student to be kil ..read more

 In what I consider fabulous news, the Times had this article,  Washington to guarantee college tuition for low-income families  The FAFSA has long been a sticking point for students, with billions of dollars in federal aid going unclaimed because they simply give up on it, or don’t complete it correctly. An overhaul last year meant to simplify the process only made things worse, with technical problems that led to even lower completion rates and contributed to a decline of 7 percentage points in the proportion of high school seniors going directly to college, according to the ..read more

  Look what's on the DOGE Dopey Boys list, Head Start and Pell Grants. I would bet they get rid of some of the Department of Education in a piecemeal fashion before they do away with it for good. Blaming Dems for pandemic outcomes due to closing schools and leaving them closed. I have seen this argument in several places and I think it will long be debated.  From Education Next: Just when it seemed those in power no longer cared about the nation’s K–12 education system, schools are generating earthquakes. Classrooms and playgrounds are not shaking—yet. Instead, the epicenters are l ..read more

At 1:30 pm today in King County Superior Court, Judge Michael Scott will hear arguments in the attempt to recall Seattle School Board president Liza Rankin. Info on the issues of this case here. Apparently there are hundreds of pages of pleadings.  Judge Scott may or may not issue a ruling today that the plaintiffs can go forward with their petition.  I'll put an update here after the hearing.  Rankin seems to think she just has to explain that all she does as president is set and run meetings. That's simply not so.  And, under SOFG, she has taken her power as president to ..read more

 Opening the floor for suggestions on closing the SPS budget gap.  1. Obviously, for the Legislature to truly fund public education for every child. I'm not sure I believe this will ever happen but I do also understand why there is hesitation to give money to districts that are not doing well. I think any "ask" should be accompanied by "and here's how we will use those new dollars wisely." 2. No raises for anyone for two years. Most people don't get a raise every year anyway and maybe it will stem the hiring at JSCEE. 3. Again, for those in the back, CHARGE THE CITY for pre-k classro ..read more

There was an interesting column from Seattle Times' writer Danny Westneat. It's called: School closures were another swing, miss for Seattle progressivism At last count, there were 627 comments. Clearly, he hit a nerve. I concur with much of what he puts forth. Upfront, I want to say that the Democrats allowed one subgroup of progressives to somehow say that their progressivism is what ALL Democrats want/believe. Meanwhile, on the Seattle School Board, that progressivism was used against mostly white parents as a cudgel to silence them.  To say that if you disagree with the Board o ..read more

Updates: Here's a link to the group, Recall Rankin, that filed the recall papers.  In their press release, they give this information: Under Washington State law, the King County Superior Court will review the recall petition to determine if it can proceed. If a judge allows it to proceed, petitioners will then circulate the petition for signatures.  A recall requires the valid signatures of legal voters equal to twenty-five percent of the total number of votes cast for all candidates for the office to which the officer whose recall is demanded was elected at the preceding election ..read more

 Update 2: So I have seen a message from President Liza Rankin on why she, Director Evan Briggs, and Director Michelle Sarju backed out of this meeting.  In a nutshell: - She says there was no organization to the meeting which is just not true. They had a moderator lined up and naturally the board members could have set parameters for what to discuss, length of meeting, etc. All that was fleshed out. - She also claimed that if the meeting was PTA sponsored, they needed to have liability insurance to use the school space. Hello? PTAs use school space all the time and know they have to ..read more