Many Changes in Tonight's Board Agenda
One big change is that Kay Smith-Blum has withdrawn her amendment. Her statement seems to reflect having listened to her constituents and finding their reasoning plausible.
First, I have withdrawn my amendment from tonight's agenda. I greatly appreciate your input and sincerely apologize for any anxiety caused. My amendment would NOT have reassigned any student, but I appreciate neighbors who would like to see their children continue to be assigned to the same school and greatly appreciate the upheaval the NSAP/TT Minor closure has had on the neighborhood. The numbers the board received LAST NIGHT from Tracy Libros show that Steven's enrollment will be up from the already 111% capacity, and do not include siblings of current Steven's parents who now live outside of the Steven's area. There will be even more families disappointed next Fall if we cannot accommodate their incoming K siblings.
As one consituent who wrote me in the last few days put it: "The attendance area that was assigned to Stevens last year contains too many families with children, relative to the size of the Stevens building. This year's crop of kindergarteners filled three classrooms (with large class sizes). The school does not have enough classrooms to host 3 classes per grade K-5, so this is not a sustainable attendance area over time."
Steve Sundquist has tweaked his amendment
Franklin has been chosen (apparently) as the International high school for the SE. So it's Beacon Hill and Elementary TBD to Mercer to Franklin.
There have been changes made to the Transition Plan, too numerous to detail here but I urge you to read through it. They involved APP at Lowell, APP pathways, grandfathered assignments, assignment to Garfield (they took out the tiebreaker priority for Garfield area students before lottery to any other school they apply for during Open Enrollment). (The transition plan is the document attached within the agenda item.)There is also a Presentation Document for the NSAP.
There is a lot to read through and try to assess.
One word - bullshit. At the eleventh hour (and it is because I checked the agenda yesterday), staff makes MAJOR changes to the Transition Plan. It gives parents virtually NO time to read it and ponder it and talk to the Board (this AFTER the Saturday community meetings). How can the Board accept this?
Comments
Amendments could still be voted on tonight for inclusion/exclusion in final plan.
Then they should give constituents through next the beginning of next week to comment and subsequently to post any amendments to the plan introduced tonight prior to next weekend.
This still gives enough time to solidify plans prior to open enrollment.
Read it and digest it quickly, because this too will be final in 2 weeks.
There was supposed to be community outreach around the plan today. I haven't heard anything of the sort at our school but perhaps others have been more blessed.
As it's currently written (Tuesday's posting), the Transition Plan does not allow newly identified students to enter the APP/IB program. They have to be current APP 8th graders or, if new to the District (from another school district), they have to show participation in a similar gifted program.
This is NOT how the new program was sold to parents at the Ingraham meeting. Parents were given the impression that students could test in for 9th grade, even if they hadn't opted in to APP for middle school.
This is not the board's fault. It's central's. Their communications are way below par as usual.
-skeptical-
-Curious
And Greg the previous doc maintained the Lowell WZ as a footnote (23 or 24 I believe). I think the other edits were for new students in the school year... But I can't confirm it because... I can't find it!
Any info on finding the current document would be great. (an url?)
Also, I try really hard to put information out there but do not expect me to document everything on every page. It's unrealistic and I would expect all of you know how to search a document for what is of special interest to you.
I didn't expect you to do so. If you had it then great but if not that's okay too.
-Curious
http://www.seattleschools.org/area/board/10-11agendas/011911agenda/transitionplanrevision1.pdf
I don't know how to hyperlink it - sorry.
I suggest that one of the speakers tonight ask this simple question of the board: "How many of you have read all the documents provided to you by SPS staff in preparation for this meeting?" They can't give a show of hands, but...
(Melissa -- we're not complaining. It's the SPS's responsibility to make this info accessible, not yours).
http://www.seattleschools.org/area/board/10-11agendas/011911agenda/transitionplanrevision2.pdf
Which has the edits since the 14th.
