2019 Seattle School Board Position 1 / Primary

Editors note:

My hope is that my platform is not a claim or an ideology but an insight into what is true.

This is my second campaign the first I was a manager and the second a candidate. I could never tire of speaking to constituents. In both campaigns I received emails and phone calls from citizens with deeply meaningful concerns and every one of them held a hope and faith despite hardship. This experience, although brief, is something I will always treasure.

I continue to advocate for youth and please check back for new posts.

Please feel free to contact me and keep the conversation ongoing.

I contacted both opponents and will share your concerns.

Again, thank you.

Sincerely,

Darcie Kline

 

******

Candidate Darcie Kline

I am a parent of three students in Seattle Public Schools and I attended grade school and middle school in Seattle Public Schools.

I have worked as an advocate for students with Specific Learning Disabilities (SLD) for nearly 15 years at the school, district, state and Federal level. I worked with parents and guardians consulting on issues around special education.

The Seattle School District has over a 1 billion dollar budget with over 100 schools. It has been consistently difficult if not impossible to track the Special Education funding let alone the rest of the funds. As taxpayers we need the school district finances to be transparent.

Further, it is concerning how far the district has gotten from teaching the fundamentals of reading, writing and arithmetic and developing critical thinking skills. The current focus of education is placed on socializing the student resulting in subverting the parental role.

If elected I would first ask to review the finances and focus on reducing the administrative cost. I would seek to direct funding to the schools giving them more autonomy and the ability to more specifically represent local families.

I would be honored and accountable if given the opportunity to serve the citizens of Seattle. Please consider voting for me.

The following posts are on subjects I think worthy of consideration. I would hope this information is relevant for your consideration. That being said, nothing posted should be construed as to what I believe. It is my hope to open up the dialogue about education.

Regards, Darcie Kline

Endorsement

     After attending a candidate forum in the north-end I had an opportunity to meet with school-board candidate Liza Rankin. Although there are many issues I feel are not being address by the current candidates including Liza Rankin,  I feel she is less ideological and more academic in her approach. What stood out about Liza is her concern and willingness to address both of the other candidates in the primary who lost and ask about the concerns of the constituents who voted for them. No other candidate in District 1 or any other candidate afforded the same consideration at the forum. I think this is a significant indicator that a candidate is interested in representing the citizens rather than seeking power to push an agenda.

     She also held a informal forum at a home about Special Education. Without the formalities attendants were given an opportunity to engage in discussions in depth. This is something that is rarely afforded in any school meetings.

     Liza is well informed on the legalese of Special Education and on learning in Special Education. A great concern is the SLD (Specific Learning Disability) cohort. Dyslexia affects twenty percent of the U.S. population and eighty percent of the students in Special Education are SLD. There is evidence that poor curriculum, teaching by meaning rather than sound, is inducing dyslexia. Because of its high incidence and the affects of poor reading curriculum this issue needs to be addressed in the general classroom. Therefore, it is necessary for school-board members to have more than a cursory understanding in how students learn.

     I endorse Liza Rankin for school-board because I believe she is concerned about doing the right thing and in representing the best interests of the students and their families.

Regards,
Darcie Kline


elizasrankin.com

Letters

August 1, 2019, 5:04

Hello Ms. Fenton

Thank you for your question; it is a very important question to ask.

I am deeply concerned, as are many, about the developing role of public education in areas of health that I believe are not under the purview of education. I see this intrusion into the private lives of students in areas of health and psychology.

I do support education in basic biology in high school in health class but not earlier. Any younger I feel is inappropriate because puberty spans a number of years and for females later onset of menses is not a concern in pediatrics until the age of 16. This means that realistically there are students in middle school that are still children. This is one reason why it is important for sex education to be the responsibility of parents so timing is appropriate rather than a general and impersonal approach to all children through the schools.

I believe parents absolutely have a right to see the sex education curriculum, and have full right to pull their child out of any curriculum which puts the child in conflict with the parents’ concerns and beliefs. Public education was never intended to replace the parental responsibilities in the founding of this country. In fact, parents were intended to be responsible for education and in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 the government allocated land specifically for building schools but the rest was left to the communities under the guidance of parental involvement - "Religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."  The states were to encourage education, but the Northwest Ordinance did not require states to provide public education.

