Uh Oh, What Does This Mean?
Just looking at the agenda for the Board meeting tonight. Speakers list is varied; a Sealth student, transportation, renaming a hall at AAA, Dan about math consumables and 11 people on the SAP.
But wait a minute, I see that the SAP introduction has a notation about a change. It's kind of big. The original draft had a label "Student Assignment Plan: Description and Processes." The latter part, "Description and Processes" has been deleted (and yet it still appears on page 6).
This seems odd as we have been told, repeatedly , that there are two parts. Description and Processes and then next, Boundaries. Now, they still mention the boundaries in this item but there is no Part II. (Yet, in one paragraph, it still makes a notation about a Part 1 and Part 2)
THEN, it says, "I move the School Board approve the Student Assignment Plan." Period. No Part 1 or 2.
Now this is just an introductory item so it's not final. No one at the Board office could explain this change. But I find it a little troubling that they are approving the introduction of an SAP that does, in one place, mention a second part with boundaries, and yet has the idea of parts to the SAP deleted in all other areas.
Hmmm. Too paranoid?
But wait a minute, I see that the SAP introduction has a notation about a change. It's kind of big. The original draft had a label "Student Assignment Plan: Description and Processes." The latter part, "Description and Processes" has been deleted (and yet it still appears on page 6).
This seems odd as we have been told, repeatedly , that there are two parts. Description and Processes and then next, Boundaries. Now, they still mention the boundaries in this item but there is no Part II. (Yet, in one paragraph, it still makes a notation about a Part 1 and Part 2)
THEN, it says, "I move the School Board approve the Student Assignment Plan." Period. No Part 1 or 2.
Now this is just an introductory item so it's not final. No one at the Board office could explain this change. But I find it a little troubling that they are approving the introduction of an SAP that does, in one place, mention a second part with boundaries, and yet has the idea of parts to the SAP deleted in all other areas.
Hmmm. Too paranoid?
Comments
After this last year in SPS? I'm not sure that's possible.
There's another odd item on the agenda - the Superintendent is asking for school board action on the non-renewal of 4 teacher contracts.
Why these 4 individuals? Because they appealed? If the RIFs are all truly based on seniority, why would these 4 particular teachers require a separate board action?
If it's totally clear to someone else, and I just don't get it because I'm new to all this (or muzzy from the unexpected heat. or both), I'd love to hear. But it seems a bit fishy.
The high school student speaker is chosen from a high school and they hope to rotate this. That just reduced available public spots for sign up to 19.
So did the high school speaker address an action item or an introductory item?
When oh when will they put some sort of time limit on the interminable Superintendent's updates?
The meeting starts at 6:00. After a short time for some recognition we get to the public testimony. One high school student and 19 members of the public are all held to a three-minute limit. Then comes TWO HOURS of superintendent updates used, primarily, by staff who read the powerpoint slides to the Board as if they were illiterate and could not read the slides for themselves.
Hey - if the public is expected to communicate complex ideas and be persuasive in three minutes, then the staff should be able to deliver their message in ten minutes or less. Rather than waste time with the relaying of data, they should deliver the data in written form and use their time - and the Board's time - more efficiently and effectively with the conclusions and recommendations part of their talk.
Enough is enough, and this is too much.
First, she acknowledges that there is no provision for equitable access to CTE programs and academies and she acknowledges, not for the first time, that this is a legitimate concern. "Just because you get into Ballard doesn't mean that you'll get into the biotech academy" she said. "Yes, but not getting into Ballard guarantees that you won't get into the biotech academy anywhere."
Second, she said that the plan is to have ALOs at every elementary school, but not necessarily right away. So the ALOs will come over time, perhaps commensurate with the District's capacity to assure their quality. Ha!
Third, she was struck by my question about why every middle school isn't expected to have an ALO as well. She said that the focus had been on Spectrum in every school. I told her that was a bad idea. Here's why: Spectrum requires a certain critical mass of students to be effective. Not every school has that critical mass of students. Therefore, not every school should have Spectrum; some of them should combine their Spectrum students to form the critical mass necessary. ALOs, on the other hand, do not require any critical mass to be effective and therefore can and should be at every school. Hmmmm. She said. That's a strong and challenging idea.