Melissa so you are still seeing the maps on the link? I see it switched to the School Board Action Report now.
I can get to 3 links from this post:
"statement": (Kay Blum's statement, at the Capitol Hill blog)
"Transition Plan"(nsapreport.pdf which contains an overview letter, but not the plan, and the pop up box with the link provided above by Robert)
Presentation Document" (nsappresentation.pdf)
It's really incredible that version 2 has more blue (new) corrections/changes than even the 1st version (red). How can that be allowed just hours before the final vote?
I called the Board office about the same link problem, as there are 3 links on the agenda items leading to the actual documents that I can't open, which are newly added links. The Board's computer opens the doc fine so they think it's my computer. Anyone else having problems?
1. Trans. Plan
2. Polict B-11 (link not even there)
3. PASS Principals contract
I'd really appreciate it if someone could send the link to the PASS contract.
Thanks!
I still can't find a direct way to get to it at the SPS web site -- an error somewhere on their part, since there should be a link to it there.
The link on the Board Action Report doesn't work, but this one should.
There is a lot of change here. The vote should be pushed out to the next meeting. There's no urgency and no reason to rush.
The greatest wrong here, that I see, is the end of the 10% set aside for out-of-area students at the high schools. This is the death of school choice. They have a very complicated explanation for how many seats at each high school will be available for out-of-area students but they could have said it much more simply like this: "Out of area students can apply for high schools on a space-available basis."
The Board is completely walking away from their promise of maintaining school choice. It is shameful. Absolutely shameful.
For transparency's sake, the District should publish, in advance, the functional capacity of each high school (they have been remarkably elastic over the past two years) and should publish the number of seats taken by attendance area students at each school.
This rule change, this broken promise, along with the proposed change for the West Seattle High Schools, will almost completely end any chance at a meaningful school choice for students and families in Southeast Seattle. The revised rules for out-of-area student enrollment will close off both Garfield and Franklin - they will both fill to functional capacity with attendance area students - and the West Seattle for West Seattlites amendment will shut them out of Sealth.
That's the second outrage: Director Sundquist's West Seattle for West Seattle amendment. How, exactly, are Admiral families more deserving of access to Sealth than Crown Hill families are deserving of access to Ballard or Rainier Valley families are deserving of access to Garfield? They aren't. This West Seattle rule is antithetical to the principles of the New Student Assignment Plan and should be withdrawn by Director Sundquist. If he does not withdraw it, then the Board should soundly defeat it.
Third on my list of travesties continues to be the placement of Montessori and language immersion programs in attendance area schools. They should be Option programs.
Fourth on my list of travesties continues to be the placement of north-end elementary APP in a school south of the Ship Canal.
This Board and this district administration needs a very stern reminder of what they promised and they need to be told - again - how fall they are falling short of their promises.
(I haven't done thorough debugging, and I think it's not our job. But, you're not the only one unable to access the links in nsapreport.pdf.
The Lowell WZ stuff was struck from the sections describing 6th grade assignment so obviously not valid. The area describing k-5 APP placement still has the board approved WZ.
Yes, it is. It was a predictable outcome of the NSAP with guaranteed attendance areas, that popular schools (Garfield & Roosevelt) would be unable to maintain set aside seats for out of neighborhood students. The alternative was that schools would have to tolerate over-crowding.
I know I've heard the suggestion that the boundaries were drawn badly, and the set-asides would have been available with better boundaries. But, I don't think so. I'm sympathetic to the argument that the boundaries were drawn badly -- it's pretty clear to me that SPS took the politically easier solution of drawing boundaries for popular schools big, hoping for the best while the NSAP was approved, and are now tweaking in steps.
But, I'm not as upset as others, because I already discounted what I saw as inevitable consequences of the NSAP (and I still liked it better than what we had). The new NSAP pretty much was inevitably going to result in a loss of choice, except for option schools, and schools that have space available (i.e. less popular schools). What I want to invest energy in now is to advocate so that the "only" choice for parents in SE isn't to send their kids to a failing school, since their opportunities to flee are going to be reduced.
