SAP Updates

Someone had provided a link to the South Shore parent newsletter where the principal discusses some issues with the SAP. It was interesting; here are a few excerpts:

Question: What does this plan mean to us as an OPTION SCHOOL?
A: Students can apply from all over the district upsetting the ethnic, language and socioeconomic balance we have worked so hard to attain. We want to keep our current demographics and need to be vocal about it. Ways to be heard: Comment Cards, board meetings, Getting involved in Political Advocacy Committee.

(Join the club. Many school communities, with the new SAP, will find their diversity changed. I recall that Roosevelt students came down to a Board meeting in large numbers about 5 years ago complaining that changing the SAP would change the diversity there. TOPS was very worried during school closures that their diversity would change under a new SAP. It's an issue for many schools but I don't think it's an argument for one school.)

Question: How will this impact our class size?
A: We currently buy-down classroom size. Class sizes are increasing because the union agreement reports that a teacher can take up to 28 kids in the classroom. This union agreement supersedes the Agreement of Understanding between the foundation and district. There is nothing we can do about the class size. The NS foundation is most interested in keeping class rooms small in the pre-k-3 grade bands and duplicating this model nationally.

(Not sure if they bought down class size via the school budget, New School money or PTA. I think the issue is they have a big new building - sized at about 750 for Pre-K-8 or 1,000 for middle school - and a good program so naturally people want in. Remember our thread on class size? Apparently the New School Foundation thinks class size matters AND they want to spread the word nationally. Hello Dr. Goodloe-Johnson!)

Question: How do we get our Title 1 status back?
A: 50% free-reduced lunch rate. We were at 42% last year. We believe we are higher this year but do not yet know current rate. Important to have families to fill out form if they even think they may qualify.

What I did want to point out in the South Shore newsletter is something the principal said because other principals may be saying this as well:

"School Board Vote on 11/18 on the new assignment maps only. Whole plan to be voted on in January. "

I was confused because I know the general outlines of the SAP have been voted in. The vote on November 18th is to settle the boundaries. But vote the whole plan? I called the Board office and what the principal said was in error.

The SAP plan will be done November 18th as a plan. The next step is for the Board to direct the Superintendent to craft the transition plan. I'd like to think we'd see it by mid-December but maybe it won't see the light of day until early January. Then there will probably be a couple of public meetings on it and then a vote by the Board to accept it in mid-January. So if you hear of other votes for the SAP after November 18th, they are probably talking about the transition plan.

Also to keep in mind: by tomorrow night we will likely know who the newly-elected (or re-elected) Board members are. They are to take their oath on Dec. 2 at a Special Board meeting just for their installation. So those new people will be the ones to lobby for the transition plan. If you have ideas about what that transition plan should be, then get on it as soon as you know who the new Board directors are.

Comments

Chris S. said…
Add this to the MGJ hypocrisy list: apparently "buying down" class size is improper north of the ship canal/when parent money is used (she said as much in her coffee hours), but not south/foundation money.
Anonymous said…
Chris, it's true! Bryant and View Ridge used to be able to buy down K-1 class sizes with extra funds (Bryant claimed it was I-728 money, while VR used PTA funds). Look at the Bryant numbers I posted on the class size thread - it's obvious that that stopped a few years ago. The principals of those schools told me maybe in 2008 that that practice was being forced to end at a district level and NE cluster sizes would be "more equal" going forward (equally big, not the other way around)

From this post, it sound likes South Shore was allowed to continue this practice but it might be coming to an end??
ParentofThree said…
What I find interesting is Madrona WANTS to be an Option school, but probably won't end up one. South Shore does NOT want to be an OPtion school, but is being forced to become one.

There's some Community Engagement for ya.
Danny K said…
Are schools allowed to put deliberate race-conscious admissions policies in place? I think schools need to be careful about how they "defend diversity."
Well, Danny, you can if you are a school with an MOU. The MOU between New School Foundation and SPS has some language about keeping the school in the Rainier Valley to serve those kids and then vaguely, something about the enrollment plan. How this is playing out with the new SAP is anyone's guess. I don't know how New School Foundation feels and I don't know if they will press for South Shore to be an attendance area school.

I certainly wouldn't think it fair to want to help one school with a specific demographic when other schools wouldn't be afford the same treatment.

Gotta be careful because "if you build it, they will come". They created a good school in a new building and it seems people want in.
SPS mom said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
Charlie Mas said…
There is no doubt that the new Student Assignment Plan could mess up South Shore's demographic goals - but there is a way out for South Shore.

Normally, admission to an option school will be pretty much by lottery. First comes the geographic zone around the school, then comes siblings, then comes lottery. This would lead you to think that - after a small number of students living in the geographic zone or with siblings at the school - every student in the district, regardless of race, income, or neighborhood, has equal access to the school. South Shore could, theoretically, be filled with affluent White students from the North-end.

