SAP - High Schools
Already from one reader, Karrie:
"My husband just dropped a glossy overveiw copy of the maps on my desk. He said there were a stack of them in the lobby at Zoom Bilingual Education School (in Ballard). Amazing - glossy copies out in public but not up online yet. They all say Draft Map ID#001
I have only reviewed the maps from a personal point of view so far. We live on east Queen Anne so our reference schools are New Hay, McClure and Ballard. My daughter goes to Coe so the sibling tiebreaker will impact us for my 4 yr old.
Old John Hay is listed as an option school - interesting - wonder why. Any ideas?
And it appears from the very rough lines drawn that from a north/south perspective, all of QA and Magnolia go to Ballard HS and the north line is drawn at N. 85th with West line at the shore/Puget Sound and east line at 99.
My surprise... I was expecting Garfield given where we live on QA but am just happy to have some predictability. I also realize we are lucky to have the reference schools that we do."
Real deal? Probably.
"My husband just dropped a glossy overveiw copy of the maps on my desk. He said there were a stack of them in the lobby at Zoom Bilingual Education School (in Ballard). Amazing - glossy copies out in public but not up online yet. They all say Draft Map ID#001
I have only reviewed the maps from a personal point of view so far. We live on east Queen Anne so our reference schools are New Hay, McClure and Ballard. My daughter goes to Coe so the sibling tiebreaker will impact us for my 4 yr old.
Old John Hay is listed as an option school - interesting - wonder why. Any ideas?
And it appears from the very rough lines drawn that from a north/south perspective, all of QA and Magnolia go to Ballard HS and the north line is drawn at N. 85th with West line at the shore/Puget Sound and east line at 99.
My surprise... I was expecting Garfield given where we live on QA but am just happy to have some predictability. I also realize we are lucky to have the reference schools that we do."
Real deal? Probably.
Comments
Roosevelt is bordered on the south by the Ship Canal and on the north at 80th. North of 80th and east of the freeway it's Hale.
Highway 99 is the border between Ballard and Roosevelt.
Interstate 5 is the border between Ingrahama and Hale.
In the south, Garfield's attendance area reaches further south than I would have guessed, all the way down to Holgate/College. That allows Franklin's attendance area to reach all the way down to Othello. Very impressive if that will work. I don't know how they are going to get all of those kids into those two schools.
South of Othello is the Rainier Beach attendance area.
In West Seattle, the dividing line is Myrtle west of 26th and Graham to the east of 26th.
What THAT means, I don't know. But people should be aware these lines could possibly move.
The New Assignment Plan says:Draw boundaries so Open Choice seats are available for students from other attendance areas who apply through school choice.
If this area remains as drawn I won't be surprised to see the district say sorry no open choice seats availble. I just don't trust the district.
So -- it doesn't seem to be that they aren't planning on Garfield housing APP. My concerns, though, are:
1. What if there are more attendance area kids (especially possibly kids who opt back in from private schools) than they anticipate? and
2. What if APP numbers increase (particularly if more parents join in the middle school years, now that there is a north end option? By law, they HAVE to place all APP kids. They can't waitlist them the way they do with Spectrum (shameful as that is).
I worry that if the pressure gets too great, there will be a move to disband the APP kids to their attendance area schools. Either that, or ALL of the choice seats will vanish.
It seems to me that if they start this as a "phased in" deal, with just 9th grade, they will get a pretty quick sense of whether their projected 9th grade numbers are matching reality next February. If they are NOT, they may have to make corrections earlier than 2015, or things could get out of hand pretty quick.
Just with a quick glance, it looks like Franklin and Garfield are taking a big hit by Cleveland going offline as an "option" school. How many of Cleveland's current students were assigned there this year, and how many chose it for the program? My hunch would be that most were assigned. How will this change next year? Cleveland will just be tiny? And Garfield and Franklin will be huge? I think these boundaries need to be rethought/drawn.
the boundaries have been drawn with the goal of having 10% of the seats available for Open Choice
So it's a goal...which will be nonexistent early on when sibs are kept together.
It's not by law, it's by their own statutes . . . which they can simply vote to change any time they want. Remember the "law" that said they couldn't split the cohort? Simple vote . . . cohort split.
That said . . .
Although I was not surprised at the way the Northeast High School boundaries were drawn, I'm still concerned that the Nathan Hale and Roosevelt programs are so different from each other. For a while, we've thought about our APP son not going to Garfield and, instead, going to Roosevelt. Roosevelt's about a mile away but we're north so our school is Hale. He's a musician and the Roosevelt Music program is great; he's also APP which means, if he didn't go to Garfield, it would be great to have the full compliment of AP courses to take. However, that won't be an option and, to my eyes, there really won't be much of a chance for anyone from outside the zone to get into Roosevelt.