I endorsed the idea of Cleveland becoming an option school. I really like that plan. I also think we need an option high school in the north. There are none north of the Ship Canal.
A significant number of those schools are option schools. This indicates to me a demand for option schools that exceeds the capacity. Any capacity management plan should respond to this demand by adding option school capacity.
Instead, our capacity management plan reduced the option school capacity. Hmmm.
There are buildings available: McDonald, Sand Point, Cedar Park(?), T T Minor, MLK, Fairmount Park, Rainier View, Columbia, Hughes, Viewlands and probably more. What will it take for someone to get a new option school started in one of these buildings?
When you say "someone" do you mean someone from SPS, or do you mean "someone" from the community?
About 4 or 5 years ago (under Manhaus) a parent group at AEII (with the principals blessings) began working together to get the district to grow the school from a k-5 to a k-8, or to create a new 6-8 ELOB middle school nearby for our kids to go to (they were and still are being bused across town to Salmon Bay for MS).
Manhaus said "bring us a serious proposal". Though Manhaus thought it was a good idea, he said the district would not be willing to do a lot of work. He wanted us to "do the work" and bring him a proposal. He asked us to include where (a site), how any teachers it would need, estimate of how large it would be, approximate budget, etc. At one point he even asked us to start looking around at some retail space for lease.
It never came to pass as some AEII teachers were adamantly against the school growing and we decided not to pursue it any longer. But, I wonder if staff would seriously look at a proposal from a community group in which they had prepared necessary data and formally presented that data to the district.
What if someone met with MGJ as our group met with Manhause and said we want to have an ABC type school, our community will work to create it and help market it. We would like to house it at Sandpoint. We need A, B, C and D, and we are prepared to do this within 2 years.
In other words not just an online program placement proposal. But a serious proposal with community backing.
This IS the time. This might even be the BEST time in many years. The N NEEDS capacity and we are going to get it one way or the other.
If anyone has seriously been thinking about this, now would be the time to act.
It's how almost all of our current alt school got started!
I think the problem is Facilities. They have a lock on what happens to the buildings beyond what you might expect.
Also, the case could be made to MGJ that we don't need/have charters because our alts (almost) serve as them. There was a question from a parent at the JA meeting about charters and MGJ said, somewhat sharply, that charter law had been defeated in this state 3 times.
NOMS, which Melissa mentions, stood for New Options Middle School.
Anyhoo, Charlie suggested that a person/people attempt to create a new program, using existing policy. As Melissa points out, the days when a bunch of Alts were "born" are over, but as has also been pointed out, our Alts ARE similar to charters in many ways, and a good case could be made for starting a new program if the organizing group could consider the various expectations and trends of the district (and nationally) and design a program that would concurrently meet the needs of the alt kids the program would serve, while also meeting district goals and ecpectation, and also, perhaps, meeting the various definitions of "charter" floating around.
Facilities are an issue. Perhaps one could work with the city, come up with a "community school" concept and find an appropriate facility through the city. I'm not sure, but I believe that it is poosible for a coalition of city and community to apply for recognition as a public school, and thereby qualify for some public school support (staffing, etc)
Hmm, indeed.
I endorsed the idea of Cleveland becoming an option school. I really like that plan.
Last I heard it was to make Cleveland a S.T.E.M. school = Science, Technology, Engineering, Math.
But look at SPS math k-12. How is this a reasonable idea?
Looks like pure discovery will be the path as without a fundamental math basis it seems STEM must be discovery.
Charlie as you find Cleveland as an option a good idea, please fill me in more fully on the option idea.
Consider the Math abilities of current Cleveland students after the most recent math help from the UW and district from 2006-2009
check WASL Math for Spring 2007 and Spring 2008.
Looking at those much better reading and writing scores perhaps a Science Fiction writing academy is a better choice than STEM.
Thanks,
Dan
While I agree that given the new math adoption a STEM school might seem a reach, but using the existing student population at Cleveland as a benchmark (in essence, asking "can they do the math?") is a mistake, because as an option school it wouldn't necessarily have the same students: it would be a group of students that selected the school, rather than those in the assignment area.
I think that maybe Charlie was thnking it would be good to have it as an option school because it could be reinvented as a sort of magnet, and those that were there would be choosing to be there.
