City Manager’s Weekly Report
for week ending April 10, 2020

COVID-19 Response for Local Business.  Holly Keeton and Ashleigh-Nicole Williams, City of Normandy Park Community Development, have developed a summary of resources and information for Normandy Park businesses. Please see the attachment.

COVID-19 Response Resources for Local Businesses

COVID-19 social media assessment tool. This digital analytic tool, shared by Sarah K. Miller, King County/Homeland Security Region 6 Zone 3 Emergency Management, is interesting and purportedly is almost in real time. Be sure, in the scroll down menu, to click on “First Party Symptom Report.”

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Sea-Tac International Airport Impact Study.  The draft study is ready for comment.  This lengthy study is about establishing a baseline for future airport mitigation that benefits surrounding municipal cities and neighborhoods on their terms, as opposed to airport master plans that address properties owned by the Port of Seattle and airport operations, current and future.  We can debate the study’s efficacy (and should), but it’s a novel approach that has merit. Commerce is accepting comments until April 23, 2020. Please send your written comments to Gary Idleburg (gary.idleburg@commerce.wa.gov). If you have any questions you may also call 360.481.1398.

Study information is accessible here:  https://www.commerce.wa.gov/serving-communities/growth-management/growth-management-topics/sea-tac-airport-impact-study/

Public Homeschool until Year-end.  Believe-it-or-not, in 1996, I finished a 229 page dissertation for a doctorate in Education through Seattle University. The dissertation topic – Linking Homeschool to the System: Parent and Staff Satisfaction with an Alternative School Program for the Home School Parent (UMI# 9716973). When I began this study, I had all sorts of biases against homeschooling. I thought that all home school parents were granola crunching hippies, that students were deprived of the opportunity to build social skills, and that home school students would be unprepared for both post-high school education and the world of work. All these attitudes and more turned out to need re-adjustment. In fact, home school study parents explained that socialization is the least significant concern on the typical list of concerns. Home school students do just fine in later life, maybe better than their stratified grade level peers. Homeschool students learn how to goal set, take personal responsibility, create social connection, and garner resources, much like most adults do in the real world. And homeschool students do just fine in college, other trainings, and career paths. Homeschool students often get surprisingly great jobs. There is no one-best-way to be a homeschool parent. There are many approaches: non-schooler free-spirits, militarists, and everything in between.

My 1996 study found that parents feel most effective when they enjoy effective links to public school services. The homeschool experience can build community, nurture the student, and enable socialization. (Zoom!) Home school parents appreciate collaborative teaching, currency and depth of resources, small group learning experiences (i.e. these days on Microsoft Team, Zoom, etc.), one-on-one teaching, and parent-teacher peer advisement that can extend a parent’s awareness of available resources and methodologies. Home schooling with public school support can build an effective community of learners and mentors. The most significant characteristic of an effective home school parent is the willingness to persist. Homeschool connection to the public school can offer a sense of mission, of contributing to community, and of focus on the individual student. Homeschooling can work; it’s just hard. It appears to me that Highline Public Schools is productively connecting students and parents with the tools to succeed in these strange days. Persist, stay safe, save lives, and send COVID-19 into history.

Mark E. Hoppen, City Manager
City of Normandy Park
801 SW 174th Street
Normandy Park, WA 98166
(206) 248-8246 (Direct Phone)