Just a concern about, surprise, equity.
stu
In the long run I think things will even out and work out fine. Families assigned to Hale that want a stong music program will work hard to make that happen. Same for drama. And hopefully, AP courses too. It's the short term that I'm worried about. The interim. Right now Hale just doesn't have what Roosevelt has and it will take years to balance out.
And Hale doesn't WANT what Roosevelt has . . . Hale has taken a different approach. That's fine but I don't see that changing any time soon unless the district pulls in the reins.
stu
That doesn't speak of course to your larger issue, of equity in the lines drawn between Roosevelt and Hale. Maybe there is a chance at an option seat (isn't distance the 2nd tie breaker after lottery, or does it go directly from siblings to lottery at the high school level?)
No. App kids are definitely NOT special ed kids as defined under IDEA. The district serves them at its pleasure, and according to its own policy. They are special needs but that doesn't have a legal entitlement.
Helen Schinske
Any thoughts? (besides the obvious, that they are afraid of getting sued again by QA and MAG families)
"In the long run I think things will even out and work out fine. Families assigned to Hale that want a stong music program will work hard to make that happen. Same for drama. And hopefully, AP courses too."
What evidence do you have that these things will come about in response to a few families asking for them? No amount of hard work by families can make any these things happen if the school leadership doesn't want these things to happen. If the school leadership wanted these things to happen they would already be happening.
I wouldn't put it past the school district, but it's quite unfair to have the community meetings when we don't have an accurate map yet.
I'm optimistic for a couple of reasons.
A) I see the district moving more and more toward standardization every day. I just read that Bryant, a school that in order to honor their "inclusive" culture, decided long ago not to offer any ALO or Spectrum, has just been told by the district that they must have an ALO up and running by this coming year. It's part of the districts effort to standardize which they must to do in moving to neighborhood schools. They have promised that every elementary school will offer either Spectrum or ALO. And every MS will offer Spectrum. I believe they will do the same for high schools, and make them offer a baseline of classes, AP courses, and enrichment (band, drama).
B) Hale chose their "inclusive" or "integrated" model, long before the new SAP, when schools had a lot more autonomy and were "competitive" with one another. When choice reigned and parents could pick and choose what school they wanted to send their kids to. But as families find themselves with fewer and fewer options, forced into their neighborhood schools, you better believe that they are going to demand equity in offerings. They are going to demand that all schools offer a baseline of classes and services, and I think the district, in their effort to move toward standardization, and neighborhood schools, will (finally) support the effort.
Hale only offer a few stand alone AP classes (less even than Rainier Beach HS), meanwhile Roosevelt offers more AP classes than any other HS in the city.
Hale has one very small band. Roosevelt has several tiers of band, including a nationally award winning, and highly competitive jazz band.
Hale's drama offering is a play once a year. Roosevelt has an entire drama department, and puts on full scale productions.
Not saying Hale is a bad school. It's great. We love it. But then again we chose it. We weren't assigned there. Once you start assigning families to a school then the schools should be equitable.
Well yes, Hale is doing a good job, no argument there. My point was simply that there is no base line of offerings that you can count on at ANY school in the city.
What happens when a truly gifted student musician needs a strong music program but has to go to Hale, where music is practically non existent (and, yes, I know they are trying to strengthen the music program but they've been trying for years)? What happens when a child that truly needs acceleration has to sit in a regular ed classroom at Hale because Hale doesn't believe in "honors" classes, or "AP" classes?
Hale's unique philosophy is all well and good when families have choice and can choose to send their kids there, or not. In other words it needs buy in. Hale's unique philosophy won't go over very well when it's forced on people. When people have no other choice, what was once all well and good will now become a huge equity issue.
Hale has zero honors classes, Roosevelt has 9.
Hale has 5 AP classes, Roosevelt has double that, at 10.
I think a bit of standardization is in order, and will be inevitable.
I actually don't think this is true. My kid is a sophomore at Roosevelt. As far as I can tell (and I've been looking) RHS only offers self contained Honors classes in math. Not in any other freshman class, and for sophomores, you can apparently take LA Honors (my kid's teacher hasn't even told them about it yet.) but it's all out of class extra work. I don't really know about jr and sr year--but I getthe impression that if you want 'honors' you have to take AP.
Honors Classes (H on Transcript)
Math 2H
Math 3H
Precalculus H
Calculus (non AP)
Science
Advanced Physics
Biochemistry
Social Science
US History H
World Language
3rd year Latin
4th year Japanese
And this doesn't even include the LA honors designation that a student can earn via contract in a regular class in 10th/11th/12th grades.
Am I reading it wrong?
I'm not sure how you can say Franklin "doesn't have a lot of positive offerings" because you think they have no swimming or soccer, which they do. They've also won awards with their mock trial program, and have a respected drama program. And a related outdoors program challenged my daughter and her friends to learn things like rock climbing, winter camping, snowshoeing and more.
