From The Board Meeting (and more SAP)

I had Tivo'ed the Board meeting last night and watched it (well, most of it) today. Here's what I came away with:

  • The Public Hearing on the SAP is next Wednesday, the 10th at 6 p.m. at John Stanford. There will be 40 speaking slots available at 3 minutes each. You can sign up starting 8 am Monday morning either by phone, 252-0042, or by e-mail - hearing@seattleschools.org
  • When Rachel Cassidy, the district demographer, was at the mic, Harium asked her a question about information the district had about the number of kindergarten classes in some areas of the city. He made the point that the district had this information and didn't tell parents. Rachel said yes but there was no intentional hiding. Harium said he was sure there wasn't but that "you know where I'm going", meaning parents need information to make enrollment decisions.
  • Don Kennedy came to the mic to speak about using interest on capital funds for things other than capital projects. He referred to a document that wasn't on-screen that I'll have to get ahold of. Anyway, he said there was $44M in interest. He said that they have an outside legal counsel on the bonds and that he had a short answer (but was waiting for a longer one). (He did reference the using of the interest to buy LA materials for elementary and middle schools.) He said the lawyer said, "Interest earnings on bond proceeds are only to be used for capital projects." Interesting because this is what OSPI told me. BUT the guy I spoke with said that sales from properties could be used but just for one building. This does need clarification.
  • Tracy gave a good quick overview of the SAP. She said that 2010-2011 would be a transition year and that "Open Enrollment will be very different from what it was in the past."
  • The issue, as has been discussed here, of grandfathering siblings came up. I had a hard time following this as Tracy got hazy here. What I thought I understood her to say is that we do have an issue with trying to keep siblings together by the promise of moving the older and enrolling the young at their attendance area school. That's because of the issue of the upper grades most likely be full at some schools so how can they make this promise? Then Sherry chimed in with the idea of doing the middle schools/high schools first to give elementary parents time to consider their options. This seems to have been rejected because of the VAX.
  • Steve got clarification of the issue of it looking like K-8 rising 5th graders had two guarantee attendance schools - their current K-8 or their attendance middle school. Tracy said that isn't true and that they will be using enrollment data to try to forecast what those k-8 5th graders will do.
  • Tracy said that there were 12,5000 Open Enrollment applications of which 2300 were siblings.
  • Tracy also said something very important if you want a forecast of the boundaries. She said what is in the proposal sheets for attendance areas elementary schools that feed into an attendance middle school should give you a clue to how they would draw the boundaries. I'd have to go and look at that sheet to see how much of a clue it is but that's what she said.
  • Michael stated that he thought the transition may take 4-5 years (and for a new computer system and the whole district redrawn and people adjusting to it - I think that's about right). He said, "It will be an evolution, not a revolution."
  • Sherry seemed very troubled by the JA meeting. She said that the reference footnote about them possibly going from K-8 to 6-8 in the near future served as "fair warning" to parents and that it puts "uncertainty and risk onto these families that we haven't at other schools." And that's a great point because no other K-8 was singled out. If they said that as a blanket statement about all K-8s (namely, if they need the middle school capacity, a K-8 may become a 6-8), then the footnote would be just that. In just naming JA, well, then you have to wonder.
Sherry seemed to be asking for a proposal to change that footnote and then the whole thing got sidetracked into a discussion about whether it was capacity management and that was parellel to the SAP. She seemed worried about voting on the plan with this footnote. Tracy said it was up to the Board to change what they wanted but it was only an introduction of the plan.

Harium said the key was knowing what was an attendance school and what is an option school. He asked how soon they needed to do that.

Tracy said by June 17th or even July 1st is okay but too far into fall would throw it all off. I was troubled by this concern shown but no concensus on what to do.

The meeting went over and guess what? I never saw the final vote. Anybody? Was it unanimous?

Comments

momster said…
what are the proposal sheets re elementaries feeding into a middle school - or rather, where are they? do you have a link?
seattle citizen said…
Melissa -
as usual, a great job summarizing the meeting. Thank you.

The JA issue and assignment and siblings, etc...my mind boggle at the complexity, so I can't comment.

I have, though, come to appreciate the effort and energy people put into the issue of where their child goes to school. Wow! You all rock.

Now, if only we could make it so any school your child went to was a warm, welcoming, wonderful place full of learning and love...The the assigment issues would be moot.
RB1986 said…
Thanks for reporting on the meeting Melissa. I don't understand how Tracy can say it is not true about K-8 rising 5th graders having two guaranteed seats. On page 13 of the 6/3 plan it says "If they wish to attend their attendance area middle school instead of staying at the K-8 school they may do so by applying within specified timelines and will be assigned to the attendance area middle school" If Tracy says this is not true then which seat is guaranteed K-8 or 6-8? This should really be clarified in the plan before the board votes because this will impact feeder patterns, Jane Addams, etc.