I think the opt-out tie breaker for Garfield is a travesty, personally,, comparable to the Sealth access for Admiral that Sundquist is pushing.
For the Professional Development Waiver- Many links to data and documents in the application form to the State Board of Education are not working (i.e. many Restricted Access/password required type of messages in three of the application questions 9-11, and no links to other bullets at all, such as the District's Score card!
I left a message with Cathy Thompson's office about this yesterday but they still haven't been fixed, the day of the Vote! This also means that most likely none of the Bopard members even looked at these documents either.
In the meantime, we are back at looking at Lowell for our APP kids, except now it is at overcapacity despite the split and the kids may not get in. SIGH!!
So much for predictability. We are beginning to think our cynical friends are right. It is starting to get Darwinian out there. Hats off to the parents/teachers who know how to game the system.
- Lost
Is there still a chance of the program getting moved (since it's now a "program" that can be moved at the Superintendent's will)?
-Just want to know (because change IS hard)
Signed, Just Saying
I think the opt-out tie breaker for Garfield is a travesty, personally,, comparable to the Sealth access for Admiral that Sundquist is pushing.
I am with you, zb. I love GHS and hate to see it under so much overcrowding stress -- but it seems so wrong to let any GHS kid who wants to help the District out of the problem it created (and I agree with your assessment -- it was the politically easy thing to do last year, and they will now just whack away to get a fit - breaking commitments right and left) go to the front of the choice line -- ESPECIALLY since we are essentially trapping all RBHS kids at RBHS with no other options (unless they can drive themselves way north to a school that has room).
The ONLY good thing I can see in it is -- I don't think many GHS kids will take the out. IF I am right, on the one hand, it won't solve the problem the District created at GHS, but on the other hand, GHS eligible kids will not be depriving RBHS kids of possibly their one and only ticket out of the least popular high school in town.
I am with you on the RBHS thing though. IF this is going to happen, we need to not implement this solution on the backs of SE Seattle parents. Hmm. Since there are so few of them, maybe we should just give every school an allotment of RBHS kids (not actually assign them, unless they choose it, but give them the ability to go there) -- and then say that each of them has an automatic out to at least one other school -- they can list them in their priority order, and there will be a mini-lottery -- AND transportation provided. For as many as want out, Garfield takes X percent, Franklin takes X, Ballard takes X%, and so on. That way, IF the District fixes RBHS, fine. Many of those kids would certainly choose it if it offered a sound academic program close to home. If the District doesn't -- well, then it becomes the District's problem to solve (as it should be) rather than the SE Seattle parents'/kids' problem to endure (as it is now).
Fix RBHS now -- by the start of next year, or give those kids an out. Period.
And I will NEVER understand how the Board gave MGJ a bonus based on the NSAP implementation when the success of the SE Initiative was at the heart of the NSAP's success -- and it failed (either utterly or mostly, hard to tell which, as there were few or no reports on its effectiveness) -- on her watch.
Working Mom
Page 4 - APP
Page 5 - APP
Page 9 - Special Ed
Page 10 - APP
Page 13, 14,15 - tiebreakers
Just Saying - you knew about all these "redundancies" before today? Please direct us to the documents where you saw this previously because somehow we all missed this.
It looks new to me.
Why would District staff not automatically do this?
I assume that is because the updates were going to be available on Tuesday, but were not.
This current version was posted on Wednesday Morning; calling it the "Tuesday Posting" is the most recent lie.
Here my school board testimony .....
I published it with EdNews in Texas for the world to get an idea of how things are done in Seattle.
Only 9 students that live North of the ship canal are attending Cleveland STEM this year. That's far below what staff had predicted.
The district has completely eliminated open choice seats at high schools that are fully enrolled. This is contradictory to everything that that has been promised, and makes high school "choice" a joke.
