Seattle Schools 2016-2017 Enrollment Numbers

Update: the district tweeted out this AM:

Early data says K-3 will hit class size targets & receive full funding.

Here's the link to their explanation of the situation. Monday is when principals learn about staffing changes. 

end of update

A reader had put this up elsewhere; I have the numbers for all the schools and will get them up soon.

2016-2017 High School Enrollment (numbers from Oct 2015, with % change.)

Ballard High School 1,849 (1702, +9%)
Chief Sealth International High School 1,120 (1174, -5%)
Cleveland STEM High School 854 (842, +1%)
Franklin High School 1,260 (1308, -4%)
Garfield High School 1,759 (1714, +3%)
Ingraham International High School 1,346 (1235, +9%)
Nathan Hale High School 1,180 (1179, +0%)
Nova High School 331 (344, -4%)
Rainier Beach High School 700 (671, +4%)
Roosevelt High School 1,741 (1715, +2%)
The Center School 230 (270, -15%)
West Seattle High School 997 (994, +0%)

Comments

kellie said…
Does anyone know if these numbers are FTE or Headcount numbers.

High Schools use three numbers for reports.

* Headcount - total number of actual humans
* FTE (Full time equivalent) - the number after all of the part time running start students are turned into part time humans
* AAFTE (Adjusted Annual FTE) - how the students are actually funded. The state of washington funds on AAFTE, which is the average enrollment over the school year.

As you may guess, there are some pretty big swings in those three numbers. This is one of the reasons why high school capacity is so complicated. None of the enrollment reports are marked with headcount vs FTE or AAFTE so you never really know what the number means.
Po3 said…
Well maybe the new principal can address this glaring issue:

The Center School 230 (270, -15%)

Doesn't this school have capacity for around 300? That's nearly 80 seats that need to be filled STAT. Then the district needs to look into expanding the school.

Clearly the drop in enrollment at Center is impacting enrollment at Ballard.
Anonymous said…
@kellie, 2015 counts were taken from the OSPI Washington State Report Card, simply reported as "October 2015 Student Count." I assumed it was an actual headcount. It would be good to know if we are comparing similar numbers year over year.

My first reaction to those numbers? Lincoln won't be open for another two years - what in the world is SPS planning? BHS and RHS are bursting. Portables may not cut it. IHS can only provide so much relief. The IHS addition will soon be under construction, and I assume portables will be needed in the interim just to handle the current enrollment.

-another anon
TechyMom said…
We have to bus kids south. That's the only way to use all the capacity. Mandatory bussing seems politically infeasible on this timeline. That leaves magnet bussing. To make this work will require yellow busses, because it is too far for metro. With the later start time and yellow busses, it might work.

I propose:

IBX at Rainier Beach, with yellow bus service for any HCC qualified kid, city-wide.

IB at Rainier Beach as a city-wide option, geo-zone equal to RB attendance area, lottery assignment outside it, with yellow bus service from Garfield, Roosevelt and Ballard (the most crowded schools, more can be added as needed).

Cleveland STEM is already an all-city option with lottery admission. Offer yellow bus service from Garfield, Roosevelt, and Ballard. Interview parents with kids in advanced math and science classes at Garfield, Roosevelt and Ballard, to find out what would make them choose STEM, and start implementing it.

There are also political problems with "2 schools" for magnet programs, so intentionally design the programs to address those issues, while also building something north-end families will choose.
TechyMom said…
I suppose there's an argument to be made for mandatory bussing too. It would move some kids to schools with room. It would cause other families to choose private school or move to the suburbs like they did in the 70's, both of which would reduce the number of kids enrolled in north end schools. To be clear, I hate this idea, but it would reduce capacity pressure.
Lynn said…
I can't imagine why a parent in the Ballard, Roosevelt or Garfield areas would choose to bus their kids all the way down to Rainier Beach when they have access to good comprehensive high schools already.

Here's a link to the enrollment reports for the 4th day of school. For the high schools Total Student Count includes full time Running Start students.
http://www.seattleschools.org/UserFiles/Servers/Server_543/File/Migration/General/P223_Sep16.pdf

Here are the most recent capacity numbers I've seen for high schools: http://sps.ss8.sharpschool.com/UserFiles/Servers/Server_543/File/District/Departments/Capital%20Projects%20and%20Planning/Capacity/2015-16SchoolCapacity.pdf
Anonymous said…
Wow, mandatory bussing? I don't think that's palatable - families (including mine) would oppose it in a big way. I don't think SPS is capable of managing a complex bussing situation - just ask the families at Cascadia, who can't even get reliable bus service to a school on the same end of town as their homes. I like the idea of creating a draw to south-end schools (voluntary); however, I'm doubtful they will pull north-end kids. For example, we have an HCC 8th grader who may put IBX at Ingraham as his first choice, but if he can't get in there, he would choose our neighborhood school (RHS) over bussing all the way to RB for IBX. I think almost all the HCC kids in our neck of the woods would make the same choice. So by limiting IBX at IHS and expanding IBX at RBHS, I think you will just push kids into the northend neighborhood schools like RHS, BHS, Nathan Hale, etc. I believe we need to find a way to temporarily create more seats at those schools -- portables, annexes, etc.

