All of our kids, ready for life
Rise Up for Students is a blog advocating for racial equity and radical empathy in our schools, in Seattle and beyond
Black History Today, created by Marcus Harden in honor of Black History Month, pays tribute to the living legacy of Black history in our community and recognizes the people among us who are boldly shaping the future. The 2024 installment marks the sixth Black History Today series published on Rise Up for Students since 2018.
Read MoreBlack History Today, created by Marcus Harden in honor of Black History Month, pays tribute to the living legacy of Black history in our community and beyond, and recognizes the people like Natalie Hester who are shaping the future.
Read MoreIf the health and well-being of our community is a priority, the district must train staff on anti-bias, restorative discipline practices. And above all, the mental health of our community must be prioritized over any attempts to standardly assess, bridge learning “gaps” and return to status quo.
Read MoreBlack History Today, created by Marcus Harden in honor of Black History Month, pays tribute to the living legacy of Black history in our community and beyond, and recognizes the people like Sue Beyers who are shaping the future.
Read MoreSeattle Public Schools announced that all high school students will receive an “A” in every class for the spring semester, a move that quietly eliminates — for the time being — one of the primary ways an unjust education system sorts and tracks our kids.
Read MoreAshley is a riveting storyteller, community convenor, researcher, and media guru for organizations committed to social change. As a leader capable of compelling both the head and the heart, she bridges divides, and she has deep experience shaping perceptions within ambivalent or disconnected audiences. If you are looking for a badass communications and campaign leader, with a refined social justice lens, Ashley is your person.
Read MoreAs a fellow Black woman in philanthropy, Ada is an important part of my support system; a co-conspirator and collaborator. She has taken on the burden that many of us have, supporting Pivotal’s work on diversity, equity and inclusion on top of her other job responsibilities. Her courageous leadership is helping to push our sector’s work forward as we call on our organizations and colleagues to more explicitly center racial equity and social justice.
Read MoreI had a revelation this week in Texas about how to think differently about culturally-responsive instruction and equity...
Read MoreThis unusual appointment process presents a quandary for the six sitting board directors, who were all in attendance at the forum. Patu announced her departure just before the elections deadline, effectively blocking District 7 voters from choosing her successor. Instead, the six school board directors, and not the Southeast Seattle community, will choose who represents the district on the school board for the remaining 2 years and 3 months of her term.
Read MoreBy Matt Halvorson
I’m thrilled with the depth of this candidate pool and impressed with every candidate’s passion and good intentions. They are standing before us volunteering their time and souls to service on the school board. And they’re opening themselves up to everything that comes along with that process, including being considered by people like me who have thoughts and opinions. But the fact also remains that we have to choose one person, and that we don’t get to just take the whole field.
So, as we seek an equity champion, a change-maker with an unshakable sense of urgency and possibility and love, a hero with an understanding of the relationship between systemic oppression and public education, here are my first impressions of the candidates — my takeaways from the District VII Candidate Forum. I look forward to seeing how tonight’s forum at RBHS shapes my thinking even further.
Read MoreAs a former high-level athlete...
As someone who came to the United States in 1989 with the dream of someday playing for the national soccer team (I was good but never that good)...
As someone who tried out for 2 WNBA teams in 2000 and learned that non-drafted players typically were paid $20-$30,000/year (about the same as what I made as a starting teacher)...
As someone who has known players in both the NFL and NBA...
The issue of pay for female athletes has been on my mind for a long time.
Read MoreThis is the year, if there ever was one, to really change Seattle Public Schools. In addition to the four seats up for election this fall, two additional school board members in Seattle (Betty Patu and Zachary DeWolf) have announced their desire to resign this year and vacate their seats early.
The school board only has seven members to begin with. By the end of this year, we could essentially have a completely new school board.
Read MoreAbove all, if we don't know what impact this will have on marginalized communities in the district, then we need to find out. If we're serious about wanting to close the opportunity gap, then the first and most important question we need to ask about every single decision concerning our students and our schools is what impact it will have on Black students. What impact will this have on low-income families in Seattle? What impact will this have on Seattle Public Schools’ indigenous students? What impact will this have on the kids we talk about wanting to uplift?
If our outcomes are ever going to change, then our decision-making processes have to change. Otherwise, we will continue to end up in the same places again and again and again.
Read MoreCritics of the current school board note that it spends too much time focused on issues that don’t improve student achievement and don’t resolve opportunity gaps. In fact, actions the board has taken in the past have made those gaps worse. And though it made an impressive hire, appointing Denise Juneau as superintendent last summer, it has also hampered her and the professional educators that she leads in addressing these issues.
So, could you do better?
Read MoreThe opportunity gap, as we all know, is a byproduct of systemic oppression playing out in our schools. The way to upend systemic oppression is to find a way to turn the system on its head. Targeted universalism applies that table-flipping mentality in a constructive way. I’m so surprised and pleased to hear this idea mentioned as our schools’ strategic north star.
But…
Read MoreI got the latest issue of The Augustana Magazine in my mailbox this week. It’s the alumni magazine from my alma mater. I flipped through it today, paused and read about the Augustana baseball team’s national title, and was about to recycle it until the page listing new faculty hires and promotions caught my eye.
Take a look at it. What do you notice? What do all of these folks seem to have in common?
Read MoreI ask humbly for your help. What else is happening that I should know about in our schools? Can you give me more reason to be hopeful, more stories about the progress our district is making? Can you tell me more about the teachers meeting with inmates, or about something that gives you hope for the future?
And if not that, are there more areas we need to shine a light on? What else is happening that also needs to change?
Thank you for your thoughts and your optimism as we look ahead, and thank you for doing what you do in important times like these. It’s going to be a good year.
Read MoreThe implication from charter school opponents is that our traditional public school system is the model for how money should be distributed. Charter schools are diverting public funds, they say, using them to serve only “some” students when this public money is intended for all students.
But isn’t that the definition of an opportunity gap? Aren’t our public schools already taking money intended for all students and distributing it inequitably?
Read MoreI’m sure you know by now that two Black men were arrested after a Starbucks employee called them in for being Black a few weeks back.
Every Starbucks closed today in response to that incident, and every Starbucks employee in universes both known and otherwise attended a racial bias training this afternoon.
Read MoreThe Washington State Charters Schools Association Conference is this weekend, which means we get to take a look behind the curtain of the charter school movement in Washington. What are they thinking about? What are they talking about? What are their priorities and their blind spots?
Read MoreCheck out music from Matt Halvorson
