Open Enrollment at John Stanford School
Ben writes:
February is open enrollment for Seattle Public Schools, Feb 13 – 24. Open enrollment is the process by which parents can choose schools other than their neighborhood school. Several schools in the Wallyhood area are solely lottery schools, and do not have guaranteed neighborhood enrollment. These two schools are language immersion schools, and subject to high demand. Historically, this demand has made it challenging for local children to enroll.
In response to this demand, John Stanford has expanded to four kindergarten classes, so this might be your year if you are enrolling a kindergarten in Seattle Public Schools. The comments can discuss the impact on parking and street flow created by the expansion.
Neighborhood Matching Fund announces NEW funding opportunities for community-initiated projects
Do you have a small, neighborhood project in mind? Are you tired of waiting for Jeff Bezos to bust out his wallet for you? Well, you can apply to the city’s Neighborhood Matching Fund, and you just might get the cash you need:
Seattle Department of Neighborhoods’ popular Neighborhood Matching Fund (NMF) offers new funding opportunities for community members in 2017. The program features added flexibility, a simpler application, and faster review and award processing. Its two funds – the Small Sparks Fund and the new Community Partnership Fund – continue to support community projects that build stronger neighborhoods and communities such as park improvements, public art, community gardens, cultural festivals, community organizing and so much more. For 2017, the NMF Program has more than $3 million dollars to award to community projects!
The Community Partnership Fund combines two former funds into one. It provides funding up to $100,000 with three opportunities to apply. Applicants will also receive decisions on their funding requests within eight weeks. The deadlines for the Community Partnership Fund are March 27, June 26, and September 25 by 5 p.m.
The Small Sparks Fund provides funding up to $5,000 per project (increased from $1,000), and the fund continues to accept applications on a rolling basis. This fund is perfect for small community projects or activities such as Neighbor Day, Night Out, Earth Day, Parking Day, Spring Clean and others.
Much more information is available on the NMF website.
Free Help with Tax Prep
Stevie Kimmet writes:
Hello!
I am the social work intern working with United Way of King County’s free tax preparation campaign. In addition to free tax prep, we connect clients to healthcare, basic food, utility assistance, and ORCA Lift. This year, we’re trying to expand our reach across King County, in order to help community members achieve financial stability. We plan to work with over 1,000 volunteers to prepare over 23,000 tax returns and to connect folks to a number of public benefits in 2017. (Here’s a link to our website to provide more context around our work.)
In order to achieve these goals, people across King County have to know about these services. We rely on community partners to help us spread the message about our program, and I’m hoping that the Wallingford is willing to join our efforts by sharing the following post with your community:
Take the stress out of filing your taxes and maximize your refund – have United Way of King County prepare your return for free!
United Way of King County is offering free tax preparation services in 27 locations throughout King County from now until April 20th. Households making under $64,000 can have their taxes prepared– and they can get connected to healthcare enrollment and other public benefits.
Locations can be found throughout the county with daytime, evening, and weekend hours available. No appointments needed. Get your maximum refund fast and pay no fees!
The tax site in your community is: Solid Ground
- Tues: 5:00- 9:00 PM
- Sat: 10:00 AM- 2:00 PM
To find other locations, languages available, a list of what to bring, and other details, visit our website or call 2-1-1.
If you have any questions about the program or need supplies, I’m happy to get you connected to digital or physical resources.
I look forward to hearing from you,
Stevie Kimmet
MSW Intern, Financial Stability Programs
The JSIS kinergartens will be Spanish Immersion and Japanese Immersion classes- no English.
Can someone please explain why B.F.Day school is being ignored by Seattle Public Schools? With John Stamford and McDonald bursting at the seams B.F.Day(which is a mile away) has classrooms that are not being used and could take an additional 100-150 students.
It may be that although the distance is one mile.. it is on other side of Aurora N.. thus a longer drive and also much less safe walk fo rmost. In addition there is a Special Education program which has an inclusion program which has benefits as well as drawbacks.
Your answer is correct. I guess this is a bigger question than can be explored on this particular blog. I live in Wallingford and my child goes to B.F Day. I am concerned that money and time that get devoted to an overcrowded John Stamford and B.F.Day is underutilized.
The age old problem: there is a two tier public school system. I don’t know how Seattle got here but it is not a fair and equitable system.
Sounds very Betsy Devos. Wild says special education inclusion has its drawbacks. Let’s have the “special” kids go to one school while we take our kids to the top tier school and btw we’ll take the test scores along with them. Suddenly no one wants to send their kids to the “special” school with the bad scores. Talk about tiers.
Look I want my kids to do well academically, but I want them to be decent people too. Isolating them from the special, the poor, and ethnically diverse kids (but it’s only the test scores remember) seems like a very limiting way to raise a child.
I agree that B.F. Day is underutilized. SPS probably worries if they increase the B.F. Day boundary, more parents will send their kids to private because of those darn “test scores.” Oddly enough, science and math have better scores at B.F. Day. It’s no wonder when you’re teaching science and math in something other than English.
The irony of all of this hysteria is that B.F. Day is a pretty good school.
This is a very touchy topic for many.It is very understandable to want children to to be decent people. It is understandable to not want chidren to be isolated from poor, different, ethnically diverse and/ or children and people having special needs. Some people have concern with behaviors such as pounding on desks, throwing things and/or yelling at others. Some people are only conce3rned with test scores which is may or may not be easy for some to understand. Spend a few days in the different schools to determine what atmosphere feels best for your child. A parent visitation tour will give highlights but cannot give one a full understanding of what happens in classes– good, exceptional, frustrating, not ideal, wildly interesting .. etc.
There are other schools which could hold possibility for children in this area depending on many factors– Bagley, Green Lake, West , Pinehurst and Greenwood.. Salmon Bay..
Hysteria is driven by mis-information. I have not experienced anything at B.F. Day that you are talking about. Pounding on desks? Yelling? These discussions are so hilarious. B.F. Day is exactly the type of school you’d expect in the neighborhood of Fremont in North Seattle. The freakout is hilarious.
May your experience remain ideal.
Just a couple of points of clarification. The 4 incoming Kindergarten classes at JSIS will be replacing 4 graduating 5th grade classes, so very few net new students. Also immersion is 1/2 day, with subjects taught in the target language half the day and in English the other half.
Not exactly Math is taught in immersion language and not taught in English. English reading and writing is taught in Engish.
Right. Also science and social studies are generally taught in both the target language and in English, switching off throughout the year.
My daughter has been going to John Stanford for over 3 years and has excellent Math scores, well above her grade level, please don’t spread misinformation or be derogatory about kids learning “not in English”, they take all standardized tests in English
Not sure what you mean by misinformation? It is not derogatory to state the fact that math is taught in the target language. I value the fact that my children learn subject matter (including math, social studies and science) in Spanish at JSIS.
You are right that most standardized tests are taken in English. Immersion students can also later take a language assessment test (called STAMP) for appropriate placement in middle school or high school language classes.
I meant that as a reply to the post you had replied to, not to you directly, hit the reply to your comment and not wildnwonderful which is what I should have done, apologies!
Aha! No worries..
My statement that math is not taught is English is not misinformation nor is it meant to be derogatory– simple fact. I have taught in immersion programs. some children easily learn the math, science and social studeies in an immersion language while others do not necessarily do so. There are manydifferent schools from which parents may select wiht many reasons for selection- proximity, programs, sibling preference, start time, after school activities.. all weigh in and each situation is different.
There is a tour tomorrow night for interested parents (Wednesday 2/8/17) at John Stanford 6-7pm
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