"If the parent/guardian indicates that the priority is to have the siblings attend the same school and space is not available at the older sibling’s current school (or for both siblings at any other schools requested), the siblings will be assigned to the new attendance area school."
There is a footnote, "This is dependent on being able to meet any specialized program needs of one or more siblings at the requested school(s)."
But overall, this seems like a reasonable solution for families, allowing them to decide which is more important - keeping the older sib(s) in a school community that they are already part of, or keeping sibs together.
A reasonable solution depends on your perspective. I don't think what you write about is new.
I will likely be in this scenario and as I see it, I have three "choices"...
1. Pull my thriving 4th grader out of her school (where the whole family is very entrenched via PTA, volunteer class time, etc) for her last 2 years so she can be in the same place with her kindergarten brother. Which in turn will likely create disruption in the upper grades by adding a student they didn't plan to have (plus many others who make this choice)
2. Keep my daughter where she is, let my son go to his new school and figure out a way to make bell times that are 10 minutes apart with a 15 minute drive. Also, explain to my son that the place he already thinks of as his school because he spends so much time there will not be his school.
3. Move to private or leave the district - hmmm...can't afford this.
None of those are reasonable to me and to the well over 1,200 SPS families who have signed a petition opposing the policy to NOT grandfather siblings in the new SAP.
The option to NOT grandfather siblings gives preference to those who may/may not join SPS to those who are already in it. When we chose our school, the sibling tiebreaker was in place. It should be honored.
TT Minor would be a great location for a community school. The district has done this in past to lease now vacant buildings back to schools.
In addition to BadgerGirl's example of not wanting to pull a thriving child out of her school and having younger siblings already emotionally invested in that school, consider another reality: with overcrowding at some schools, I don't see how the district can make this promise to families. There may not be room at the attendance area school for the older child! Are they just hoping that enough older children will want to change schools that it will create space for non-entry grade students?
Non-entry grade children are wait-listed for Bryant right now because the school is full. What is going to change by next year to make room available for older siblings in the new SAP?
At last night's board meeting, Racheal Cassidy, the district's demographer, testified that first and second choices only comprised 80% of placements for the 09-10 school year. The lowest percentage ever!
When the board asked her to clarify why this number was so low, she pointed to capacity issues and the large number of upper grade transfers due to school closures.
Now, let's be really clear about this. Closed schools were given a special tie breaker, very similar to what is being discussed in the new SAP for siblings. Students at closed schools got first shot at any open seat in their reference area, in other words, an even greater type of super priority they are looking at giving sibling and this is what happened.
Of 1,337 students affected by school closures,
489 (37%) applied for transfers. Largest numbers from Cooper (121) and Summit (191)
􀂃 388 (79%) received new assignments
􀂃 101 (21%) placed on waiting lists
We are talking about only 489 students with a super priority this relative small number of upper grade transfers resulted with 21% of the students on a waitlist. Gridlock is the only polite word I can think of to describe the type of situation that would occur if too many siblings need to make a change. This will not create any more stability or predictability as I can suspect that there are well more than 500 siblings that would be impacted with this rule.
I was also impressed that when the board got this information they were very concerned that this means more broken promised to closed schools. I was embarrassed that the board need to point this out like it never occurred to enrollment that they were breaking promises. But that is another thread - more broken promises to closed school during enrollment. However, I find this more convincing evidence that it is in everyone's best interest to support sibling preference.
I see your dilemma regarding grandfathering -- I really and truly do. But how can the emotional needs of your k child trump the needs of a neighborhood child who cannot attend his/her over-subscribed school because it fills with siblings? Doesn't he (neighborhood kid, growing up in the shadow of the building) deserve to go to his area school? Obviously this is not a problem in all areas of the city, but it IS a problem in mine.
I am not trying to be snarky, but I am trying to understand the rationale.
WV -- yes indeed, the dermon is in the details
AS1 has been around for what, 40 years? We were started by a group of homeschool parents and the whole point of the school was its democratic model and community involvement.
Now, the Superintendent appointed our new principal without any input from the community or any regard for the philosophy of the school, our restructuring is happening with no input from the community, we've been told our school will be renamed and the principal is to design a "signature performing arts program." With an environmental science focus. And three hours of math and reading per day. Or something.
