Meetings This Week
Tuesday, Nov. 3rd from 4-6 p.m., Board Work Session on SAP boundaries.
This is the last Work Session before the final vote on November 18th AND the first look at any changes to the boundaries. I would expect the most changes for high schools given that Tracy Libros said that they were not "well-balanced" from the initial release of the boundaries. I am hoping to see the Sand Point Elementary boundaries redrawn as well due to the oddities of how large its F/RL population would be relative to all the other NE elementaries as well as how it doesn't include the Windermere neighborhood. I know the Board has heard from several neighborhoods about issues of boundaries that split neighborhoods (or the perception of) but it is difficult to say how hard the Board will push for any changes here.
It is VITAL for any and all of you who look at the new boundaries and are unhappy (and feel it is a good reason) to go to your PTAs/CPPS rep and get going now. The Board needs to here from communities as a group (not just a couple of parents here and there). There needs to be a valid reason for your concern (not "my house's value will go down"; that won't work for them). Keep in mind, the district and Board are looking district-wide so you have to as well in putting forth an argument.
Also, if you feel, as several parents have put forth, that high school assignment should continue to be open, speak up now. I have a hard time understanding how the district can segregate academic programs without some sort of mention in the SAP about putting in more of them if the current ones fill. Just having AP is not the same thing. If Ingraham and Sealth's programs fill, the SAP should reflect that the district will open another IB program elsewhere. (They can make the argument that Roosevelt's drama program and its jazz program -along with Garfield's-are "extra-curricular" activities but the IB programs and the Biotech program ARE academic programs.) What specialty academic programs do West Seattle, RBHS, Hale and Franklin have available to their students?
Wednesday, Nov. 4th - School Board meeting starting at 6 p.m.
Introduction of the SAP boundaries as well as the BTA III levy and Operations levy. The complete levy language for both is part of Introduction items. Interestingly, the BTA II levy is termed an "emergency". However, the Operations levy, which many of us would consider completely vital, is not. Here's the wording from the BTA III levy:
"It is hereby found and declared that an emergency exists requiring the submission to the qualified electors of the District of the proposition whether the District shall make the Capital Projects Fund levies for their ratification or rejection at a special election to be held on February 9, 2010. "
The levy is listed now at $270M which I know is lower than the staff wanted. The project list seems to be changed somewhat and I'll have to compare the old list with this new one.
Thursday, Nov. 5th Audit and Finance Committee Meeting from 3:30-5:30 p.m. (This is in the Board conference room but they have contingency plans to move it should the crowd be more than the usual couple of visitors.)
This is the meeting where staff will answer to the Board about Meg Diaz' report.
Then, from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at Roosevelt, there is an SAP Informational meeting on Boundaries.
However, Tracy Libros assured me that ALL these meetings are for feedback so yes, you can put forth your ideas and opinions. I, for one, am not going to be corralled into any small group discussion. If that happens, I'm roaming the room listening to others. I think this should be an open discussion for whoever shows up and frankly, I refuse to go along with any other format.
This is the last Work Session before the final vote on November 18th AND the first look at any changes to the boundaries. I would expect the most changes for high schools given that Tracy Libros said that they were not "well-balanced" from the initial release of the boundaries. I am hoping to see the Sand Point Elementary boundaries redrawn as well due to the oddities of how large its F/RL population would be relative to all the other NE elementaries as well as how it doesn't include the Windermere neighborhood. I know the Board has heard from several neighborhoods about issues of boundaries that split neighborhoods (or the perception of) but it is difficult to say how hard the Board will push for any changes here.
It is VITAL for any and all of you who look at the new boundaries and are unhappy (and feel it is a good reason) to go to your PTAs/CPPS rep and get going now. The Board needs to here from communities as a group (not just a couple of parents here and there). There needs to be a valid reason for your concern (not "my house's value will go down"; that won't work for them). Keep in mind, the district and Board are looking district-wide so you have to as well in putting forth an argument.
Also, if you feel, as several parents have put forth, that high school assignment should continue to be open, speak up now. I have a hard time understanding how the district can segregate academic programs without some sort of mention in the SAP about putting in more of them if the current ones fill. Just having AP is not the same thing. If Ingraham and Sealth's programs fill, the SAP should reflect that the district will open another IB program elsewhere. (They can make the argument that Roosevelt's drama program and its jazz program -along with Garfield's-are "extra-curricular" activities but the IB programs and the Biotech program ARE academic programs.) What specialty academic programs do West Seattle, RBHS, Hale and Franklin have available to their students?
Wednesday, Nov. 4th - School Board meeting starting at 6 p.m.
Introduction of the SAP boundaries as well as the BTA III levy and Operations levy. The complete levy language for both is part of Introduction items. Interestingly, the BTA II levy is termed an "emergency". However, the Operations levy, which many of us would consider completely vital, is not. Here's the wording from the BTA III levy:
"It is hereby found and declared that an emergency exists requiring the submission to the qualified electors of the District of the proposition whether the District shall make the Capital Projects Fund levies for their ratification or rejection at a special election to be held on February 9, 2010. "
The levy is listed now at $270M which I know is lower than the staff wanted. The project list seems to be changed somewhat and I'll have to compare the old list with this new one.
Thursday, Nov. 5th Audit and Finance Committee Meeting from 3:30-5:30 p.m. (This is in the Board conference room but they have contingency plans to move it should the crowd be more than the usual couple of visitors.)
This is the meeting where staff will answer to the Board about Meg Diaz' report.
Then, from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at Roosevelt, there is an SAP Informational meeting on Boundaries.
However, Tracy Libros assured me that ALL these meetings are for feedback so yes, you can put forth your ideas and opinions. I, for one, am not going to be corralled into any small group discussion. If that happens, I'm roaming the room listening to others. I think this should be an open discussion for whoever shows up and frankly, I refuse to go along with any other format.