Students who live in the Garfield attendance area who opt out of Garfield get an assignment preference to any other school they want via a tiebreaker above lottery. Another blow to choice for the rest of SPS students.
However, Reuven Carlyle is fighting to restore funding for highly capable students. He asks us to write& call our legilators.
Please forward this information onto your communities.
Melissa- Would you do a string on this?
State funding for highly capable restored by House Ways & Means Committee! Thank you parents for hundreds of emails!
- relieved, I guess. Wish all our kids could be so lucky.
- not an APP parent.
-stijockey
They are accessible to anyone who seeks them.
right, because those of us working three part time jobs to feed four kids, who are enjoying the sights of the city while waiting for our bus transfer have so much free time that shuffling over to the library to use the internets for an hour if we have an appt and 15 min if we don't- ain't no thang.
My point was that I am indeed glad citizen effort was successful in recovering money for this program, but that many parents/guardians/citizens don't have this access.
As EK points out, above, many don't have time. But I was also referring (obliquely) to those with language barriers, those without knowledge of "the system," those who trust the system to do the right thing (many people come frmo cultures where administrators and educators are just expected to get it right.)
This is also what I was thinking of.
I have been listening to different groups in Seattle schools for years & one of the cultural differences which it is hard to modify, is that there are many families who are not as involved as others not just because they don't have the time, or because there is a language barrier, but because they see education as not their field.
They have difficulty with internalizing the extent that you have to advocate for your child & for your community, because they see " professional educators" as professionals, and as what I might call " advocating", they see as " butting in" or telling someone else how to do their job.
I would like them all to read this book-Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness- it talks about how the way choices are presented to us, can determine what we decide , whether it is in our best interest or not.
Every citizen has a voice.
Legislators accept phone calls and letters.
I think you miss the point of SC and Emerald Kitty's posts... the system here is based on the assumption that everyone has the same perspective on education and the same acceptance of their own individual duties to be involved...
As well as the logistical issues around involvement (language, time, access), there are also cultural differences around involvement, and also, manipulation to get desired outcomes, manifesting in the way change/proposals are presented to the community (massaging the message - the use of words in particular ways to subconsciously push people into desired decisions and actions)...
I might be aware of how language is manipulated (I have a background in journalism, pr and marketing and no one could now tell that English was not my mother tongue) but not everyone has the experience to be able to see past the purposeful ambiguities of language being used...
I have a hard time getting to a public library when it's open and I'm not working more than one job.
They just plain aren't open all that much, and when they close, they all close at the same time. There will be an occasional distant branch open, but that does little good for families without cars.
I know times are tight, but the libraries could be doing a lot better at supporting families these days.
It used to be that there were no fines on late children's books. Now there are. I shudder to think what this has done to poor families' abilities to use the library.
When I asked why all the local libraries close at the exact same time, I was told back in the early 90's the library got a lot of complaints from folks who were confused about what libraries were open when, so they decided to close them all at the same time.
Want to help poor families in Seattle?
Here's an easy one. Write the Mayor and the library board and ask them to reverse the decision to charge library fines for children's books and to stagger the library hour schedule.
Agreed.
"purposeful ambiguities of language being used..."
I couldn't agree with you more.
I once took a marketing class; I was told to "play to the client's fears". Pathetic.
Bad Karma abounds.
Frankly, it is a classic case of reverse descrimination.
I'm sick of it and am just not going to contiune to "play nice" after all these years of taking crap. You want our support, then show yours.
I lot of people don't know that that educating a highly gifted student costs the Seattle School district less than the average student in the district.
NSAP passed w/ the late revisions and 3 amendments, including Sundquist's. Ms. Libros' did her presentation, and for my brain, most of it boiled down to "Blah blah blah, no open choice seats at Garfield (or any school at 100% capacity) for 2011-2012", which sort of makes sense except it does not take into account population shifts due to boundary changes or new program at Ingraham. There was much more to it, but anyway - passed.
