Seattle Public Schools questions/concerns/comments? West Seattle event Wednesday

Thanks for the tip. Seattle School Board members are hosting events around the city for general “community engagement,” not just linked to one specific issue or program, and the next one is at Denny International Middle School in West Seattle on Wednesday. All are welcome to attend in the library at Denny (2601 SW Kenyon) 5:30-7 pm Wednesday (April 30). The district hasn’t announced which School Board directors plan to attend – we’re checking – but you can count on this area’s elected representative Gina Topp, who currently serves as the board’s president.

Kyle April 28, 2025 (9:51 am)

Maybe I’m the only one, but the early release on Wednesdays is really tough for working parents with elementary school kids. All elementary school kids need after school care, and most parents are still working at 1:10pm on a Wednesday. Moving the early release to Fridays or doing late start instead of early release would help make SPS better for working families who already struggle to patch together care.

A April 29, 2025 (9:37 am)

1,000% agree. Most schools do this now (even the private ones in the area). Never had this growing up. When did it become the norm? It is insane to think parents can handle this every single week. Almost all families – both parents need to work. Perhaps school staff can take a day for professional development now and then instead of early release in the middle of our work day/week every. single. week. It’s hard and expensive enough raising kids – this was an unexpected and pretty shocking burden. Seriously crazy to put this on parents/caretakers.
- Another perspective April 29, 2025 (4:55 pm)
  
  It’s not the school’s job to parent children. I think that parents often forget this. Yes it’s really convenient to have a place where you can send your kids all day so you can go to your job. On the other hand, that’s not why school exists and it’s not the priority. These meetings are used to continually keep teachers abreast of what’s going on in the school among other things. These are not the kinds of trainings that you can do every once in awhile. And even then, if you don’t have school for an entire day you will have parents complaining about that as well. There is no winning. Teachers are required to participate in this training. It is state mandated. There’s no way around it.
  - Kyle April 30, 2025 (7:05 am)
    
    Professional development early release schedules are not dictated by the state. They are negotiated at a district level. Some districts hold fewer, longer sessions over the year, some of them hold them on Fridays or the end of the month. Some of them hold them in the morning so it’s a late start for kids instead. SPS holds theirs in the middle of the work week in the early afternoon every week of the school year.
  - A April 30, 2025 (7:30 am)
    
    I do not expect or want the schools to parent my children, nor do I consider it daycare. My point is schools could better respect the schedules of thousands of working parents. I also know public school staff who tell me it can be a struggle coming up with teacher training/professional development programming to continuously fill that weekly spot, and it’s fairly frequently not well done and therefore not very effective. Which is even more lamentable.
    - SJ April 30, 2025 (12:37 pm)
      
      Have you considered after school enrichment programs? Many schools offer classes on Wednesdays (the purpose being enrichment, of course, not day care – but to help you bridge the gap). Music, art, fashion, robotics, gardening, chess club, newspaper…. Some of the community centers, libraries, and pools have programs like pottery, dance, book club. After school sports (school sanctioned, community, YMCA, parks department). Leadership groups like scouting. Teens can work part time (babysitting for busy parents like you, lawn mowing?). Many students use this time to try something that they can’t do during a regular school day – more opportunity than burden! :-)
    - Kyle May 1, 2025 (12:17 pm)
      
      Every working parent has considered those programs and it is the actual hunger games to get into them. The enrichment programs you mention are only available at schools with a well endowed PTA to fund them, those are also at capacity. Seemed like SPS could help the unrelenting demand by scheduling their professional development time so that some working parents could make easier arrangements to care for their young kids.

Sorry, comment time is over.