-Two Cents
Anonymous said…
No way would HCC students in the northern end opt for busing as far south as RBHS - they are already choosing IHS over GHS in part to reduce commute time. As it is, some buses to IHS are running late and full. There's little chance of a reasonable commute time to RBHS. Many, many IBX students have BHS or RHS as their assignment school and would choose their neighborhood school as 2nd choice to IBX at IHS. 3rd choice would probably be Shoreline schools. Throw in the possibility of high school geo-splits and Shoreline looks better and better.

-realist
Kellie, the document says, "Enrollment by School/Grade; district summary as of September 21,2016."
Anonymous said…
Why does a Shoreline school look better than RHS or IB at Ingraham? RHS is ranked #8 in the state, top Seattle school sitting in line behind all of the Bellevue and Kirkland schools, and out ahead of Mercer Island and Garfield.

RHS is a great choice and I think Hale is an overlooked plan B. I agree John Marshall should be a consideration for RHS overflow.

Great Schools
TechyMom said…
I live in the northern part if Garfield area, and we'd consider IBX or IB at RB or a really great STEM program at Cleveland, with yellow bus service and an 8:45 start, especially as Garfield gets more crowded. I doubt I'm alone.
Anonymous said…
@ Techy Mom: Our family agrees with you. The only reason Beach and Cleveland are not serious considerations at the moment is transportation. Metro doesn't get my kid to either place without multiple hours and transfers. Yellow bus service, which answers concerns of timing and safety, would put both up the list. We know plenty of families who want strong academics and a diverse high school experience. RHS does not offer this. RHS is a favorite choice of our peer group but the economic optics and neighborhood vibe does not work for us. Garfield does, but if there were other guaranteed choices we would go for it especially because neither RHS nor Garfield are particularly STEM strong. Fine, with some good programs, but not epic. And Ingraham is not guaranteed.

Again, guarantee transportation to Beach and Cleveland, keep building STEM, and watch families fill the schools.

Aghast
Anonymous said…
Along as they hit their class size targets across K-3 overall, will principals be allowed to configure their K-3 classes however they choose in order to avoid splits? I.e., class sizes well below mandated size in one grade (18 kids), but higher in another grade (26 kids)?

Cellophane
Eric B said…
Center School's numbers show what happens to enrollment when you take away arts funding from an arts-focused school. Crazy thing, people vote with their feet when what drew them to the school is removed.
Lynn said…
There were 54 students on the 9th grade waitlist for Cleveland this summer who did not get in. That school is full.

Only Sealth, West Seattle, Rainier Beach, Center and NOVA have empty seats.
Anonymous said…
@ Great School, the reason a Shoreline school might look better is that many students who choose RHS, BHS or IHS in the next couple years will potentially get yanked out of that school midstream in order to populate the new Lincoln HS in 2019, and there are still too many unknowns still re: how Lincoln will play out (e.g., which grades will be there initially, which pathways will go there, what types of classes they'll have, etc.).

HS Roulette
Anonymous said…
Another reason to flee RHS: BHS: IHS: Hale: Schedules. Schedules. Schedules. Who the hell cares about a school's rep when your student can't get the classes (s)he needs let alone wants for graduation. I don't want to hear about Running Start aka SPS Cop Out that messes with student and family life. Student wants Running Start = fine. Student forced into Running Start? That's not SPS providing a quality high school education. It's a failure to provide matter of fact.

North of 85th
Anonymous said…
Busing isn't the issue. The Rainier Beach draw area has more students than even the max capacity at RBHS of 1700 could handle. 3-400 students go to Franklin rather than RBHS so that capacity which exists at Beach and could be filled by neighborhood students is being bumped north which then exacerbates the crunch in other schools. RB is on the upswing and has 700 students which is great but it's less than half the capacity of the campus.

Boundaries
Anonymous said…
The real comparison needs to be between current enrollment and June projections. That is what will lead to a shift in staff, not last year's October count. This list shows Chief Sealth going down from last year, but they are actually up about 30-40 students from the June projections (which led to a huge cut in staffing).

