Boundary Work Session Notes - Part 2
Not too much more as I ended up covering some of it in the Enrollment thread. I am going to put the notes in italic as I have made a lot of comments here.
Tracy mentioned a group of parents joining together around Sand Point (she called it a PTA but that's not really possible at this point). She also mentioned community support around McDonald from neighbors who live around it and who have been working on its playground.
Michael brought up the issue of not having many Options for the NW and where would all the kids on the Old Hay option school go for middle school?
When Sherry had explained her visit to McDonald, she was careful to explain that some of the money was for desks, etc. so that's why the cost is so high.
Well, wait a minute. Don't we have a lot of desks left over from closed buildings? No, oh, so this is one perk from having your building renovated or remodeled; you get new desks. It's kind of like moving into a newly-built house and wanting new furniture. I'm supposing that it's true. The leftover desks from all the closed schools are all now in other schools or unusable. But could we at least see the evidence? I mean, Sherry got to see the evidence that McDonald, despite being an "emergency" building, was in complete disarray and horribly maintained. Could we see the warehouse where all the extra furniture is kept? (And question: did Jane Addams get all new furniture before it moved in? Didn't think so.)
Steve chimes in that desks are part of capital issues and aren't they about a third of the cost of reopening a building? So Kathy Johnson of Facilities say oh, that cost for McDonald includes the portables.
What? Turns out that there are two old portables on the McDonald site. It is unclear to me if they are talking about buying new ones for the site or what.
BUT, then Tracy says that with the shortage of capacity over the next 4 years, they will need portables for other schools. Really?
So the truth here is that for both McDonald and Sand Point (and who knows where else?), they need portables to have the capacity they want. We are reopening small buildings like Sand Point and adding the capacity they need with portables.
Portables are something the district alleges to hate. I'll go dig out the notes but I think I have Kathy Johnson on record as saying they are a bad thing. Until you need them.
Heck, this district is on record saying last year they didn't want to reopen any schools? Remember that?
Then Mary Bass brings up...John Marshall. Lots of backpedaling here. Why can't we use John Marshall?
Oh, it has too much capacity. No elevator. Too near the freeway for children (and too small a playground). Mary pointed out TOPS is right next to the freeway. Kathy said oh, they have triple pane windows and John Marshall doesn't.
It's called money. Throw enough of it at a problem and it'll all work out. Look at McDonald. (The district has other ideas for John Marshall but I don't know what they are.)
Mary said she would like to see the issue of program placement such as putting a foreign language program at McDonald looked at system-wide.
Sherry also brought up that McDonald has an extra large gym and had accommodated TOPS during their rebuild and so could possibly be a ....K-8.
Don Kennedy, our COO, brought up the VAX and that (1) they are running behind schedule to migrate off it and (2) they would be giving the Board a new timetable soon. Uh oh.
Dr. Goodloe-Johnson talked a bit about program placement and said all decisions would be made before the March Enrollment started.
There was mention that AP offerings were up by 30% from last year.
And we ended with apropos of nothing Cheryl said that there was no APP in high school. And you can read about that in Charlie's thread on the subject. But it was quite amazing to sit there and hear Cheryl, who had been principal at Garfield, say this. And then Michael say something about it being a K-12 program (it's not; it's 1-12) and then having not one Director correct or even try to say anything about it even though, as directors, they all sign off on the 1-12 APP program every single year.
Tracy mentioned a group of parents joining together around Sand Point (she called it a PTA but that's not really possible at this point). She also mentioned community support around McDonald from neighbors who live around it and who have been working on its playground.
Michael brought up the issue of not having many Options for the NW and where would all the kids on the Old Hay option school go for middle school?
When Sherry had explained her visit to McDonald, she was careful to explain that some of the money was for desks, etc. so that's why the cost is so high.
Well, wait a minute. Don't we have a lot of desks left over from closed buildings? No, oh, so this is one perk from having your building renovated or remodeled; you get new desks. It's kind of like moving into a newly-built house and wanting new furniture. I'm supposing that it's true. The leftover desks from all the closed schools are all now in other schools or unusable. But could we at least see the evidence? I mean, Sherry got to see the evidence that McDonald, despite being an "emergency" building, was in complete disarray and horribly maintained. Could we see the warehouse where all the extra furniture is kept? (And question: did Jane Addams get all new furniture before it moved in? Didn't think so.)
Steve chimes in that desks are part of capital issues and aren't they about a third of the cost of reopening a building? So Kathy Johnson of Facilities say oh, that cost for McDonald includes the portables.
What? Turns out that there are two old portables on the McDonald site. It is unclear to me if they are talking about buying new ones for the site or what.
BUT, then Tracy says that with the shortage of capacity over the next 4 years, they will need portables for other schools. Really?
So the truth here is that for both McDonald and Sand Point (and who knows where else?), they need portables to have the capacity they want. We are reopening small buildings like Sand Point and adding the capacity they need with portables.
