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.

Comments

Karrie said…
If it isn't the real deal, someone invested a lot of money in faking everyone out. I have followed the new SAP evolution very closely and wouldn't post if I didn't think it was real. My husband is smart enough to know not to mess with me on this one.
cas said…
Do those south of 85th in Ballard have a different middle school-not Whitman?
WallingfordMom said…
I have the same map. All Ballard elem schools go to Whitman except for WW, which is in the Hamilton reference area.
whittier07 said…
Where does Greenwood Elementary go to middle school? Thanks!
SE Mom said…
I think the actual map page crashed already. Where are the boundaries for Garfield?
Unknown said…
greenwood goes to whitman for middle school.
Charlie Mas said…
I saw the real map on the District web site and Ballard's attendance area is, in fact, all of Queen Anne and Magnolia and Ballard up to 85th. North of 85th is the Ingraham attendance area.

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.
SE Mom said…
Charlie, thanks. Any info on the high school option seats?
zb said…
I think this looks OK. Will Cleveland survive as an option school? Will Ballard & Roosevelt & Garfield be too full?
ParentofThree said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
h2o girl said…
Feeling very relieved to have made Ballard by one block. Now my daughter can walk 20 minutes to school instead of an over an hour two-bus Metro commute to Ingraham.
SE Mom said…
Shocked at how far south the boundary for Garfield goes! I wonder how they are going to fit all those kids into both Garfield and Franklin.
Sue said…
I wouldn't count on these boundaries staying as is. West Seattle Blog reports that Tracy Libros said boundaries will need to be "tweaked" because of new enrollment info they have received.

What THAT means, I don't know. But people should be aware these lines could possibly move.
SolvayGirl said…
Rainier Beach HS reaches out a tiny arm to grab my block. We missed Franklin by one block...not sure why the odd little jog exists up in that northeast corner.
Unknown said…
I too wonder if they have drawn Garfield attendance area too big. This year students living by Holy Names ~2 miles never got off the wait list. This area looks bigger. Will there even be room for open choice students?
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.
SolvayGirl said…
I can only speculate that perhaps they will not be automatically moving all the APP high schoolers into Garfield anymore, thus making space for a larger neighborhood draw. Could it be that only the Washington APP kids will go to Garfield?
Maureen said…
Cecilia: Sherry Carr just asked about Garfield and APP, Tracy Libros says that they still assumed APP would be there. (I agree that the area just looks too big.)
Unknown said…
If you go to Appendix C: Assumptions and Functional Capacity, and look at the chart on page C-20 (Projected 2015 High School Functional Capacity Summary), they appear to have the APP kids at Garfield in 2015. They start with functional capacity of 1595. In 2015, they assume neighborhood assignments of 1357 and open choice seats of 158, for a total of 1515. Then, they "deduct" students who are assumed to select or be placed at Center School/Nova (72), Middle College or South Lake (43), Cleveland STEM (82), open choice seats at other schools (95) and Bilingual (16). I get reductions of 308, which reduces the 1515 to 1207. (There was also a reduction in there for APP going to Garfield of 74, but I ignored that, as it seemed to make no sense to deduct APP kids going to Garfield from the Garfield numbers.) They show the total number of APP kids going to Garfield as 438 (excluding the 74 projected to already be there, it would be 364). Adding the 364 non-APP Garfield kids to 1207 gives us 1571, which is total they show for Garfield.

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.
G said…
This year's freshman class at Garfield, at 440+, had geographical cutoffs in the north at Aloha on Capitol Hill, no one from Madison Park or Montlake got in, and to the south, the cutoff was north of McClellan. The APP cohort is not that huge, about a quarter of the class. How they are going to stuff all these kids into Garfield is a total mystery. These boundaries are unrealistic, if this year's enrollment is any prediction, with or without APP.

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.
sixwrens said…
On p9 (footnote 7) the report states:

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.
Sue said…
I have a question about Ballard High School - why are they filling so far beyond capacity? Functional capacity is 1591, and they plan enrollment of 1639 ? What? what will they do if they get an influx of kids from private schools over the next couple of years because of the economy? I can only assume the answer would be to eliminate or drastically cut open choice seats?
Stu said…
By law, they HAVE to place all APP kids.

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
adhoc said…
I have the exact same concerns as Stu about Hale vs. Roosevelt.

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.
Stu said…
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
Unknown said…
stu: Charlie and others know this better than I do, but I think that since APP kids are technically "special ed" kids, of a sort, they HAVE to serve them once they have been identified. The cohort split stuff was internal rules/APP audit recommendations, etc. -- things that they could override, but I think the way APP is conceived and funded, they can't turn away a kid who tests in (never mind that after 8th grade, there is no way to get in). But perhaps you are right. Maybe I am assuming too much when I say they can't NOT place an APP kid in APP.

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?)
Unknown said…
Anyone notice that the Denny/Sealth boundaries don’t line up? Wasn’t the benifit of the colocation continuity? It doesn’t make sense to have kids walk to Denny/Sealth for middle school, then take a bus to WS for high school?
Roy Smith said…
If these boundaries, or something close to them, stand, and the guarantee to enroll all attendance area students who want access into a school is honored, Roosevelt and possibly Ballard are going to absolutely packed. And it will get worse as families move into the area to take advantage of guaranteed assignment.
reader said…
Charlie and others know this better than I do, but I think that since APP kids are technically "special ed" kids, of a sort, they HAVE to serve them once they have been identified.