Dreading Monday

Greenwoody said…
Orca cards for HS students could help address the transportation issue from NE to SE - RBHS is just a 30 minute ride on light rail from UW station. Also seems to me SPS needs to find ways to allow transfers to Center and NOVA and other underenrolled HS campuses beyond the usual deadline.
Jet City mom said…
When they rebuilt Garfield just a few years ago they anticpated 1600 students.
Even then I knew that was too conservative, why do we keep making same mistakes?
Anonymous said…
I don't think the renovations that were done at Hale or at Ingraham added much, if any capacity to those schools, either. Very short-sighted, but wasn't SPS was in the process of closing schools when those buildings were designed? We are paying for the bad judgment of that era over and over again.

Hale already has some portables. I think there are code problems for the placement of additional portables at Hale, due to the creek that runs next to the school.

-North-end Mom
"RHS is a favorite choice of our peer group but the economic optics and neighborhood vibe does not work for us."

Just asking (as it is my neighborhood), what's the vibe you don't like?

Lynn, I'd have to go back and look but I think Cleveland was built for more than it currently has; maybe STEM takes more space?
Anonymous said…
@Aghast, are you suggesting that Beach and Cleveland offer stronger academics than Roosevelt?

Cleveland doesn't seem to offer any honors or AP language arts classes, AP Calculus only goes up through AB, they offer the same types of AP science classes as Roosevelt (i.e., bio, chem, enviro sci, physics), and they don't seem to offer any honors or AP level social studies classes. Maybe you were really focusing on diversity issues?

Also, note that with the implementation of the core24 requirement, students will have less flexibility in their class selection (unless SPS switches to a schedule that includes more than 24 credits). If we stick with the current 4X6, there's not a whole lot of room for electives. I wonder what the impact would be on magnet programs? Schools may need to shift more teachers to "core" classes and cut back on electives.

HS Roulette
Anonymous said…
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said…

Yes, like the previous moniker-less poster said, Cleveland is undercapacity because the district is artificially capping enrollment there to staunch the outflow of students from Rainier Beach. Even though enrollment is only 854, the district itself claims Cleveland capacity is 926:

http://sps.ss8.sharpschool.com/UserFiles/Servers/Server_543/File/District/Departments/Capital%20Projects%20and%20Planning/Capacity/2015-16SchoolCapacity.pdf

And it is not because they cleared the wait list, because they did not. Kids are simply being denied entrance to an undercapacity school.

Because the district can't cap enrollment for only RBHS attendance area students, as that would be discriminatory, they just cap overall attendance at way less than capacity. Besides turning away STEM kids despite capacity, this also has the unfortunate side effect of limiting staffing funding at the school.

--JvA
Jet City mom said…
In 2009 they were realizing they were being too hasty.
This from our old friend Dick Lilly.

"But the plan requires spending $45 million to reopen five schools less than a year after a decision that closed five other schools last spring and relocated eight academic programs."

http://crosscut.com/2009/10/its-back-neighborhood-schools-for-seattle/
Anonymous said…
I'm just going to put it out there that Shoreline is not open for boundary exceptions so that option is off the table for the foreseeable future

SL
Anonymous said…
Re mandatory busing:

The US Supreme Court weighed in on Seattle's prior mandatory high school busing program. Negatively. I don't see the district ever going back to mandatory HS busing after that fight.

Here's the Supreme Court opinion:

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/06pdf/05-908.pdf

And here's a long write up (I didn't read it all, not saying whether it's correct, slanted, whatever, just including it):

http://www.historylink.org/File/3939

Parents cycle in and out of the system, and may not always know/remember what happened before they paid attention to SPS.

-- Math Counts

Anonymous said…
Gerrymandering boundaries is fully permitted, as is using FRL to achieve diversity.
In fact, race may even be used to achieve diversity when all else fails.

It was the go-to use of race as a tiebreaker that was the issue. Louisville, another district in the case, had a totally different response to the decision than (so-called) "progressive" Seattle. They intentionally gerrymandered, in addition to using their magnet schools, in order to avoid resegregation.

From the opinion:

The districts have also failed to show they considered methods other than explicit
racial classifications to achieve their stated goals. Narrow tailoring requires “serious, good faith consideration of workable race-neutral alternatives,” id., at 339, and yet in Seattle several alternative assignment plans—many of which would not have used express racial classifications—were rejected with little or no consideration.

FWIW

Anonymous said…
another anon-
" Lincoln won't be open for another two years - what in the world is SPS planning? BHS and RHS are bursting. Portables may not cut it. IHS can only provide so much relief. The IHS addition will soon be under construction, and I assume portables will be needed in the interim just to handle the current enrollment.