And the district just shut down Summit and AA and moved NOVA - could they have done that if these were charter schools? Does the district have to replace the "options" it just took away from the community? There doesn't even seem to be a defined process for forming a new Alt school.
The Alt/Options schools don't have autonomy. They don't have charter contracts that define their programs or allow them to chose alternative methods of measuring student success. They don't get to choose different texts - it's EDM for everyone.
Even the so-called "successful" Alt schools are being denied participation in the selection of their principals (TOPS). School board policy obviously doen't protect the Alt/Option schools.
The Alt/Option schools exist at the pleasure of the district, and if the district decides that what is needed is more uniformity - then too bad for the individualized programs at the Alts.
This is why, even though it almost makes me gag to say it, the idea of charter schools is becoming more palatable to me. Either that or we need way more than just a vague "commitment" of support for alternative education from the district.
I see both sides of this issue and there are no easy solutions.
I imagine you are in the NE, where many kids who can walk to an elementary school cannot get in because siblings get in first, then it fills based on proximity, and they turn out to live one block too far away... Kids on my block got into Bryant this year but kids one block north of us did not, and we are not on the periphery of the reference area! Each year, the de facto boundaries get smaller.
So these families get assigned to schools often far away from them. They make the best of it, their children thrive at the new school, and now they are being told that they have to yet again "take one for the team" and either have their families at two different schools under the new SAP or move their older child (remember, the one who already got screwed by the system) to a new school.
I fully support predictable assignments. You should know, based on your address, where your child will go to school. You shouldn't have to worry whether or not there will be room for you. So I like that the new SAP is moving us in that direction. However, we've lived with the current system for a long time, so there is no need to rush to implement the new SAP if it means splitting up families or disrupting thriving children who are already part of a school community.
I'm not a demographer but there has to be a way to make this work without having the very families who have already been denied choice be presented with nothing but bad options under the new SAP.
no snarkiness taken. I can also see your point very clearly.
There is a discussion of equitable pain going on in the comments as well - what I see are the emotional needs of my TWO children (and some families have more) vs. one entering Kindergartener, plus the family upheaval if we choose to keep the separate. How do you measure either families' pain? Not sure.
But as many here have pointed out, if the SAP goes through with the sibling preference 2nd, there are still children living in the shadow of their neighborhood school who will not get in to that school due to capacity constraints. So... two groups dissatisfied (to put it mildly).
We live on the far boundary line of our reference school - but chose our non-reference school as it was equidistant and a better fit for my daughter. We don't have a neighborhood school shadow to live in (which would be nice on a 90 degree day!).
Again, I see your point, thanks for making it. We will find a way no matter how this turns out...
And if anyone thinks this sibling issue is heated, wait until the HS boundaries get drawn in the fall. It's going to be bloodbath... I am not looking forward to that.
If this happens between sibling's enrollment, families may not be able to keep siblings in their former reference area school. I think we will just have to get use to being in flux.
What about programs like Spectrum? My student is currently in Spectrum (which isn't available at our reference school) and Whittier is a pretty popular school ... I'm pretty sure my other children will be assigned to our reference school.
What about the Autism Inclusion Program @ North Beach? With this new plan, 'out of reference area' parents will be forced to pick between a good program or having their children attend the same school.
What about APP? I thought one of the only good things about the North/South split was that, with the addition of a general education program, families would be able to have their APP & general education students at the same school.
What about the families that are "right sized" out of their current reference area? They didn't do anything but go to their neighborhood school and they may end up having their children assigned to different schools.
Sorry to whinge ... I'm just really frustrated with the thought of my children being assigned to different schools! Even though it might take longer for the SAP to be implemented, I still think CURRENT students SIBLINGS should be grandfathered.
Did anyone catch this piece on KUOW this morning?
KUOW News
Parents Plea for Smooth Transition; Computer Says 'No'
06/04/2009
The Seattle School Board is considering an overhaul to its student assignment plan. That's the system that decides which kid goes to which school based on where the student lives. Parents expressed dismay last night (Wednesday) that the new system will make it harder to get younger kids into their older brother's or sister's school. And the reason the district has to make the change quicker than parents like is a very old computer.
