Alternative Education Committee Information
Alternative Education Committee Final Report, June 30, 2005
Alternative Committee Meeting Minutes, May 23, 2005
Alternative Committee Meeting Minutes, May 16, 2005
Alternative Committee Meeting Minutes, May 2, 2005
Alternative Committee Meeting Minutes, April 25, 2005
Alternative Committee Meeting Minutes, March 14, 2005
Alternative Education Committee Meeting Addendum, March 14, 2005
Alternative Committee Meeting Minutes, March 21, 2005
Alternative Education Committee Meeting Addendum, March 21, 2005
Alternative Education Committee Meeting Addendum, March 28, 2005
Alternative Education Committee Meeting Addendum, April 16, 2005
March 25, 2005
Salmon Bay Staff and Families,
We are fortunate to have Cindy Spencer, one of our parents, on the School Board-sponsored
Advisory Committee on Alternative Education. Cindy could really use input from
you all. Please take a minute to read the message below and send your input
to cspencer@saintmarks.org
Since similar conversations were held in 2002, I've attached two documents relating to the work with did as a community then.
Please note that at the
bottom of this e-mail there are two items that Cindy needs input on by Friday
of this week.
Thanks!
Jeff Clark
Below is the message from Cindy:
Greetings, Salmon Bay Community.
My name is Cindy Spencer, mother of Stewart (7th grade, Lisa's homeroom), and I'm excited to be representing Salmon Bay School on the School Board's Advisory Committee on Alternative Education. This committee, which is made up of 16 parents, principals, teachers, community representatives and district administrators, has been convened by Elaine Packard at the request of Brita Butler-Wall, and will work closely with the Alternative Schools Coalition to represent to the School Board both the gifts that we as Alternative Schools give our city, as well as our particular needs and concerns during the current re-thinking of the choice and transportation plans of Seattle Public Schools.
Our committee meets weekly on Mondays from 4-6 pm at the Stanford Center through March 28, and will then determine continuing frequency of meeting. The charge to the committee is to "develop an operational definition of alternative schools/education," by March 28, and to "make policy recommendations to the School Board," which will likely take a bit longer! Meetings are open to the public. Future agendas include: March 14 and 21 - Characteristics of Alternative Education; March 28 - Closure and Consolidation issues; April ? - Students Assignment/Transportation issues.
I would love to hear your input as I seek to faithfully represent this wonderful community of students, parents and teachers. Particularly I am interested in how we as a community understand alternative education, both in general and as it applies to Salmon Bay School. How has this understanding changed and stayed the same from the founding of COHO and NOMS to today? Do we have particular needs, especially regarding transportation and school location that a traditional or neighborhood school might not? How do/might we contribute to equity of access to quality public education in our city, and what do we need to continue or increase this?
Please contact me with your thoughts concerning these questions or the general work of the committee at cspencer@saintmarks.org <mailto:cspencer@saintmarks.org>, or in the evenings at (206) 524-4662. I look forward to hearing from you and bringing our collective wisdom to bear on the work of the Advisory Committee for Alternative Education.
Sincerely,
Cindy Spencer
Specific questions needing input by Friday, March 25:
I have a couple of questions
that need some attention this next week, either
from you, staff or the larger community. The first has to do with location.
The Alternative Schools Coalition was asked to discuss with their community
whether they would be willing to re-locate or to share space with another
school, and our committee was asked to visit this topic next week. The
sense is that Brita Butler-Wall is interested in centrally locating all
alternative schools so that busing could be more shared, and all could
receive all-city draw status. I've just spent time on the phone with Marsha
McGillivray, and our sense was that Salmon Bay was probably not terribly
interested in moving right now (too close to the last move, already combined
two alternative schools, and has a strong Ballard presence and flavor), but
I wondered if there was anything our "committee of two" missed!
The second question is,
in "defining" alternative education, one of the issues to be
discussed next week has to do with the ways we do assessment and how and
whether that differs from models of "traditional" education.