February 05, 2020

Black History Today: Marcus Harden, community superhero

February 05, 2020/ 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.

February 04, 2020

Black History Today: Juniper Moon, nurturing the next generation of Black history one family at a time

February 04, 2020/ Reese McGillie

As a midwife, Juniper provides prenatal, birth and post-partum care for families in the Seattle and Tacoma area. Research has shown that the quality of prenatal care has an impact on child development, and Juniper has cultivated a stellar reputation for the nurturing and attentive care she provided for her clients and their families.

Her midwifery practice is focused on providing a model of care that is evidence-based, equitable and accessible for marginalized groups, especially people of color.

February 02, 2020

Black History Today: Randy Green, authentic servant leader

February 02, 2020/ Marcus Harden

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 beyond, and recognizes the people like Randy Green who are actively shaping the future.

February 01, 2020

Black History Today: Yalonda Gill-Masundire, an angel amoung us

February 01, 2020/ Marcus Harden

‘We are travelers on a cosmic journey, stardust, swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity. Life is eternal. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share. This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in eternity.’

-Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

January 21, 2020

The 5 most popular posts of 2019 from Rise Up for Students

January 21, 2020/ 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.

January 20, 2020

Hindsight is 2020 when it comes to Dr. King's legacy

January 20, 2020/ Erin Jones

Love is not always “nice.” Sometimes love requires us to be honest when others don’t want to hear the truth. As parents, our love for our children demands that we both hug them and discipline them. As citizens, our love can be displayed both by the flying of a flag and by calling our nation to account when she misses the mark or fails to meet the needs of her citizens.

January 11, 2020

The importance of raising our kids to be global citizens

January 11, 2020/ Erin Jones

Erin Jones discusses the idea of global citizenship and shares resources for raising our own globally conscious kids.

December 18, 2019

Seattle's HCC program, designed to attract white families, is a thinly veiled form of segregation

December 18, 2019/ 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.

November 29, 2019

Progress? Maybe. But we lost the only Seattle School Board race we couldn't afford to lose.

November 29, 2019/ 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.

October 26, 2019

Podcast: Stephan Blanford talks with Brandon Hersey about what it means to serve on the Seattle School Board

October 26, 2019/ Matt Halvorson

Enjoy 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.

October 19, 2019

A student in Garfield High School's HCC program takes a hard look at Danny Westneat's 'racially insensitive editorial'

October 19, 2019/ Dylan Blanford

Earlier this week, the Seattle Times’ columnist, Danny Westneat, wrote a racially insensitive editorial about the high school that both his son and I attend. We don’t need dismissal and condescending advocation. We need people who are actually ready to listen, engage, and do the work to change the system, not write patronizing articles.

October 16, 2019

How Do We Create Spaces for Healing as Educators of Color?

October 16, 2019/ Marcus Harden

Education tends to make the most rational people seem crazy. So, it begs the question, how do we heal in these sick environments? My go-to answer is to typically just burn it all down and start anew, but we know that those efforts usually just end up looking like a new emperor in the same old clothes.

So, where does our healing come from?

It starts with acknowledging the hurt that has been caused by systems of oppression -- and the equal importance of finding healing for the students and often-overlooked educators who bear the deepest wounds.

October 12, 2019

Combatting ‘Passive Progressiveness’ in Seattle Public Schools

October 12, 2019/ Stephan Blanford

A couple years ago, near the end of my term on the Seattle School Board, I used the term, “passive progressivism” to answer a question about why our racial achievement gaps actually got larger every year of my board service. I noted that nearly every person I engaged with while campaigning strongly agreed with my platform, but once in office, I faced stiff resistance from many of these same stakeholders, anytime we were grappling with a racial equity issue.

September 19, 2019

Brandon Hersey is our new school board rep in Southeast Seattle

September 19, 2019/ 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.

September 18, 2019

Catching systemic racism in the act in Seattle Public Schools

September 18, 2019/ 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.

September 16, 2019

Shedding new light on the final three candidates for the District VII School Board position in Seattle

September 16, 2019/ Stephan Blanford

The Seattle School Board will announce its collective choice tomorrow for the Southeast Seattle district representative on the board. As a reminder, Director Betty Patu, who served in that role for the last 10 years, announced her resignation on May 15, a few days after a deadline that would have allowed the District 7 voters to choose her replacement. Instead, the remaining six school board directors then devised a process to solicit applications from interested district residents, and were wowed to receive 13 applications for what is widely known as “the most thankless job in Seattle.”

Through a series of applicant statements and public forums, we have learned much about the 13 applicants and now, the three finalists for the position. But through telephone interviews with each of the applicants, I sought to shed a bit more light on their qualifications, their priorities and to pose a few relevant questions that I have not yet heard asked.

September 11, 2019

Three good candidates, but one clear choice to represent District VII

September 11, 2019/ 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.

September 06, 2019

As we begin another new school year, what are your hopes and fears for the children in your life?

September 06, 2019/ Matt Halvorson

The past couple years have been full of change. Nothing if not exciting — and exhausting — we welcomed our second new baby in less than 13 months this summer. Our house and our lives are in general chaos most of the time.

And so, it was with relatively little fanfare that we sent the two older boys back to school this week. What are your hopes for the children in your life as they embark on a new school chapter? What are your fears? What is on your mind in the first fresh days of this new school year?