Boundary Work Session Notes - Part 2

Not too much more as I ended up covering some of it in the Enrollment thread. I am going to put the notes in italic as I have made a lot of comments here.

Tracy mentioned a group of parents joining together around Sand Point (she called it a PTA but that's not really possible at this point). She also mentioned community support around McDonald from neighbors who live around it and who have been working on its playground.

Michael brought up the issue of not having many Options for the NW and where would all the kids on the Old Hay option school go for middle school?

When Sherry had explained her visit to McDonald, she was careful to explain that some of the money was for desks, etc. so that's why the cost is so high.

Well, wait a minute. Don't we have a lot of desks left over from closed buildings? No, oh, so this is one perk from having your building renovated or remodeled; you get new desks. It's kind of like moving into a newly-built house and wanting new furniture. I'm supposing that it's true. The leftover desks from all the closed schools are all now in other schools or unusable. But could we at least see the evidence? I mean, Sherry got to see the evidence that McDonald, despite being an "emergency" building, was in complete disarray and horribly maintained. Could we see the warehouse where all the extra furniture is kept? (And question: did Jane Addams get all new furniture before it moved in? Didn't think so.)

Steve chimes in that desks are part of capital issues and aren't they about a third of the cost of reopening a building? So Kathy Johnson of Facilities say oh, that cost for McDonald includes the portables.

What? Turns out that there are two old portables on the McDonald site. It is unclear to me if they are talking about buying new ones for the site or what.

BUT, then Tracy says that with the shortage of capacity over the next 4 years, they will need portables for other schools. Really?

So the truth here is that for both McDonald and Sand Point (and who knows where else?), they need portables to have the capacity they want. We are reopening small buildings like Sand Point and adding the capacity they need with portables.

Portables are something the district alleges to hate. I'll go dig out the notes but I think I have Kathy Johnson on record as saying they are a bad thing. Until you need them.

Heck, this district is on record saying last year they didn't want to reopen any schools? Remember that?

Then Mary Bass brings up...John Marshall. Lots of backpedaling here. Why can't we use John Marshall?

Oh, it has too much capacity. No elevator. Too near the freeway for children (and too small a playground). Mary pointed out TOPS is right next to the freeway. Kathy said oh, they have triple pane windows and John Marshall doesn't.

It's called money. Throw enough of it at a problem and it'll all work out. Look at McDonald. (The district has other ideas for John Marshall but I don't know what they are.)

Mary said she would like to see the issue of program placement such as putting a foreign language program at McDonald looked at system-wide.

Sherry also brought up that McDonald has an extra large gym and had accommodated TOPS during their rebuild and so could possibly be a ....K-8.

Don Kennedy, our COO, brought up the VAX and that (1) they are running behind schedule to migrate off it and (2) they would be giving the Board a new timetable soon. Uh oh.

Dr. Goodloe-Johnson talked a bit about program placement and said all decisions would be made before the March Enrollment started.

There was mention that AP offerings were up by 30% from last year.

And we ended with apropos of nothing Cheryl said that there was no APP in high school. And you can read about that in Charlie's thread on the subject. But it was quite amazing to sit there and hear Cheryl, who had been principal at Garfield, say this. And then Michael say something about it being a K-12 program (it's not; it's 1-12) and then having not one Director correct or even try to say anything about it even though, as directors, they all sign off on the 1-12 APP program every single year.

Comments

Jet City mom said…
did Jane Addams get all new furniture before it moved in? Didn't think so.)

Oh but as you will see at the meeting tonight $900,000+ has been budgeted for new windows, blinds and flooring for Jane Addams.
Carolyn said…
I'm a parent who has been working on improving the playground at McDonald. that doesn't mean however that I'm in favor of opening McDonald for a school. The two are very separate, and I don't like that support of the playground is assumed to be support of opening the school.
Emerald Kity, is that money out of the BTA III levy?
Maureen said…
Sherry also brought up that McDonald has an extra large gym and had accommodated TOPS during their rebuild and so could possibly be a ....K-8.

Has anyone said anything about moving Thonton Creek to McDonald and growing it to a K-8? Would that take any pressure off of the NE and maybe make it unnecessary to open Sandpoint?

I don't know the region/numbers involved, but it would solve the issue of Hamilton area not having an Option school and get rid of the wonky McDonald borders issue.

Was there any explanation as to why the JSIS border isn't at 45th (or 50th)? The streets (basically one or two blocks) are all small in there--why not just cut the border at the arterial?
Charlie Mas said…
I see the appeal of moving the Thornton Creek program to McDonald and re-purposing Decatur as a neighborhood school. I wouldn't suggest it without determining how closely the program is tied to the building.

