Appeals Hearing, Tuesday, March 8

Tuesday, from 11:10 to 11:50 AM, we finally had our hearing in the King County Court of Appeals on the School District's appeal of Judge Spector's February, 2010 decision against the Seattle School Board.

The first interesting thing that happened was that both counsels and the court agreed that this Appellate court hearing was a redo of the Superior Court hearing rather than simply a review of Judge Spector's decision. I don't quite remember why this turns out to be the case; I had not understood this previously. In any event, it means the panel may look at Judge Spector's decision, but without deference, and will be looking at the merits of the case just as she did.

Keith Scully, our attorney, did an excellent job of framing our case and emphasizing the fact of the OSPI's "mathematically unsound" rating of Discovering, He made many other good points as well regarding information that's been covered in past blogs or our briefs.

When Judge Becker asked a question about the supposed support for the curriculum by the teachers, I wished Keith had been clearer in setting the record straight. There was not unanimous support by teachers – at least 4 teachers went so far as to testify against it to the Board. In addition, the President of the HS Principals had testified to the Board that the principals were all in support, and Ted Nutting, a highly respected Ballard HS teacher, had actually written a letter to the Board challenging that assertion.

Keith says he's not worried about these kinds of details. He emailed me, “The goal is to emphasize the high points, convince the court we know what we're talking about, and not say anything stupid. I think we did as well as we could .....In terms of results, though, nothing to do but wait and see. " He definitely didn't make any mistakes, IMO.

Decision? It could come in a month or a year or more.....

A handful of people sympathetic to our side showed up for the hearing – that was very very nice!

In the left column, above, is a link to a terrific feature report done by Q13 (Channel 13 news).

Other details: Presiding Tuesday, March 8, at the King County Court of Appeals, were Judges Becker, Schindler, and Applewick. We had requested more than the usual 10 minutes, and so both sides were alloted 20 minutes to present information to the judges. Keith Scully continued to represent DaZanne Porter, Cliff Mass, and me (I was the only one present), and Jeffrey Freimund represented Seattle Public Schools.

Sorry to have been so slow in posting this account: I worked on both Wednesday and Thursday (I'm part-time in the Student Assessment office at South Seattle Community College) so this was my first opportunity.

If you've questions about this blog, I'm happy to answer them.

Marty