PS - I looked for the elimination fo the Garfield opt-out tiebreaker in the document, and I thought I saw that it was left in tact, that it would still be ahead of lottery.
Petition State for P/T conferences on 3 days before Thanksgiving (?) for all schools - Passed
Transportation changes - here's the link http://www.seattleschools.org/area/board/10-11agendas/011911agenda/011911agenda.pdf
Three construction projects approved.
I was too steamed w/ the NSAP revisions to make it all the way to the end of the video, so I don't know what the dramatic conclusion was....maybe it was Bob waking up next to Suzanne Pleshette, and it was all a dream.
This did not work for our family when they piloted it a couple of years ago. I couldn't get both of my children on different buses (going to different schools) at different times in mile-apart locations. Also, it required crossing several major arterials and was not a safe, walkable route for an elementary student.
I would like to know how it did (or didn't) work for other families.
SPS parent
I was especially enraged by the parent survey prior the change to cluster stops last time. It was worded so that if you agreed that you could try to make it work your survey counted as "suporting the change" . They even called to pressure us into saying that we could make arrangements to make it work ok for our family. Bob Vaughan was apparently only told that it was "over whelmingly supported" even though everyone I know was struggling to adjust and stunned with how poorly placed the stops were compared to arterials.
At least there was no high pressure "survey" this time.
I hope that the stops and routes make more sense this time.
Working Mom
SPS parent
Now, if someone lives in the Garfield attendance area and applies for an Open Choice seat, they will get it before anyone else. If a Garfield attendance area student gets an assignment to another desirable school this way, it would be classified as a "choice" assignment. As I read the rules, "choice" assignments allow a student to stay at a school until its highest grade, regardless of whether or not they move. So...
Get an apartment and live in the Garfield attendance area for a few months! Apply and get an Open Choice seat at whichever other desirable school has an opening for you! Now move back to your old address - with the assurance that since you have a "choice" assignment, your kid won't be disrupted by a forced attendance area school re-assignment! This is all "by the book" with the rules they've just adopted. There won't be anyone to investigate, because they will be following the rules they've just set up.
A few days notice before the vote and a little community involvement before the vote could have helped them figure this out. Took me about 15 minutes. I'll bet there are desperate families looking for short term rentals in the Garfield attendance area already...
Helen Schinske
It doesn't seem like such a slam dunk for those open choice seats elsewhere, that it would be worth all the trouble of moving your family twice.
First there aren't going to be many open choice seats at desirable schools, and second Garfield reassigns are third on the tiebreaker list.
Finally, I would like to believe in the honor system, and there is NO honor in what you suggest.
I'm just griping about the system they created. With the boundary changes and the APP IB at Ingraham, it seems like that might have been enough. I wish they'd given those two things a try on their own.
And DTRT - even though you may see no honor in what I brought up, it is now a "by the book" possibility. That's what I don't like. I wish they had thought this whole thing through - but with only a day or two to review things before they voted there wasn't a chance.
I've been in many situations in which two people I like and respect have had very different opinions on what the right and honorable course of action is. And I don't honestly know that I'd criticize a family who was trying to do whatever they could to escape a failing school for their child.
But, honorable or not, I wish it weren't an approved and available course of action.
"That's the second outrage: Director Sundquist's West Seattle for West Seattle amendment."
NSAP should have/could have been about neighborhoods, and this helps our community. We have worked hard for our local schools out here, only to have the district try to destroy our every advance.
This is green, good for our community, and good for the planet.
People living in the Garfield area get anything they want, Ballard and Roosevelt, too. Folks lucky enough to live in the Center school, Nova, or STEM areas also have a fast path to decent schools. Looks like money will pour in to Ingraham, also.
Geo preference is not unprecedented, it is the norm now. Why us? Why NOT us? We have no options, are now shut out of Garfield. Give me a break!
We worked to make Sealth a good school. Long, hard hours.