My first choice would be to put north-end elementary APP into McDonald.
SPS parent said…
Is there enough room in other N/NE elementary schools to absorb the kids in the McDonalt assignment area? It TC or APP moved in, then where would the McDonald kids go?
Anonymous said…
I may be wrong, but I seem to remember discussion of Thornton Creek moving to the Jane Adams building to expand to a K-8 and TC declined.
Charlie Mas said…
There is no trouble finding space in the Hamilton service area for the kids in the McDonald attendance area who would be displaced by APP if the program were placed there. The excess enrollment in the service area that makes re-opening McDonald necessary is an excess of less than 150.
old salt said…
Data docs are up on the maps page of the NSAP.
zb said…
"I may be wrong, but I seem to remember discussion of Thornton Creek moving to the Jane Adams building to expand to a K-8 and TC declined."

or objected, perhaps, and was successful in having its objections respected.

My understanding was that this was a staff driven objection -- they felt that they couldn't expand the educational model into a K-8 and made the case to the parents. parents, swayed by this argument, as well as an unwillingness to move to a new building, convinced the school system/school board not to go with this plan.

I always thought it made sense to make Decatur as neighborhood school, but then, I've always thought programs (i.e. option schools) should be located physically in areas where there is less demand for the building, a view not shared by everyone. Effectively, I think programs should be placed in buildings where there's less neighborhood demand for the building (with the caveat that moving Summit from the north end to RBHS didn't make any sense, so moving programs has some bounds).
Charlie Mas said…
There are some other buildings available for re-opening in the north-end other than McDonald and John Marshall (rejected by facilities as too close to the freeway and without needed outdoor space). There's Lincoln and there's Wilson-Pacific. Both are pretty central - at least east-west - and have good transportation access.

I'm not as certain about the size, condition or availability of Cedar Park. Cedar Park also lacks a central location
Jet City mom said…
80% of the money to fix up Jane Addams is coming from the BTA ll Capitol Levy that was passed in 2003 & 20% from BEX lll

http://tinyurl.com/yck2mrw
Josh Hayes said…
At the Loyal Heights meeting a couple weeks back, the idea of opening Lincoln as a stand-alone school was floated, and Directors Maier and Carr shot it down, saying that SPS needs to have an emergency building available for temporary housing of a building shut down by catastrophe or renovation (or catastrophic renovation, I suppose).

It sure seemed like a popular idea at the meeting, largely because people wanted a high school put in there to open up slots at Ballard HS, but it sounds like the Board, and SPS, regard it as a non-starter.

Can't speak to Wilson-Pacific except to say that it's a real dump and only a block or so from a pretty lousy stretch of Aurora (I live in that neighborhood), although it has a pretty good gym and a terrific athletic field.
h2o girl said…
Looking at the district's charts of projected numbers in the data books released the other day makes me think they are going to need yet another neighborhood school in the NE soon. It says that by 2015 View Ridge will have nearly 600 kids in it. How is that possible? A field full of portables?

As Charlie mentioned, they are also assuming that 5% of the north end high schoolers will choose to go to Cleveland. I can't imagine that will actually be the case. On the other hand, McClure & Madison middle schools and West Seattle & Ingraham high schools are projected to have lots of extra space. Good news for those folks in attendence areas with unacceptable schools, perhaps?
Jet City mom said…
since I have been talking to parents and community members involved in smaller and more responsive districts I have the bright idea to make Wilson- Pacific an alternative school ( I can't help it- I like a 6-12 model & originally it was a junior high)

The building has been a real dump I agree but it is a nice piece of property and I think the district should use it.
zb said…
View Ridge peaked at >1200 students in 1957, when the school was physically smaller. Clearly undesirable, and probably not permitted using current standards, but I do think that the new SAP is going to mean more crowding in popular schools in desirable areas, because they won't be able to limit attendance by having constantly moving boundaries. And, 2015 is the target date for when they re-draw attendance area boundaries, which is when you'd expect the worst crowding predictions to occur.
Elizabeth W said…
on 11/5/09 at 6:54 AM zb said (about the Thornton Creek community's rejection of the plan to move them to the Jane Addams building)

...

My understanding was that this was a staff driven objection -- they felt that they couldn't expand the educational model into a K-8 and made the case to the parents. parents, swayed by this argument, as well as an unwillingness to move to a new building, convinced the school system/school board not to go with this plan.

...

zb, I think you're factually accurate to a first approximation, but I don't think you've at all captured the spirit of what happened.

The community was not asked to move, but told we would move, and:

(*) there would be no time allotted to ready the building -- TC had to be out of the Decatur building immediately after school closing in June (so new floors could be put in) and would not have access to the new building until immediately before school started in the fall, and

(*) TC would have to immediately go to a k-8 without time to do the necessary planning and hiring to provide an appropriate middle school expansion of the expeditionary learning program.

Under those circumstances, I believe the likelihood that the program would founder was very high.

As a TC parent who values the experience and instincts of the teachers in my community, and as someone who's had intimate experience in the hell that is moving a (pre)school, I felt very comfortable backing the teachers up on this one.

I believe that had the district asked the Thornton Creek community to grow a program at Jane Addams one year at a time, with sixth grade starting fall of 2010, there would have been enough support from the TC parents to address other teacher concerns and seriously consider taking on the move to make it successful.
SPS parent said…
Just read that the district is moving the ELL program out of Bryant and into Sandpoint...........

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