In comparison to today, the government has morphed public education into parenting and assumed and enforced control without regard to the parent.

I attached a link to a form “Providing Health Care for Minors under Washington Law” written in 2006 and I was not able to find a current update but in the second column on the right and second cell it defines a “Mature Minor”. This is concerning because it is allowing doctors and the government to usurp the parental rights of a minor. In its worst manifestation occurring currently in Canada under MAID is the legal right if the child is determined to be a “Mature Minor” a child can choose euthanasia without parental consent.

Circling back, to your question I have anecdotal experiences with the school district and the Teen Health Center (separate from the school nurse). The Teen Health Center can provide means of birth control without parental consent; this includes IUD, progesterone rod implant and the morning after pill etc. Two young women I spoke with said they had gotten the implant not because they were sexually active but because there period was irregular. I explained it takes time for the body to regulate and it is important to eat well, exercise and sleep so it can adjust independently from the influence of drugs. My concern as a parent is if there are complications with birth control I would not know to consider symptoms as related to something as significant as the morning after pill. How is it justified that others can be in the “know” but not the parent? This leads into your last question about Initiative I-1004. If a minor has an abortion without parental consent, how would the parent know what to do in the best interest of the child if complications arise? Further, what about the psychological effects of an abortion or physiological effects of the hormone disruption?

It is all very concerning and this doesn’t get into the liberties, or corruption that takes place related to sex education. I had one constituent call me last week who was shocked at what he saw as a highly sexually charged school class at a Seattle Public Library which included high school students and many small children visiting the library. He is an older man and from the gay community. He asked what many ask, why would a school district, principal or teacher choose to suggest and influence sexual behavior in teens and moreover to children?

Regards,

Darcie Kline

Healthcare to Minors Under Washington Law

Why are Teachers So.....

HEARINGS BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES EIGHTY-THIRD CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION 

JUNE 17 AND 18, 1953

Mr. Clardy. You say some of the law schools you are acquainted with in New York have actually dropped the study of constitutional law?

Dr. Dodd. In most places, it was not a compulsory part of the curriculum. 

Mr. Clardy. It is compulsory in the school I graduated from at Ann Arbor. 

Dr. Dodd. It wasn't compulsory in the school I went to. You will be interested in noting the catalogs about ethics, courses on religion, courses on the Bible ; they have practically been dropped out of the college curricula. It is a method of despiritualizing the American people. 

Mr. Clardy. A part of the overall movement ? 

Dr. Dodd. Yes. 

Mr. KuNziG. Why are teachers, above all, so desired by Communists.

Dr. Dodd. Well, I guess the Communists know that the old people living in America today are not going to make the revolution. They are not the people who are going to count. They count on the young people, and those who control the youth are the people who control the future of this country. 

Mr. Clardy. That is the reasoning that Hitler used, isn't it? 

Dr. Dodd. That is the reasoning that any people have who are out to control.

https://archive.org/stream/investigationofc1953unit/investigationofc1953unit_djvu.txt  

Curriculum: Geraldine E. Rodgers

The Critical Missed Step 

by Geraldine E. Rodgers

As a third-grade teacher, Geraldine E. Rodgers was appalled by the reading inadequacies of the children arriving at third grade after having learned to read with the standard sight-word readers. To study the problem, she took a sabbatical leave in 1977 to observe first graders and to test over 900 of the resultant second graders in their own languages, in the United States, Holland, Sweden, Germany, Austria and France. She found that two dominant and quite different types of readers resulted, from differences in beginning first grade methods. She then spent the following thirty or so years researching the history of the teaching of reading, in the Library of Congress, Harvard University, the British Library in London, and many other sources, and as a result has published a 3-volume history, and four other texts concerning the problem..


"Obviously, the syllable is fundamental in speech. What, then, is the full sequence of steps in producing speech and listening to speech? Since reading should be only a form of listening to speech, and writing should be only a form of producing speech, then the full sequence of steps for the reading and writing of sound-bearing alphabetic print should be the same as for listening to speech and for producing speech. Therefore, what is that necessary background with which to explain those steps that should be the same for both speech and writing?