The Washington State House Education Committee will be meeting at 1:30 today, a number of education bills will be considered including a bill that would assign letter grades to schools (SB 5328) and a bill that would allow the state to take over persistently low performing schools. (SB 5329)

Just a quick note:  numerous news agencies are reporting that a tentative agreement has been reached between the teachers union and the district.  Assuming teachers vote to approve the agreement tomorrow, school should resume Friday.

As I'm sure all the parents have heard by now, there will be no school again tomorrow, Tuesday September 19th.  On the bright side, the weather is supposed to be beautiful and nearly 80 degrees.  Perfect day for the beach. If you don't have a Discover Pass to get into the state parks, I recommend a trip to the (free) Metro Parks run beach south of Dash Point State Park.

A quick update on developments over the weekend:

It's okay if you still don't understand what this teacher's strike is all about. You're busy, and you were probably hoping it would go away.

Well, it's not going away this week and you might be looking around now, trying to understand why so many reasonable people can't work together so that the kids can go back to school.  Maybe you are a kid and you want to support the teachers, but you're not really sure what they're upset about.

There are three major things the school district and the teachers disagree about, and one is a lot more tricky than the other two: