Hey Kids! It's Tracy and She's Explaining the Assignment Plan
Tracy Libros, head of Enrollment, has made a video about the new SAP. Haven't viewed it all myself (it's 50 minutes) but let our readers know what you think.
Tuesday Open Thread
The speaker list is up for the Board meeting tomorrow; not as packed as I thought with just four people on the waitlist. The majority of the speakers are speaking on high school boundaries (with several wanting to talk about Ballard High). There are only three of us speaking about the Green Dot resolution asking the City to not grant the zoning departures that Green Dot has requested. It's me, long-time watchdog, Chris Jackins, and the head of the Washington State Charter Schools Association, Patrick D'Amelio. (I knew Mr. D'Amelio when he headed the Alliance for Education and Big Brothers and Big Sisters; he's a stand-up guy.)
Comments
It works this way:
If, under the new plan, your attendance area school is School A, and you're alright with your incoming general education kindergartener enrolling at School A, then you're in luck! Your child will be assigned there.
If your incoming kindergartener has an older sibling at School B, say about to enter the third grade, the District will (generally) make a place for that child at School A, with the incoming kindergartener, so you can have both of your children at the same school.
It does not, however, work the other way around. Here's why:
Suppose there are 60 incoming kindergarteners at School A. Suppose two-thirds of them, 40, have older siblings. Those 40 children will be spread across five grades, and there might be 8 per grade, or 4 per class if the school has two classes per grade. That's not too great of a burden on the school. Since there is always some attrition from year to year and since some students will be leaving the school to go to school with a younger sibling, there is a good chance that the school can absorb the additional students.
It can't work the other way, however, because if there are 40 students in a school with younger siblings who are incoming kindergarteners, they would take two-thirds of the available seats in the kindergarten.
Yes, it is a one-to-one relationship between the number of students, but the older students can come to the younger student's school because the older students are spread across five grades while the younger students are concentrated in just one.
Even still, this won't always work. There will be certain grades at certain schools where there will not be room for everyone.
I can see how this will work for elementaries, but I'm less clear about whether this will work for middle schools and high schools. I don't think it will. A lot of Lake City kids are likely to get assignment to Eckstein, but there won't be room for their 7th and 8th grade siblings. In a similar way, Magnolia 9th graders may get into Ballard, but that doesn't mean that there's room for their 10th and 11th grade siblings.
From the District News & Calendar page"
"On Monday, June 15 from 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m., Superintendent Maria L. Goodloe-Johnson will participate in an on-line question-and-answer session, hosted the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, to answer questions from the community about the District and the important work we are doing. The Web site address for the on-line Q&A is seattlepi.com."
They don't specify any particular topic, so I assume all questions are fair game.