This is such a strange time.
Such a strange time, in fact, that it’s already a cliche to even call this a strange time.
And the problem with calling it strange, I suppose, is that strange doesn’t even begin to describe 2020 — not to mention what might come next.
Read MoreBy Matt Halvorson
A common misconception exists that tells us our school system is “broken.” The idea is that inequity in our schools — whether that’s racial inequity, gender inequity, or any other sort — can be “fixed,” and that our public schools are inherently good and well-intentioned.
Read MoreBy Matt Halvorson
In a time of uprising and upheaval, an education that is truly honest, culturally compentent and child-centered is itself an act of revolution. The foundation for this journey is the revolution within each of our selves. Remember, if things as violently inequitable as we know they are — in our schools, in our cities, in our world — the solution might seem radical at first. We might not fully understand it yet, and it might feel uncomfortable. It might even sound like something our schools conditioned us to fear.
Read MoreBy Matt Halvorson
How do we educate our kids during a pandemic? How do we educate our kids during an uprising? How do we educate our kids without conditioning them? It will require new and unfamiliar ways of thinking, living and parenting.
More Zoom calls for kids and remote learning through a historically inequitable public school system are not the answer… but what is? It is becoming more clear every day that we will have to create it ourselves.
Here are a handful of books and ideas that have influenced me and my family as we move away from traditional public schooling, committed to making sure our kids are educated without being schooled, valued without being graded, and loved without being conditioned.
Read MoreIn case you missed it, there will be no police presence in Seattle Public Schools moving forward.
Following the lead of student activists, SPS ended the practice of having police officers — known as “school emphasis officers” — stationed in five middle schools. This announcement came days after Seattle Police used a middle school parking lot as a staging area for anti-protest response without permission
Read MoreBy Matt Halvorson
It’s been one of the great joys of my life to share so much time with my son doing something we both love. Deep down, I think we had both known that this season was already lost, but still. It was a sad moment when we finally had to feel and acknowledge it.
What better place to be than on the first baseball field liberated from the Empire?
Read MoreBy Matt Halvorson
If you are a parent, George Floyd named you by name. We are on a path toward abolition. Consider that it took a Civil War to end chattel slavery, and that the Montgomery Bus Boycott alone lasted 382 days.
How committed are you to this? What will you do? And what will you keep doing?
Read MoreBy Matt Halvorson
As we consider how and when formal education will resume after this period of quarantine, we must ask ourselves: is what we are doing liberatory? Or is it oppressive?
Read MoreBy Matt Halvorson
Seattle 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 MoreBy Matt Halvorson
What new world will we create for students and families in the wake of a pandemic that, for now, has only just begun? What are we learning as COVID-19 brings tumbling down the illusions and excuses that propped up the old system? How will our system of education change? How will we move forward as parents and teachers, school administrators and students?
Who will we choose to be now?
Read MoreBy Matt Halvorson
It’s been 10 days since my kids were last in school here in Seattle, and as the COVID-19 pandemic continues its systematic shutdown of, well, the entire system, it’s time for us parents to get creative. That’s why I’m glad to be helping my son and his buddies produce a sports-talk podcast about their own youth baseball league.
Read MoreBy Matt Halvorson
I have so many thoughts to share amid all of this, and I will be posting as often as I can find the time to write amidst the many quarantined kids in my house.
For today, with schools closed in so many states, let’s talk about the fact that so many of us parents are suddenly homeschooling our kids.
Read MoreBy Matt Halvorson
Superheroes are a dime a dozen on the big screen these days, but they can be easy to miss in real life. Like the caped crusaders with otherworldly powers, the real superheroes around us often seem to masquerade behind a secret identity, rarely getting the recognition and thanks they so deeply deserve.
Marcus Harden is one of those heroes for not only the South Seattle community where he grew up, but for every life he has touched as an educator and a school founder, as a student and as a leader and as a friend.
Read MoreBy Matt Halvorson
Here we are, basking in the first fresh days of not only a new year, but a new decade. So, what better time than now to take a peek in the rearview mirror? Hindsight is 2020, after all.
Let’s revisit 2019 by taking a look back at the most widely read posts from the last year on the Rise Up for Students blog.
Read MoreBy Matt Halvorson
The Highly Capable Cohort (or HCC) program in Seattle Public Schools was created decades ago in an attempt to limit white flight from the district. It has been a driver of inequity in our school system ever since. This year, for instance, in 2019, Seattle’s HCC program is roughly 65 percent white. Less than 2 percent of HCC students are Black.
Suddenly HCC in Seattle’s schools is a topic of much conversation and much debate, because Superintendent Denise Juneau has proposed to do away with the highly capable cohort model entirely, shifting so-called “highly capable” students out of their segregated cohorts and back to neighborhood schools.
Read MoreBy Matt Halvorson
By far the most important race of the four school board seats up for election was the seat that current board president Leslie Harris won over Molly Mitchell. I can’t overstate how much more important this specific race was than any of the other three, nor can I possibly exaggerate how disappointing it is that Mitchell didn’t win.
Read MoreEnjoy a recorded conversation between Stephan Blanford, former Seattle School Board rep, and Brandon Hersey, who was appointed last month to represent District 7 in Southeast Seattle.
Read MoreBy Matt Halvorson
The Seattle School Board appointed Brandon Hersey as the new representative for District VII in Southeast Seattle.
Whether or not Hersey was a good choice, what I expected to happen is exactly what ended up happening: rather than listening to the people, the board chose the candidate they wanted. In other words, the candidate who would have been elected was not the candidate who was chosen. That’s tough to grapple with.
Read MoreBy Matt Halvorson
Systemic racism is often hard to see in action.
It’s easy to look back and wonder, how did we get here? How do we have such deep-rooted opportunity gaps in our schools? How do we have so few Black teachers? How can there be such a thing as a “school-to-prison” pipeline? How do we have so few women of color in positions of elected leadership?
These systemic issues are not necessarily carried out by people of malicious intent. They are carried out by all of us every day as we make seemingly reasonable decisions, and through polices and processes that masquerade as neutral.
We are in the eleventh hour of one such process, but it’s not too late! Today — this very evening — we have a chance to catch the system in the act. So let’s do it.
Read MoreBy Matt Halvorson
If you’re reading this, you probably know: Betty Patu resigned. It’s true.
You probably know that Betty Patu was the school board director for southeast Seattle (District VII) for a long time.
You may even know that the remaining six Seattle Public Schools board directors now have to appoint Betty’s replacement, which means we southeast Seattle residents will have our school board director chosen without our direct input.
Tonight is the final candidate forum, and we’re hearing from the final three candidates: Julie Van Arcken, Brandon Hersey and Emijah Smith. I’m sitting in the audience, and I’m just going to write about what’s happening as it’s happening. And about what I think about what’s happening, obviously. And this way, we’ve got pretty much no filter, which ought to be interesting. And very little editing, so beware.
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