I am also curious about the boundary/feeder clue. What document was Tracy referring to? The only clue I have ever seen that showed potential feeder patterns was in an appendix that showed the re-assignement of Summit students I wonder if that's what she is talking about?
Roy Smith said…
The point that rising 5th graders in a K-8 having "two guaranteed seats" is kind of misleading. Yes, they do. That being, said, each of them will only actually occupy one seat. It shouldn't take long to figure out the typical distribution of kids that go to the K-8 vs. those that go to the middle school.

For instance, if there are 100 5th graders at Broadview Thompson, and in a typical year, between 60% and 75% of them continue on at Broadview-Thompson (purely as a for instance, I have no idea how the actual numbers might work out, but the range is not going to be "in a typical year, 0% to 100% of them will continue at Broadview-Thompson), and the remaining 20-45% attend their attendance area middle school, then prudent planning is to hold 75 seats at Broadview Thompson, and 45 seats at their reference middle school. So, the 100 students will need to have 120 seats held for them, meaning that 20% slack in the system may be useful. But, we need some slack in the system for any choice system to work at all, so this is not going to pose an undue strain; not nearly as bad as, for instance, everybody in the next year that makes a decision on where to rent locating in the newly drawn Bryant reference area.
I am trying to get a link to the 11x17 chart that was given out at assignment plan meetings. But I also think that Tracy was referencing the school feeder charts that appear on pages 29-33 of the SAP. I don't think it's really much of a "clue" but you could get out a map and look at what schools they have feeding where and perhaps try to discern where the lines could be.
RB1986 said…
Roy - I agree with you to a point but I think if you have to hold 45 middle school seats times 5 north K-8 schools (JA, AS1, Broadview, Salmon Bay, TOPS) that is 225 seats and this could be the difference between configuring JA as a K-8 versus 6-8
Roy Smith said…
RB1986,

The bigger the population (i.e., counting all five schools together), it is likely the smaller the statistical variation, so it still ends up being a manageable problem.

I suspect that if you were to take all the K-8s aggregated together, over time the percentage of students staying in the K-8s would remain basically constant to within a few percentage points.

So, if we can say that in the typical K-8, 60-75% of the students continue on at that school, we may also be able to say city-wide (or north Seattle wide, to use your 5 K-8s), that in any given year 65-70% of the 5th graders in K-8s will continue on as 6th graders.

My point really is that the amount of sloshing around in the system that will be caused by rising 5th graders technically having "two guaranteed seats" will probably be a lot smaller than that caused by things like increased enrollment due to economic difficulties and unaffordability of private schools, or by families with young children choosing where to live based on the new guaranteed assignment areas.

If SPS can handle all of the other demographic variability that they are likely to encounter (an open question, to be sure), then they'll be able to handle the K-8 questions just fine.
Maureen said…
But it wouldn't be 45 x 5 in the N cluster. You probably wouldn't have to hold even one seat from TOPS in the N cluster--TOPS only draws from the NW part of it (this year there are 8 5th graders from N of the ship canal). The kids from all the other K-8s are more likely to be from the N end, but even they would be split between Whitman, Hamilton and Eckstein (and loads of Salmon Bay kids live south). In any event, for every kid who wants to claim their guaranteed comprehensive MS spot there are probably several who will want their empty K-8 seat and get assigned there during the choice phase, so it nets out zero overall (of course, the flow won't be exactly symmetric--more people may want in to Eckstein and out of Whitman (for now).

It could be more of an issue for the neighborhood K-8s, but I doubt many of the alt K-8 kids will transfer out at 6th grade, so Roy's 20-45% estimate seems very high to me. I would say that 45 seats total (split amongst the 3 MSs) would end up being enough. Many people who chose K-8s for K did it with MS in mind.

And as Roy points out, it isn't really the level that matters, it's the variation. How many K-8 kids TRY to leave in any given year (and how much it varies) is data we (well, they) have and can use.
Roy Smith said…
How many K-8 kids TRY to leave in any given year (and how much it varies) is data we (well, they) have and can use.

Data they should have, not necessarily data that they actually do have, or that they have organized in a usable form. I have long since stopped being surprised when SPS doesn't know and apparently can't figure out answers to questions that one would think would be a no brainer for them to be collecting the data on . . . But maybe that's just me being cynical :)
momster said…
melissa said, "But I also think that Tracy was referencing the school feeder charts that appear on pages 29-33 of the SAP"

when i look at those pages in this ppt, i just see a list of schools with tiebreaker and transportation information (nothing about which elementaries feed to which middle school).

this document (the 2009-10 enrollment guide) does show something of a feeder chart, but i don't think it can be what tracy's talking about...
North End Mom said…
Maureen- you said "Many people who chose K-8s for K did it with MS in mind."
True, but if a K-8 is an attendance area school, which is what is proposed for the Jane Addams K-8 in the new SAP, then students will be assigned to the K-8. There will be no CHOICE involved, unless they can change their assignment and choose to go somewhere else. In an area as crowded as NE Seattle, good luck finding a seat in another neighborhood school.

The K-8 concept may grow on these families, but I would think some would want to leave for a comprehensive middle school.

Broadview-Thomson is also an attendance area K-8. I would be curious to know what the actual percentage is of children who stay there for grade 6 -vs- leave for a comprehensive middle school.

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