That's where the geographic zone comes in. We all keep assuming that the geographic zone will be small - the area that's 2-5 blocks from the school building. There is absolutely no reason to believe that. At South Shore, the geographic zone could be drawn very big. It could be drawn so that it includes all of the low-income neighborhoods south of Graham Street and excludes all of the middle class areas. Voila! An Option school with a custom designed demographic that isn't left to much chance at all. The bigger the geographic zone, the smaller the odds of someone from outside it getting into the school.

Let's remember that geographic zones can be altered annually by the superintendent without a Board vote as they are a product of process, not policy.
Maureen said…
But even if you live in the geographic zone you need to be informed and act and apply to go to an Option school--the population that has it together enough to do this will not be the same as the overall population that lives in the zone. Very much like the populations that choose charter schools.

The Foundation could mitigate this effect by actively recruiting low income families from the zone just like Geoffrey Canada does for KIPP, but that will take resources away from educating kids.

I think they should leave SS a neighborhood school and link the Aki service area to the Mercer and Washington service areas.
But Charlie, could there be that big a swing in the size of geographic zones that one might be dramatically larger than another? I can see how location could certainly make a difference in how big a zone is but to make one school's 2 blocks and another's 10 blocks will look odd.

The good news for the Eastlake neighborhood is they might draw TOPS' zone so big all that neighborhood's kids might fit in it.

Ah, but we have to wait for the transition plan.
dj said…
I agree with Charlie that the district has left "geographic zone" purposely vague. They have done this so that they can expand and contract geographic zones to serve whatever other goals they have, mostly capacity management goals. I think that the option schools are going to have wildly different geographic zones drawn around them.

SPSMom, the Madrona situation represents a lack of community engagement, certainly, but I'm not sure the fact that it probably won't be an option school is the evidence. Who is the community for the purposes of the argument -- the current Madrona Elementary parents? The parents in the Madrona area in general? The parents in the service area for the proposed option school (which would be the entire Washington service area)? Parents city-wide who aren't in the service area, but who might or might not want to enroll in such a program?
owlhouse said…
Maureen said "The Foundation could mitigate this effect by actively recruiting low income families from the zone just like Geoffrey Canada does for KIPP..."

To be clear, Canada is associated with the Harlem Children's Zone- NOT KIPP. He actually draws big distinctions between the mission of HCZ and KIPP. I think he would find the "option" of NS at SS problematic, as it enrolls a self-selecting group, in a school with better resources than the surrounding schools, essentially excluding the rest of the community from much needed support and opportunity.
Maureen said…
owlhouse Thank you for pointing out my error--I had it in my head that the schools in the Harlem Children's Zone WERE KIPP schools--but I was wrong. HMZ schools are "Promise Academies" and try to enroll all of the kids in a given area. They try not to 'cream skim' kids the way many charters do (and the way the New School may have to do under the new SAP?).


See this Slate article for an overview.
Cara said…
There are many elementary schools in SE Seattle for the children in the area, and many laudable programs (Graham Hill, Maple Leaf, Orca, to name a few). There are also a lot of young families in the area who want neighborhood schools that are good. I don't think there will be a rush to enroll in South Shore if it does become an option school. It would be ironic if people did rush to the school because it is perceived better than other schools in the area, and then overcrowd the classrooms. Sort of like what happened in North Seattle, when many families moved there for the 'better' schools only to find that they are causing the over-crowded conditions.
mkd said…
From the police blotter:
Residents of Tent City 3, recently located adjacent to Rainier Beach high school, accuse students from the high school of beating, robbing and brutalizing some of the homeless during the month of October (2009). About the most recent attack, one "resident" of Tent City 3 stated, ". . . this wasn't the first assault . . . Two weeks earlier, another man was brutally attacked and robbed by another group of men in their teens and early twenties. '[He] just got out of hospital two days ago,' . . . Kelly says Tent City residents had to walk behind Rainier Beach High School to get to the camp, and often saw a "big pack of 5 to 20" teens hanging around an abandoned building near the school. “They were claiming that as their territory,” Kelly says, adding that he believes Tent City residents were specifically targeted. 'There’s no question they knew who we were,' he says."

Yesterday and today, disturbances between students at RBHS were serious enough that medical help was needed and police arrested one or more perpetrators.

Regardless of the new SAP, if the new boundaries mean I have to send my kids to south end high schools, I'll move.
southend girl said…
Cara, you're right that there are good choices for elementary in South Seattle now. However the middle school situation is not so good, which causes people to flee even good elementaries for k-8s. Think about it - kids assigned to Aki Kurose for middle school? Despite the great new principal, many will RUN to the nearest K8.
Charlie Mas said…
I have some hopes for Mercer to get better as most of the elementary schools that feed into it are pretty strong. Beacon Hill and Kimball have long been regarded as strong schools. Everyone knows the story at Maple and I hope they know that Van Asselt and Dearborn Park are close behind Maple on the same trajectory. Really Hawthorne is the only school in the service area that hasn't gotten on the improvement track.

I think you should look forward to a lot of improvement at Mercer very soon.

Popular posts from this blog

Tuesday Open Thread

Why the Majority of the Board Needs to be Filled with New Faces

Who Is A. J. Crabill (and why should you care)?