When school board member Sherry Carr asked why the sibling thing couldn't be smoothed in over a number of years, and heard it was because of a computer, she was at a loss for words.
Carr asked about it after hearing requests from parents like Rumi Takahashi. Her older child goes to Beacon Hill Elementary, and she wants her younger child to get in too. So she wants the current system to be extended for parents who expected to use it.
Takahashi: "You would only have a commitment to do that until 2013 if you were doing K–through–5, or 2016 if you were doing K–through–8, if you limited it to the current student body. You'd have a transition and everybody could be satisfied that you hadn't changed the rules in the middle of the game."
District technology staffer Connie Span explains that probably won't happen.
Span: "If we pursued gradually converting from the current system onto a new system over two or three years, our concern is that this old, very obsolete legacy VAX computer system would not last that long."
The VAX machine runs the enrollment system. It's one of those computers from the 70s that looks like a big cabinet. It delayed reworking of the student assignment plan by a year. Span says it's falling apart. And that the district has to get its enrollment systems out of there.
School board members will hear public testimony on the new student assignment plan next Wednesday. Phyllis Fletcher, KUOW News.
Helen Schinske
I also don't think you are being snarky. I think you are asking a very legitimate question. However, the issue is not really one of siblings vs no sibling. The issue is once again capacity and the lack there of in the NE.
Most of this year's trouble in the NE and not from the siblings of out of reference area kids. Conversely, if every sibling went back to their reference area there would still not be space for every kid at their reference school for the very simple reason that there is no space for every student that lives in the NE to attend school in the NE.
Sibling are a red herring in this conversation. Take a look at this map students by distance for the 08-09 school year.
http://www.seattleschools.org/area/newassign/
maps/08-09/demog/nearest_elem_0809.pdf
There are lots of great maps and data on the new student assignment plan website.
My alarm is set to gently wake me by listening to the news on KUOW - and I awoke to that story. It was not a gentle awakening.
As far as the computer, my initial thought is "what a crock" and that's blaming the computer is a convenient excuse to deflect the issue.
My opinions on the tiebreaker aside...If they can't program the new system to keep track of where current siblings are then they don't have the right computers or programmers. UGH!
The problem with this (the entering K kid who can't go to their attendance area school, because the spot is taken by a sib whose older sib is already at the school) is that it carries the problem forward. Now, we have an entering K kid who is not in their attendance are school. What happens with their sib?
The simplicity of this plan is that going forward, it guarantees every entering year student a spot in their attendance school. Doing anything that delays that delays that simplification.
Oh, SURELY not. That would be just all kinds of levels of dumb. That'd be dumb pie with an extra scoop of stupid.
Helen Schinske
my question about the number of people who signed that petition is how many of them actually know that 1) if you're in your attendance area school, your not-yet-in-school sibling is in - no exceptions, no problems 2) if you don't turn out to be in your attendance area school, sibling is first tie-breaker for extra seats, and 3) the plan includes a provision for putting all siblings in the same school upon request
i think most readers of this blog now know that, but it's a small fraction of parents, and what i keep hearing float around my schools is "siblings aren't grandfathered!?! panic!!"
BadgerGal also said, "When we chose our school, the sibling tiebreaker was in place. It should be honored."
i'd argue that it is being honored - just for the fewer seats available after kids in the attendance area have been placed - and not the guarantee it has always been.
i think there should be a step in the boundary-setting process to see how many families it puts into the split-schools situation - so that all of the current conjecture can be tested before moving forward. it can be done by coordinating through schools to survey families to identify not-yet-enrolled siblings.
I was unwilling to sign the sibling petition because I had also felt that grandfathering the siblings would delay the implementation of the new plan and hence delay some sense of predictability for the NE cluster. The capacity issues in the NE are severe enough that I felt that the draconian measure of losing sibling preference would be ultimately less painful than this continued pattern of increasingly large dead zones.
However, after last night's board meeting, I have completely changed my opinion on this.
The district can not BOTH guarantee a spot for the older kid to move to the reference school AND guarantee that a currently enrolled student can matriculate to the highest grade because there is just not enough capacity.