Just an FYI that they won't be completing Ingraham any sooner. It won't offer any relief prior to Lincoln. Iy is well over capacity at 1345 this year and next two year will likely get worse. Their most recent district projections from 9/2016 were off for at least Ballard & Ingraham. It may happen by 2019, but who knows. I contacted Tom Redman at district capital projects dept. Told me Ingraham may be able to add seats by 2019, but said as it is three years off, it is still early in the process.
-Ballardite
Anonymous said…
Grasping for straws here, but what about that old Yankee Diner property in Ballard? Could places like that be utilized somehow for the next three years to help take the pressure off Ballard?

Coulda Shoulda
Anonymous said…
- People need to be realistic and consider distance and time of commute and traffic. Bussing kids who live in N part of Seattle down to Rainier Beach and Cleveland would mean kids having to leave very very early. It would be rough. Queen Anne & Magnolia would also be a challenge.

What is most logical is providing buses for kids who live south of ship canal & closer to Rainier Beach & Cleveland. Even a year after Lincoln opens in 2020, the most recent draft of the enrollment projection reports Garfield being at 2400 in 2020.
-Lana
Anonymous said…
@ Lana--I think the city needs to step in and provide space until SPS gets new properties online.

And I would say people need to challenge SPS leadership on their mismanagement and ask the board for changes at the top. I'm not saying rotate Nyland, I'm suggestion his team of directs and their directs are dysfunctional.

Coulda Shoulda
Anonymous said…
Does anyone here know anything about the district considering turning Cleveland back into an attendance area high school?

I remember hearing that in passing from someone involved at the school (probably a parent), and I'm curious about it.

It does seem like the school will never be able to fulfill its potential if the district continues to feel it needs to shut out interested families who would like to fill those empty seats. Maybe it doesn't make sense to keep it as an artificially underenrolled and artificially underfunded science magnet school.

--JvA
Anonymous said…
The numbers on the P223 In the "total student count" column are almost all slightly lower than the ones listed in this post. Total student count (the biggest number for each school on the P223) does include full time Running Start students. Is the total number on the P223 NOT a true headcount?

Those numbers in the post came from an unnamed anonymous source on another thread. I'd really like to know where those numbers came from and why they are different from the P223.

good fit
Anonymous said…
Does anyone know what will happen to the old Nordic Heritage museum property (originally Daniel Webster elementary) once the museum moves to downtown Ballard?

-SPSParent
Lynn said…
There are enough students in the SE to fill Cleveland, Franklin and Rainier Beach with about 100 extra seats (looking at last year's data.) There are almost as many RB students at Cleveland as at RB. Making it an attendance area school would help fill Beach's building.

There's been no indication what Webster will be used for. It will be a small school so an option program might be necessary to manage enrollment.
SPS Parent,I asked about Nordic Heritage and the answer was "we still don't know." Do I believe that answer? Not really.
kellie said…
@ good fit,

I checked the p223 against the numbers in the post.

The P223 is the 4th Day counts. It is unclear on what day the count was taken for the other posted numbers, so that is a bit of the discrepancy.

However, that said, comparing the two makes it clear the the numbers listed on the post are total headcount numbers and they were likely taken later in the month as enrollment settled.
Anonymous said…
They really need to remodel and upgrade the building at Rainier Beach HS. Doing that alone will attract more students there. The other thing that the city needs to address, is making the area around RBHS safe for students to walk there and bus there.

Hale has limited space for portables. There is Thorton Creek running right by it and most of the other open property is owned by the Parks department. There are two portables on the east parking lot near football field and track.

HP
HP, I have said that over and over about RBHS building. After most of the high schools got renovated, their enrollment went up. As well, I have also said, over and over, that the safety of the building is SPS' duty but the streets outside are the City's. If the Mayor wants something to do with education, do that.
Pamela said…
Do we know the numbers for middle and elementary?
Anonymous said…
What is the current breakdown of HCC students enrolled at GHS vs IBX/IHS (or BHS and RHS and...)? GHS enrollment did not increase nearly as much as IHS.

-parent
I will put up the rest of the numbers today.
Anonymous said…
I too would like to know which high schools the HCC kids (especially 9th graders, if we can get numbers by grade) are attending - GHS vs IHS vs neighborhood schools like BHS, RHS, Nathan Hale, etc. I have heard there is a growing trend toward returning to neighborhood schools, and that it will be even more so with next year's 9th graders, but I have no idea if that's true.

-curious HCC
Anonymous said…
Please give the school board the space they need to fix this. Remember, like they promised they would during their respective campaigns? If they don't fix it, vote them out! Tic Tock of coarse that means years will go by like the last one without any positive systematic change. Is it me or does it just seems like they dish out end-less lip service while spending more money on central administration all the while knowing no one is going to stop them.

Love Democracy

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