Boundary Meeting for Maple Leaf Area

The Maple Leaf community is meeting with Director Pinkham on Tuesday, January 9th, 6-7:45 PM, in the cafeteria at Olympic View Elementary School regarding the proposed high school boundaries for our neighborhood.  Other Directors have been invited as well.
Some background for this area:

- In the years since the new student assignment plan went into effect there have been numerous boundary changes within this neighborhood.  There have been many boundary changes, and flip-flopping (or proposed flip-flopping that was advocated against) between Olympic View, Sacajawea, Green Lake, etc.  And, then switches to middle school assignments first when JAMS opened and then with the opening of Eagle Staff.  Parents are tired of all the changes, many of which feel arbitrary, and would like stability.
 
- In this part of the city I-5 is a natural boundary, and both in 2013 when the boundaries were first developed, and in 2016/2017 before they were implemented parents advocated not to have this neighborhood assigned across I-5 to Eagle Staff.  Both times, SPS had other ideas, and the Board had too many other hot issues to address for this area to get attention.  
 
- As of year 1 Eagle Staff is full -- Eagle Staff 716 + Licton Springs 164 = 880.  I believe this is over the building capacity, and there were students who opted to stay at Whitman this year (that won't necessarily be the case in the future).  There will be future capacity challenges and little ability for Licton Springs to grow without changes to Eagle Staff's boundary.
 
- Moving Maple Leaf's high school assignment to Ingraham is not about capacity, it is about aligning with the Eagle Staff middle school boundary.  In addition, all fall the maps under review showed this area assigned to Nathan Hale.  This change to assignment at Ingraham showed up on the new maps in late December, giving the community little time to engage/react.  Given the issues with the middle school boundary, aligning high school to this boundary feels like a step in the wrong direction.
 
- Families who live south of 85th in Maple Leaf have been writing to the district and the Board all fall asking to stay assigned to Roosevelt, as students can easily walk or bike to school.  Per SPS (12/13 email to parents), 5,000 stakeholders responded to their survey about high school boundaries and "Proximity of students to schools, safe walk zones and transportation times" was the number one priority.  We'd like to see this criteria prioritized and the boundary at 85th maintained in our part of the city as well (similar to view expressed by Ballard parents at the last Board meeting).  

There is a petition that has been signed by 149 people in the last 24 hours.  https://www.change.org/p/keep-maple-leaf-in-north-east-seattle-for-high-school

All perspectives are welcome at the meeting on Tuesday.  However, the focus of the conversation will be on the boundaries for this particular neighborhood.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Something, that is very difficult to factor for are those families that are willing to rent and move to obtain the school assignment they desire.

It is not against the rules to move to a new rental within boundary. Or to rent and move to a new establishment within the boundary of the school you wish to attend and then rent/lease/airbnb your home until after graduation.

With all of the new construction around BHS and RHS these are two schools quite prone to this legal practice to obtain school of choice. (Provided you actually move and live in your new rented abode.)

With the recent lack of wait list movement this practice is becoming more frequent. (Based on personal knowledge.)

There is an impact to not moving the waitlists that falls beyond the control of Enrollment Planning.

I wish they would consider movement of waitlists to attempt to meet parent demand and a more predictable flow of enrollment.

-StepJ

-StepJ
Anonymous said…
Metro transportation to Ingraham from that Roosevelt>IHS boundary change south of 85th can be a problem, especially in the morning, because of limited routes. It's generally a two bus trip, with transfers at Northgate. They currently have yellow bus service in the AM, with a PM yellow bus taking them to Northgate for transfer. What is ten minutes by car to IHS (or 10 min walk to RHS) becomes a 45 min commute (or longer, depending on wait times). It's an odd section to add to IHS. Linking HS and ES/MS boundaries just doesn't make sense when the transportation to each is so different (yellow buses picking up from smaller ES boundaries vs HS students walking or taking Metro from longer distances).

The number of housing units being added in the Roosevelt corridor, many within a few blocks of Roosevelt light rail and some being added at the fringes near LCW, along with proposed zoning changes near RHS, makes one wonder if Roosevelt boundaries drawn now will even hold until 2021.

crazy times
Simon said…
Maple Leaf has a lot of boundary issues. The HC pathway here is also screwed up. For instance, kids going to Sacajawea attend Cascadia (and not to Decatur), but for middle school they attend JAMS (with Decatur's students, but not with their friends from Cascadia). It's fewer than 10 kids a year, so there isn't a capacity argument for it. It's just neglect with a negative social impact.

Popular posts from this blog

Tuesday Open Thread

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

First Candidates for Seattle School Board Elections 2023