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.
hschinske said…
There is no way the Ballard boundaries will stand. They can't *possibly* fit in everyone from those areas.

Helen Schinske
Sue said…
OK, I have looked at the functional capacity numbers for the high schools, and notice that they are underenrolling Roosevelt, and overenrolling Ballard, I presume so that the folks in Queen Anne and Magnolia don't have to split their neighborhood. My question - why cant they assign some of those people to Garfield and Franklin, (which I know would also necessitate moving those boundaries).

Any thoughts? (besides the obvious, that they are afraid of getting sued again by QA and MAG families)
Charlie Mas said…
Dannie, I really don't understand your optimism.

"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.
Anonymous said…
I am happy the way the boundaries ended up for my family, but it sounds like the high school boundaries in the north aren't final. Does anyone know what the specific issues are and when a revised map will be available?

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.
h2o girl said…
Keepin' On, obviously I agree with you. On one hand, I feel a little guilty for being selfish, on the other, I just want to go to the school that we can walk to, for Pete's sake.
adhoc said…
Charlie Mas said: "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."


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.
MapleLeafer said…
What "baseline of classes and services" does Hale not currently offer?
adhoc said…
Hale does not offer any stand alone honors classes at all (though students can earn an honors designation in some regular classes by doing extra work). Roosevelt on the other hand offers a full array of stand alone honors classes.

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.
mom of 3 said…
Actually, Hale's drama program offers 3 plays a year, including a musical which received numerous nominations in the Fifth Avenue High School Musical Awards last year. New band teacher this year - hopefully the program will build (I'm not saying it's the same as Roosevelt, but that the school is aware that music needs to be more of a priority). Not the same as Roosevelt at all, but by the numbers is doing as good a job at preparing kids for college.
Secret E said…
What about the huge disparity between Garfield and Franklin? What are the district's plans to get Franklin to be a quality program: orchestra, swimming, soccer????? I don't know what happened to Franklin but as of now it doesn't have a whole lot of positive offerings.
adhoc said…
"Not the same as Roosevelt at all, but by the numbers is doing as good a job at preparing kids for college."

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.
Maureen said…
Dannie, Roosevelt on the other hand offers a full array of stand alone honors classes.

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.
adhoc said…
Maureen my child does not go to RHS so I can't say for sure, but here is what their website says (under school profile)


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?
Anonymous said…
Eleanor, I'm not sure where you got the idea that Franklin doesn't have a swim team-it does, both boys and girls teams. I know, because my daughter was on the team in 07-08. Some of the girls made it to regionals, and I think state, too. The website says they have soccer-unless maybe it's the the level you expect?

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.
Maureen said…
Dannie, No, it looks like they do offer nine honors courses. I guess I just wouldn't call that a full array. I'm not sure what "Science" and "Social Science" mean. I'm pretty sure that you can't just take any science or Soc Sci course as Honors--certainly not World History, Biology or Chemistry. I'm not complaining about Roosevelt--I'm just saying that sometimes it's hard to know exactly what goes on when you look from the outside--I fully expected that Roosevelt would offer an Honors option in every core and language class that wasn't AP and would group the kids according to their willingness to work harder--I haven't found that to be the case.

It sounds like you are a little envious of Roosevelt-I find myself being envious of Garfield! Does someone want to dissuade me?!
adhoc said…
Big changes in demographics in north end high schools.

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.
dj said…
Adhoc, I'm sure if I were more enterprising I could find those numbers, but where are you looking for them? I'd love to see what the projections are for schools down here.
anne said…
Where are you finding the new demographic information for new boundaries, for example new projections for Free-reduced lunch?
h2o girl said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
h2o girl said…
They're in the appendixes. (Appendices? Can't remember how to spell it.) Anyway, go to the assignment plan page, click on maps, and you'll see all of the appendices listed. Go to the "maps and data" for the level of school you're interested in. The data is after all the maps.
Unknown said…
the FRE #s (while i'm still not all that sure why they make that much of a dif in the N if they are +/- 5-10 , hello the average in the S end is 75-85% in my estimation, if anything it should make you want to go volunteer your time and give your PTA $ to S schools, but i digress) are in the appendix docs, that were posted later in the day of the announcment. so if you went to the SAP map page initially and just found maps, there are more links now posted. (from a NE parent)
Maureen said…
At the Eckstein meeting today, one of the repeated comments was that the High Schools have been encouraged to specialize for so long and are so different from one another that the percent of set aside seats should be increased from 10% to maybe 30% to allow families access to what works for their kids (Biotech, musical theater, a radio station!).

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?
SE Mom said…
Hi Maureen (or other parents who went to to the Eckstein meeting):

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?
old salt said…
I asked Tracy about the enrollment algorithms. She said that decision was made when the board voted out the Gale-Shapely algorithm & is now off the table.

I think you would have to approach the board to change it.
Charlie Mas said…
Maureen asks:

"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.
SolvayGirl said…
I posted this on Harium's blog and sent an email to all the board members and Dr. G-J:

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.

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