r/seattlepublicschools

I hate SchoolPay, I feel anger, it is so bad. I have two shopping carts somehow? I typed "20" for my donation and it wanted to donate $0.0020. Then I typed 2000 as implied and accidentally almost donated $20.00. Constant weird login prompts. Slowwwww. Bizarre and broken search/browse. Can't checkout without clicking gray buttons that look disabled. I literally have never seen a shopping website this bad since the dawn of the internet.

How did we get here? What are the alternatives? How do we fix this? There's really no reason things need to be this bad.

SSD school first planned calendar day is Sept 2. That is in 2 weeks.

Today on Facebook SEA is posting that they have Strike Block Captains- still in bargaining process but preparing.

Does anyone have more info on this?

Anyone know what the status is of hiring a new principal at Decatur? As far as I know, the last one put in notice in early 2026. I don't understand why they haven't announced a new principal yet.

Thank you for taking the time to consider the (specific school name deleted) Elementary - 1st Grade Teacher - 1.0 FTE role at Seattle Public Schools. We appreciate the time and effort invested in our application process. Our team carefully reviewed each application and came away impressed by your skills and accomplishments. At this time, we will be moving on to the next phase of the hiring process with other applications that closely match the requirements in the job description.
Wishing you every success,
Sincerely,
Human Resources
Seattle Public Schools

Post #3 in the Cracking the Budget Series write-ups. This covers all the "non-compensation" Objects which is where contracts live.

With this, we will have covered the entirety of the $1.2 billion spend that the district does annually. Obviously we can go deeper, but if you read all 3 pieces, much of the spending will start to make sense.

The main takeaway is: Purchased Services is where the growth is. Most of it is Transportation and Special Education. However, you cannot likely reduce either without also reducing revenue in a similar magnitude (esp true in Transportation) so, weirdly, the higher spend almost certainly has a far smaller impact on the deficit than the numbers make it look like. And it unless you have a way of converting Buses to people or Special Education services (esp stuff paid by saftey-net funds) into other staffing, there isn't a lot of obvious spots to mess with here either.

The superintendent is certainly shaking things up.

I just received word that Dr. Sarah Pritchett, the superintendent of human resources, has been placed on administrative leave. She was escorted out of the district office by security on Thursday.

I'm uncertain as to why, but with her history of malfeasance, it is not surprising. In fact, the only thing that's surprising is that it's taken so long for this course of action. She has made injudicious decisions over her career and is clearly unfit and unqualified to serve in the role. Pritchett only moved into an HR position after being implicated in the James Johnson incident where he assaulted a student after she turned a blind eye, failing to respond to prior concerns regarding his conduct due to their friendship.

Administrative leave placement does not mean termination, but it's an important step in the process of full removal.

I'm interested in understanding the reasoning behind this decision which was long overdue.

Hi there! We recently relocated to Seattle with two children, aged 5 and 8. Based on school ratings, we asked the public school office to assign them to Queen Anne Elementary instead of John Hay, which was the attendance zone school based on our address. I’m curious if we made the right decision and would greatly appreciate it if parents could share their experiences with these schools.

How does SPP verify household income?

If one parent was laid off and unemployed when the SPP application was submitted, but later returned to work and the family did not update SPP with the change in income, is there any issue or penalty associated with that?

Also, does SPP share or cross-reference income information with the IRS, or could the difference between the income reported to SPP and the household’s eventual tax return create any IRS or tax-related issues?