Portables are something the district alleges to hate. I'll go dig out the notes but I think I have Kathy Johnson on record as saying they are a bad thing. Until you need them.
Heck, this district is on record saying last year they didn't want to reopen any schools? Remember that?
Then Mary Bass brings up...John Marshall. Lots of backpedaling here. Why can't we use John Marshall?
Oh, it has too much capacity. No elevator. Too near the freeway for children (and too small a playground). Mary pointed out TOPS is right next to the freeway. Kathy said oh, they have triple pane windows and John Marshall doesn't.
It's called money. Throw enough of it at a problem and it'll all work out. Look at McDonald. (The district has other ideas for John Marshall but I don't know what they are.)
Mary said she would like to see the issue of program placement such as putting a foreign language program at McDonald looked at system-wide.
Sherry also brought up that McDonald has an extra large gym and had accommodated TOPS during their rebuild and so could possibly be a ....K-8.
Don Kennedy, our COO, brought up the VAX and that (1) they are running behind schedule to migrate off it and (2) they would be giving the Board a new timetable soon. Uh oh.
Dr. Goodloe-Johnson talked a bit about program placement and said all decisions would be made before the March Enrollment started.
There was mention that AP offerings were up by 30% from last year.
And we ended with apropos of nothing Cheryl said that there was no APP in high school. And you can read about that in Charlie's thread on the subject. But it was quite amazing to sit there and hear Cheryl, who had been principal at Garfield, say this. And then Michael say something about it being a K-12 program (it's not; it's 1-12) and then having not one Director correct or even try to say anything about it even though, as directors, they all sign off on the 1-12 APP program every single year.
Comments
Oh but as you will see at the meeting tonight $900,000+ has been budgeted for new windows, blinds and flooring for Jane Addams.
Has anyone said anything about moving Thonton Creek to McDonald and growing it to a K-8? Would that take any pressure off of the NE and maybe make it unnecessary to open Sandpoint?
I don't know the region/numbers involved, but it would solve the issue of Hamilton area not having an Option school and get rid of the wonky McDonald borders issue.
Was there any explanation as to why the JSIS border isn't at 45th (or 50th)? The streets (basically one or two blocks) are all small in there--why not just cut the border at the arterial?
My first choice would be to put north-end elementary APP into McDonald.
or objected, perhaps, and was successful in having its objections respected.
My understanding was that this was a staff driven objection -- they felt that they couldn't expand the educational model into a K-8 and made the case to the parents. parents, swayed by this argument, as well as an unwillingness to move to a new building, convinced the school system/school board not to go with this plan.
I always thought it made sense to make Decatur as neighborhood school, but then, I've always thought programs (i.e. option schools) should be located physically in areas where there is less demand for the building, a view not shared by everyone. Effectively, I think programs should be placed in buildings where there's less neighborhood demand for the building (with the caveat that moving Summit from the north end to RBHS didn't make any sense, so moving programs has some bounds).
I'm not as certain about the size, condition or availability of Cedar Park. Cedar Park also lacks a central location
http://tinyurl.com/yck2mrw
It sure seemed like a popular idea at the meeting, largely because people wanted a high school put in there to open up slots at Ballard HS, but it sounds like the Board, and SPS, regard it as a non-starter.
Can't speak to Wilson-Pacific except to say that it's a real dump and only a block or so from a pretty lousy stretch of Aurora (I live in that neighborhood), although it has a pretty good gym and a terrific athletic field.
As Charlie mentioned, they are also assuming that 5% of the north end high schoolers will choose to go to Cleveland. I can't imagine that will actually be the case. On the other hand, McClure & Madison middle schools and West Seattle & Ingraham high schools are projected to have lots of extra space. Good news for those folks in attendence areas with unacceptable schools, perhaps?
The building has been a real dump I agree but it is a nice piece of property and I think the district should use it.
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My understanding was that this was a staff driven objection -- they felt that they couldn't expand the educational model into a K-8 and made the case to the parents. parents, swayed by this argument, as well as an unwillingness to move to a new building, convinced the school system/school board not to go with this plan.
...
zb, I think you're factually accurate to a first approximation, but I don't think you've at all captured the spirit of what happened.
The community was not asked to move, but told we would move, and:
(*) there would be no time allotted to ready the building -- TC had to be out of the Decatur building immediately after school closing in June (so new floors could be put in) and would not have access to the new building until immediately before school started in the fall, and
(*) TC would have to immediately go to a k-8 without time to do the necessary planning and hiring to provide an appropriate middle school expansion of the expeditionary learning program.
Under those circumstances, I believe the likelihood that the program would founder was very high.
As a TC parent who values the experience and instincts of the teachers in my community, and as someone who's had intimate experience in the hell that is moving a (pre)school, I felt very comfortable backing the teachers up on this one.
I believe that had the district asked the Thornton Creek community to grow a program at Jane Addams one year at a time, with sixth grade starting fall of 2010, there would have been enough support from the TC parents to address other teacher concerns and seriously consider taking on the move to make it successful.