Franklin wasn't perfect-we had some issues-but my daughter's participation in the Finance Academy and swim team got her into a competitive business school at an out of state college. Many of her friends went on to colleges of their choice.
I also know people right now whose kids are there and are happy about it.
It's NOT Garfield, because it doesn't have a few hundred APP kids who come in working well above grade level and who have been immersed in music programs and the arts since 1st grade. But I wouldn't reject it out of hand.
Maybe you should go take a look and find out what athletic and activities they really have there?
For the record, she also went to Aki, but that was long enough ago that I wouldn't want to say it's the same now. She enjoyed her time there and did well-enough to get her into honors classes at Franklin.
It sounds like you are a little envious of Roosevelt-I find myself being envious of Garfield! Does someone want to dissuade me?!
Hale's FRE rate will increases from 20% to 28%, while Roosevelt's FRE will decreases from 19% to 13%. That means Hale will have 28% FRE while Roosevelt will have 13% FRE.
Ingraham drops from 53% FRE to 39%, and Ballard drops from 26% FRE to 17%. That means Ingraham will have 39% FRE while Ballard has 17%.
It's all very interesting.
Of course, what we didn't account for is that then the guaranteed zones around the schools might have to shrink: e.g., if 30% of the kids around RHS wanted to try to go elsewhere, that would be ok and make space for kids coming from elsewhere, but you can't assume that--instead you would have to make zones smaller around popular schools and larger around the ones fewer people would choose.
Unless, help me out here, if someone at BHS wants RHS and vice versa, couldn't there be a way for them to trade their seats even if the 10% open seats are already full?
Did anyone bring up the issue of enrollment algorthims and the difficulty families will have in figuring out what high school they should apply to a choice seat for?
I think you would have to approach the board to change it.
"Unless, help me out here, if someone at BHS wants RHS and vice versa, couldn't there be a way for them to trade their seats even if the 10% open seats are already full?"
It depends on what contingencies the District wants to be ready for.
Suppose 10% of the kids living in the Roosevelt attendance area choose another attendance area school. Suppose the District therefore gives away their seats to students from out of the area. Now suppose that the Roosevelt area students decide, in the 10th grade, that they want to go to Roosevelt after all. The District has guaranteed them access to the school.
If the District wants to be ready for that contingency, then they need to keep capacity available for the students in the area - whether they are enrolled at the school or not!
Given the fact that about 12% of our high school students are at Service Schools and assuming that about 10% of the students choose another school, that would be over 20% of the seats in every comprehensive school kept empty in case those students should return.
Of course, they won't ALL return, so the District doesn't really have to be ready for all of them to return, but they do have to be ready for some of them to return.
That means that there will be empty seats in every high school to provide for that contingency.
I have a question about the SAP and specifically how it works in regards to the 10% Choice and/or Option Schools.
Let's look at this hypothetical:
Mary Smith lives in the RBHS attendance area. Her top choice for public school is Roosevelt because she wants to sing in the Jazz Ensemble and does drama. She and her parents are not happy with RBHS, and would prefer she went ANYWHERE else in the District. Her second choice would be The Center School, an option school. Her third choice would be the IB Program at Sealth (currently a bit under enrolled).
What will the Registration Form look like? How will the algorithm work?
Say it goes this way:
There are 40 choice spots at Roosevelt for incoming Freshman. There are 150 students who want those seats and 25 of them are siblings, leaving just 15 seats for the lottery. Mary ends up at 100 on the wait list and thus has no chance of getting enrollment there.
What happens next? Will the registration form have additional slots for choice (ie, she could then choose The Center School since she was locked out in the 10% Choice lottery)? Or, will trying for one of the 10% Choice spots kick her out of the running for the Option School and any others on her list? By not winning the Roosevelt lottery, would she then be auto-assigned to her last choice--her attendance school--RBHS?
Also, what about schools that are not currently popular? If they have more open seats than the allotted 10% Choice Seats, will those seats be assigned to students from outside the attendance area who were in excess of the Choice Seats? Example: Sealth has 30 choice seats and 50 students who want them. After 15 sibs get their seats, another 15 are raffled off, leaving 20 students who want in the program. Sealth ends up under enrolled by 42 seats. Can the extra 20 who were trying for the Choice Seats be assigned to those excess seats? OR, do those seats need to be held in absentia in case the students who elected not to go to Sealth as their attendance school want to come back at any time during their HS career?
If my questions seem very confusing, they are. I have not seen this spelled out anywhere. Does the Board have a handle on exactly how High School assignments will work when families have a number of choices that override their assignment school? I believe the specifics surrounding this will have a direct impact on the effectiveness of both the Choice and Option Seats, and definitely should be considered by the Board and spelled out to the families in the District BEFORE any decisions are made.