2013 Families and Education Levy Summer Learning Grant Recipients

Source: http://mayormcginn.seattle.gov

Mayor McGinn, Seattle Public School officials, community leaders, and local students and parents gathered at Northgate Elementary School to announce the beginning of a city-wide investment plan to support summer learning programs – the first of its kind – included in the 2011 Families and Education Levy.

The Levy will invest in school and community-based programs serving students entering Seattle Public Schools’ elementary, middle and high schools in order to provide struggling students with additional learning time to avoid summer learning loss and catch up with their peers.

“We know that summer learning loss disproportionately affects low-income students. Research shows that summer learning loss is estimated to account for 2/3 of the literacy achievement gap in the primary grades,” said McGinn. “By funding summer learning programs across the city, we will help close the achievement gap and reinforce our commitment to all students.”

The summer learning proposals represent a variety of partnerships between schools, Community Based Organizations (CBO) and the City. Among recipients is the Northgate Summer Academy, a collaborative program created by the Seattle Human Services Department, the Seattle Public Library, Seattle Parks and Recreation and Northgate Elementary School. This program will use innovative academic interventions and engaging enrichment opportunities to provide a supportive and creative learning environment essential to student success. All recipient programs, like Northgate Summer Academy, will provide families with unique, nontraditional methods to enhance the learning experience.

This is the first time the Levy has included funds for summer learning. Recognizing the need to offer extended learning opportunities to some students, the Levy planning committee designed a plan to use Levy funding for that purpose. The Office for Education (OFE) carried out a Request for Investment (RFI) process from Oct. 2012 to Jan. 2013 to award funds for the summer of 2013. Schools and Community Based Organizations, alone or in partnership, were encouraged to apply. Nine organizations have been awarded funds equaling $903,924, which will be used to benefit more than 950 students this year.

Recipients include:

Seattle Parks and Recreation
Seattle Public Schools
The Denise Louie Education Center
Denny International Middle School
YMCA of Greater Seattle
YMCA 9th Grade Transition
Refugee Women’s Alliance
Southwest Youth and Family Services

Programs awarded funds this year will continue to receive Levy funds through summer 2019 contingent on meeting performance targets. The Levy is expected to provide funding for summer learning programs at all grade levels totaling $17.2 million over 7 years.

Let’s Slow Down Speeding Drivers Near Garfield and 23rd Avenue!

From: Update on Drunk Driving Incident Near Eckstein

There is a School Road Safety Task Force that the Mayor had started before this incident. Still an important issue. More info below.

Draft Roles, School Road Safety Task Force

Act as a sounding board for Mayor and City staff through the process of creating a School Road Safety Analysis & Action Plan (SRSAaAP). This process will require members to:

o Provide input on analysis of safety, accessibility, and mobility around schools

o Provide input on school zone safety enforcement practices in Seattle, including the implementation and outreach plan for installing additional school zone speed cameras

o Provide input on process and criteria for prioritizing physical improvements at schools

o Provide input on current City road safety education programs and recommend additional education programs based on best practices

o Provide input on policies and programs impacting trip patterns and mode choices by students and parents

· Act as a liaison to school communities and a conduit for feedback regarding the elements of the SRSAaAP

· Promote public understanding of and participation in school traffic safety programs

School Road Safety Analysis & Action Plan

Outreach, Draft Components of the Plan

Exact scope and scale of the School Road Safety Analysis & Action Plan is still to be determined but may include the following main components:
1) Evaluation of existing street environments around schools
2) Review of existing legislation and policies related to school traffic safety and mobility
3) Development of a process and criteria for identifying and prioritizing physical improvements near schools, building on the existing Safe Routes to School program
4) Development of a safety and mobility education toolbox that can be used at all schools, building on elements developed already through Be Super Safe (the education campaign for the Road Safety Action Plan)
5) Development of an implementation plan for installing traffic school zone speed cameras and other potential enforcement programs
6) Review of best practices from peer cities for enforcement (including emphasis patrols) and recommend potential changes to existing enforcement practices

City of Seattle
Office of Mayor Mike McGinn

Rebecca Deehr
Policy Analyst
PO Box 94749
Seattle, WA 98124
T: (206) 233-2662
F: (206) 684-5360
rebecca.deehr@seattle.gov

The Able Teens Programs

The Able Teens

The Able Teens (TAT) is a five-day a week after-school vocational training program for teens between the ages of 14- 20 with developmental disabilities (including autism). The TAT members learn skills such as cleaning, cooking, food preparation, event set-up, interview skills, bus training, organization, customer service and life skills.

