Currently we have a weak school board. The school board is a rubberstamp body, and serves as a cheerleader and buffer for the Supperintendent and her staff. The J.C. Policy-Governance model calls for the Board to limit its role to writing and revising policy, hiring, firing, and evaluating the Superintendent. The Superintendent's role in this model is to uphold and enforce Board policy, to make sure the entire district is observing all state and federal laws, to be appropriately responsive to the community, and to show good moral judgment.

The Board evaluates the Superintendent by reviewing his/her statement as to how he/she upheld and/or made progress on implementing each Board policy.

The "Option" schools, such as TOPS, have provided true alternatives to families whose refererence area schools were not suitable for their child or family's needs, especially south end families. Access should continue to be by lottery (after siblings).

The current proposed assignment plan now limits access to some of the best alternative programs to the generally wealthier, whiter and more vocal north end families. A good example is TOPS. TOPS has provided a true alternative high quality choice for many south end families. One of the best aspects of TOPS is its diverse, all city population...its what makes TOPS "TOPS". It will now essentially become the neighborhood school for the wealthier Eastlake and Capitol Hill neighborhoods. Radically changing what was most attractive and successful about TOPS.

Instead of boundaries, use a relative distance metric to prioritize enrollment. Consider anyone whose closest school is School A to have a "zero" distance to that school and all such people have the same priority, whether they are one mile or 0.1 mile away. If you apply to some other school, prioritize by relative distance as compared to your closest school. So if you are 1 mile from School A (your closest, elementary/middle/high school), and 1.3 miles from School B, your relative distance to apply to School B is 0.3 miles. This would cure all of the zones (Queen Anne, Magnolia) that aren't closest to anything on a straight metric but all have a "zero" distance school (Ballard) by this metric. It also eliminates the need to draw/redraw/haggle about boundaries, and predict "guaranteed" enrollment zones based on demographic projections.

testing, particularly standardised testing. does not give an accurate indicator of how well a child's critical thinking skills are developing... these tests are often written in ambiguous language and are often coached in culturally inappropriate terms. They rely too much and give too much weight to how a child is doing on the day... if they've woken up tired, cranky, stressed for any reason, if they dont perform well under test conditions, then their results are going to be unfairly skewed... narrative assessment, using observation, portfolios and student self-reflection are much more meaningful methods of assessing a child's progress through a whole year, not just through the hour-long window of test time...