As almost every upper grade classroom in the NE cluster is full and in many cases extremely full, guaranteeing that older grades would accept ALL older siblings would require ADDING additional upper grade classrooms, most likely in awkward split configurations. If there is no space to add additional K classrooms, there is certainly no space to add an additional upper grade.
So once again, it is not the PLAN that will create predictability but the ability to IMPLEMENT the plan that will create some sense of predictability. And right now there is just not enough capacity to do this.
I should mention that I do not have a student that would be impacted by sibling preference.
As a community we ought to be ashamed and disgusted that Central Staff doesn't have at least basic tech worktools. If it did, perhaps there would be less paper-pushing staff AND faster answers. Another bar that needs raising in support of our students.
Where are the big business dollars or technology company grants to get the job done. Who can get the district moving here?
"The problem with this (the entering K kid who can't go to their attendance area school, because the spot is taken by a sib whose older sib is already at the school) is that it carries the problem forward. Now, we have an entering K kid who is not in their attendance are school. What happens with their sib?"
Not only that, but what happens to the middle school placement? One of the tie-breakers for MS is feeder school. This potentially stretches out the impact of sibling enrollment through middle school.
Another sib issue is what happens when boundaries change. If so, your sib no longer has preference, even if you went with your assigned school!
As pointed out, keeping sibs together is likely a false promise because of capacity issues at upper grades. Keeping sibs together results in more parental involvement, stronger school communities, and fewer cars on the road. If it's very likely given the tiebreak, why not just guarantee sibs and be done with it?
central mom - i think they can do modelling now on gis and other systems that aren't on the vax - though someone downtown would have to confirm that.
A grandfathered sibling tiebreaker is very unlikely to be a statistically significant issue for a middle school roll up. Folks not at their reference school tend to be at a geographically proximate school. You can check the maps on the website. As there are many fewer middle schools than elementary the probability is that both the sibling grandfathered school and the attendance area school will roll up to the same middle school.
But even if this were not the case, you can write a rule that home address trumps elementary feeder pattern for middle school and it looks like the district will make a rule like this anyway, just because of the geographic challenges of elementary feeder patterns.
They'd have more credibility if they blamed this mess on the winter snow storm.
Because guaranteeing both will result in unimaginable gridlock or even more over-crowding. I was just shocked when Rachael Cassidy reported that 20% of the students with super priority from closed schools did not get into their choice school. In addition to that being just an amazing amount of pain for the families of closed schools, it was not a good harbinger of how the sibling priority would work. When questioned by the board, Rachael clarified that this lack of expected access was because there was so little upper grade capacity in the entire system.
There were less than 500 students that tried to apply at upper grades with super priority and could not get in and are therefore wait listed. So under this new "guarantee" which is theoretically stronger than super priority, the attendance area school would be forced to make room as they can't just turn them away or wait list them.
Great, Right? So not exactly the sibling priority you had imagined for your family under the choice plan but the siblings are together and this what matters.
So lets say that there were 500 siblings that needed this upper grade priority to maintain family harmony (which is a very small number) and that meant that 100 of them would have been wait listed in a normal year. However, you can't wait list them as they are siblings and this means that those attendance area schools were just over-loaded by those 100 kids.
So that is 100 kids that are placed on top of these already crowded classrooms. Remember, many classrooms in the NE already have 30 kids in them for upper grades. If you add more, you either will need to add a split classroom or have a fantastically large classroom.
In theory, if everyone just returned to their magically right-sized reference school, this would zero out right? So the bottom line is that if you are "grandfathering" the currently enrolled students, then you need to grandfather the siblings so that these kids can just plain fit into the buildings.
In other words, you need a little bit of space for the dominos to start to fall and kids to return to the attendance area school and there just is not a speck of space to be had.
But what really grabbed my attention is that Rachel was using district wide numbers. I bet if you did a cluster by cluster analysis, there would be some pretty wide swings. So I am willing to bet that the numbers for the NE are even higher than the 20% used in this very conservative case.
The bottom line is that the siblings are just not the issue for the NE cluster. The issue is that the capacity issue has been building in the NE for 5 years now so we have some just plain weird assignments and there is no magic plan or no amount of equitable pain that is going to make it suddenly easy around here.