TAT is a job readiness program which develops and utilizes person centered plans, incorporates a variety of vocational training and volunteer work experiences and provides leadership opportunities in hopes that each participate will become more independent and ultimately obtain an hourly paid position.

In addition TAT provides information about other resources that may benefit the TAT member and/ or their family. The program cost is $7 per day per participant, but families may use DDD and SSI funds to pay for program costs. Participants are not required to attend for five days each week, but may choose how many and which days to attend.

During the summer TAT members join together with other Seattle area teens to work as part of the STEP (Student Teen Employment Preparation Program). They work on integrated teams of 10, taking part in environmental restoration, mural painting, neighborhood clean up, community building and outreach projects and by doing so, are developing vocational and social skills needed to be successful in the work-place.

For more information, contact 206-684-4575 or teen.programs@seattle.gov.

LETS AVOID A POTENTIAL SHOOTING: Big Fight at Nova – World School

Seattle Action Network asks: ‘Where are the civic/community leaders? And why are they not making sure that these type schools incidents not escalate?”

Big Fight at Nova/World School Yesterday
From the Stranger Slog:

A Central District high school was locked down yesterday afternoon as police responded to reports that a former student and suspected gang member had assaulted several peers and had allegedly pulled a gun on one student.

Students from Nova High school and the World School, a multilingual school for newly arrived immigrant and refugee students that shares space with Nova, were locked into the building at around 2:30 p.m. yesterday, after teens reported seeing a bloody, brass-knuckle-fueled fight between at least four high school students on the schools’ playfield.

“A 14-year-old student who used to go to the World School had basically been kicked out and was going to Chief Sealth school, but he wanted to be re-admitted and the principal had turned down his request,” confirms Teresa Whipple, a spokeswoman for SPS. “He’d apparently shown up at the school to confront some students. He said they were spreading rumors that were keeping him out of the school.”

The former student, with an older friend, came to school and confronted a couple of students about talking about him on Facebook. He then started hitting one student with brass knuckles.

At some point, the suspect pulled a gun on another student. That student got away but the suspect and his friend told the remaining students that he and his friend were part of a Salvadoran gang and would come back.

The three victims declined medical attention. A search failed to unearth the suspects or a firearm. Because of the district’s no weapons policy, “the 14-year-old has been long-term expelled from Sealth until the police investigation is complete and we understand what his role was,” Whipple says. “We won’t make any final decisions until that’s done.”

Community Leaders need to ‘call themselves out’ on this…

Updated homeless ‘bill of rights’ passes CA legislative committee

Reposted: From The Scaramento Bee

April 23, 2013

Updated homeless ‘bill of rights’ passes CA legislative committee

An amended version of a bill that would extend new protections to California’s homeless population cleared the Assembly Judiciary Committee on Tuesday morning.

Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, framed Assembly Bill 5 as an attempt to create a statewide baseline of homeless civil rights, citing a proliferation of municipal ordinances cracking down on behavior like lying or sleeping on the sidewalk as examples of the “criminalization of poor people.”

“Today numerous laws infringe on poor peoples’ ability to exist in public space, to acquire housing, employment and basic services and to equal protection under the laws,” Ammiano said at a Tuesday morning hearing.

Ammiano’s legislation faced a backlash from critics who said the bill would sanction behavior like urinating in public while exposing businesses to new litigation, undercutting the will of voters who had passed local ordinances and handcuffing city-level efforts to deal with homelessness. The California Chamber of Commerce included AB 5 on its annual list of “job killers” because it imposes “costly and unreasonable mandates on employers.”

The amendments addressed those concerns, Ammiano and supporters of the bill argued. A widely derided provision establishing “the right to engage in life sustaining activities” including “urinating” was deleted. Another amendment jettisoned language prohibiting discrimination by business establishments.

But those changes were not enough to allay the concerns of critics like the League of California Cities, which argued that the bill still imposes onerous new requirements. Lobbyist Kirstin Kolpitcke pointed to a provision requiring governments to compile statistics on arrests and citations for offenses like loitering or obstructing sidewalks.

The bill would also bar local law enforcement from applying laws governing things like eating, sitting or panhandling in public places unless the county has satisfied a set of requirements that include a relatively low unemployment rate, a short wait for public housing and readily available public assistance.

“The city does not control the county’s numbers or what they do or do not provide,” Kolpitcke said.

Concerns also remain about the cost of the bill, which requires the State Department of Public Health to fund health and hygiene centers. At the committee hearing on Tuesday, even lawmakers who voted to move the bill underscored those qualms — committee chair Bob Wieckowski, D-Fremont, predicted a “lively discussion” when the bill goes before the Appropriations Committee.

“While I can certainly appreciate the goal and the aspiration, we all know we simply don’t have the money to be able to provide that,” Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi, D-Torrance, said of the proposed hygiene centers.

Even should that provision be stripped from the bill, it would leave the core of the legislation intact — what Jennifer Friedenbach of the San Francisco-based Coalition on Homelessness described as “making sure homeless people have a fundamental right to rest” without facing harassment.

“That does not overturn local laws,” Friedenbach told the Bee.

PHOTO CREDIT: Advocates for the homeless rally outside the State Capitol building on Tuesday The Sacramento Bee/Jeremy B. White

Read more here: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2013/04/updated-homeless-bill-of-rights-passes-committee.html#storylink=cpy

East Precinct brass to meet with Capitol Hill neighbors over safety concerns — UPDATE: Diaz out

Re-Posted from: http://www.capitolhillseattle.com
Posted on April 7, 2013 – 10:56 pm by jseattle

UPDATE: Some big changes at SPD are in the offing. Seattle Police Chief John Diaz will leave his post:

Diaz, who, who has more than 30 years with the Seattle Police Department, became the interim chief on May 7, 2009, and was sworn into office as the permanent police chief by Mayor Mike McGinn on August 16, 2010. “The most important thing that I bring to the table is I want to do the best for this city and the best for this Police Department,” he said in 2010.

Original Report: Statistically, the trends for the East Precinct don’t look good. Things aren’t looking so great anecdotally, either. Early Sunday morning, two men reportedly walked into the 15th Ave E QFC with a handgun and robbed the grocery market before disappearing into the night. Concerns about the numbers and some recent violent incidents will be on the table Monday night as the East District Council hosts a community discussion with East Precinct commander Capt. Ron Wilson:

The East District Council is an umbrella organization that brings together the First Hill, Yesler Terrace, Capitol Hill, Montlake and Madison Park neighborhoods to discuss and act on topics of shared interest.

Neighbors had public safety concerns, we asked for a Police Officer to our next meeting, and we got three: the captain, Lieutenant and a Community Police Team Sergeant.

Please join us at 5:45 PM on Monday April 8th in the upstairs meeting room in the Capitol Hill library, and share your observations and concerns with the Police Department.

Andrew Taylor
Chair, East District Council

Earlier this year, CHS on troubling crime trends around Capitol Hill:

Based on 11 months of data from SPD and a projection for December’s totals, crime on the streets around Capitol Hill’s dense core above and below Broadway appears to have leapt significantly in the past year fueled by a rise in assaults and a remarkable leap in reported burglaries.

Meanwhile, recent incidents also have raised concerns including this brutal March beating that nearly cost a man his eye or the murky details around this February assault reportedly involving a man seriously injured in a fight with panhandlers. Nearby, violence in the Central District turned deadly last week as a 19-year-old man was gunned down in what is believed to be a gang-related attack.

Capt. Wilson began his command of the East Precinct last summer as five crime “hot spots” were identified for increased patrols and presence by police. This year, his East Precinct is part of SPD’s new trial of predictive policing software that will eventually be deployed across Seattle to pinpoint area’s for patrol increases. Already a common dispatch heard on SPD radio chatter in the precinct is an officer returning to “predictive patrol.”

In addition to the challenges on the statistical front, Wilson also must manage changes from the Department of Justice-mandated “20/20″ program to curb excessive use of force by Seattle Police. The precinct is also preparing for a possible return of protesters on May Day 2013 and dealing with charges from the City Attorney’s office against the cop involved in this East Precinct melee last year.

If you can’t make Monday’s meeting, you can provide feedback for the East Precinct or ask questions of community liaison Fran Tello at francisco.tello@seattle.gov.