Comments
Thank you, Melissa! The "divide & conquer" mentality is really getting old and I don't know why parents are still putting up with it.
Just google "Delphi Technique" and you will find many entries about consensus and input:
"The goal of the Delphi Technique is to lead a targeted group of people to a predetermined outcome, while giving the illusion of taking public input and under the pretext of being accountable to the public."
Sounds familiar, anyone?
Does anyone have web pointers for next year's transportation for option schools in the context of the assignment plan?
WV: I really want to know. Not trying to be a cutice.
Give. Me. A. Frickin'. Break.
(BTW, my reference elementary school is Viewlands, despite two other schools being considerably closer. Yay, idiot map drawing!)
The APP Advisory Committee is meeting at 6:30pm, Tuesday, at Thurgood Marshall. The focus is supposed to be elementary school issues and twice-exceptional students.
/sorry it's about APP, I'm really not trying to threadjack, honestly...
But that response did trouble me greatly, in that I cannot see how you are ever going to get Madrona neighborhood families into Madrona without a serious commitment on the part of the school and the district to match the neighborhood school to the neighborhood population. "Gradual change" + "amendment to make this into an option school as it currently is" = signal to Madrona's neighbors that the school is going to keep doing what it is doing, which means that Madrona parents are going to keep doing what they are doing and send their kids anywhere but there.
It is incredibly frustrating.
It might pay off for someone to study transpo costs, see what the various costs are under various transportation plans, so as to make cogent arguments about how we could get students to Option schools the cheapest way.
I'd like to see more option schools, lots of variety and choices, and this could be a logistical nightmare for planning transportation.
HS, and maybe MS...could use metro. But what about K-5? If there are a lot of choices, how do we move those choice students around the district to their option school?
Metro, yellow buses, carpools, common pick-up points....hmmmm....
Both QA and Mag have the Old Hay as an their option school, meaning that if a family somehow gets a spot at TOPS or Salmon Bay, they will need to drive their student.
I also think that Siblings will only get into an OPtion school as a tie-breaker. So for example, if you have a student at Salmon Bay and are outside of the "attendence area" you would only get your sibling in during the tie-breaker, but most likely the school would fill up during regular enrollment.
It is a huge change that flew under the radar will greatly change the whole concept of Alternative education.
This would address a number of issues simultaneously.
It would show the Madrona community that the school can and will make a commitment to serving high performing students.
It would provide a more central location for the program within the service area (the current choice is Muir).
It would provide an alternative middle school Spectrum program when the program at Washington - capped at 180 - fills up and has a waiting list.
Thoughts?
I know that many houses saw the tax assessment steeply decrease last review, but property taxes were not adjusted downward to reflect the drop in value.
So for example, a owner whose house was worth $500K is now only worth $400K, still paying taxes on the $500 level....and now is going to be asked to increase their taxes over $400/year.
If I am correct, that seems like a really tough sell right now, considering how many services have been eliminated in our schools.
In terms of specifics, both Harium and Sherry asked staff for a chart to show voters like you to help sell the levy but I haven't seen one yet.
I wonder if they took into consideration that houses are not worth as much when coming up with the $1.08 accessed value/$1000 to ensure that they actually end up raising enough money. If passed, of course!
Metro buses run on our busiest, main streets. My son (age 11) would have to cross Lake City Way, where the speed limit is 45, in the dark, and wait for a METRO bus with some pretty unsavory characters. It's just not safe, and we wouldn't do it.
I know they say they will be taking public comments, and I know we have all said this before, but two meetings, TWO days after the lines come out really stink.
Yes, some places have the more direct method, thus Prop 13 in California. But not here. Here, we determine how much money we will extract, then spread that equally over all the assessed value. (more or less.)
One, Madrona is obviously not currently an advanced-learning-friendly school, and putting the Spectrum program there might meet the same fate as the program at Leschi.
Two, the population that is currently in Spectrum at John Muir is to my understanding mostly S or SE cluster, not central cluster. I don't know if they'd move north with the program to a school that is not desirable, meaning that you go back to concern #1.
Those are concerns, not me saying I think it couldn't possibly work.
Option school transportation is yellow bus if you live outside of the walk zone of the school, and also live within the service area.
AS1 is in the Eckstein service area so yellow bus transportation if you live within the boundaries of that service area, and outside of the walk zone for AS1. Also, on page 34 on the new SAP it says that students in grade 6-8 will be provided metro bus passes if they live outside of the service area.
Yellow bus transportation for students outside of the service area will be determined as a part of the Transition Plan which they are supposed to start working on immediately following the final vote on boundaries (Nov. 18.)
SPSMom - all seats for an Option school are open and the tiebreakers will only kick in if more applicants than seats. There is no geographic limit to the sibling tiebreaker. Example: there are 50 K seats available and 45 applicants. All 45 would get in. If 55 applicants then the tiebreakers would kick in -- 1. Sibling, 2. Geographic Zone (this is not the same thing as the Service Area), 3. Lottery.
At Option schools Siblings pretty much have a guarantee of entry unless there are more silbing applicants than seats available.
Even though there is no geographic limit on the sibling tiebreaker if you do live outside of the service area and get in you will not be provided transportation.
http://www.kplu.org/news.html
KPLU News: Today's Stories
New Report Raises Serious Questions for Seattle School District
Mon Nov 02 01:29:03 EST 2009
After recovering from a 34 million dollar budget deficit, the Seattle School District says it’s heading into the next budget at least 16 million in the red. Now, a new report from a mom with two kids in the district is raising some serious questions about how the district is spending its money. More from KPLU’s Jennifer Wing.
(cross-post from another thread)
I don't think so. I think that students in the service area have top proiority into an Option School. If there are any seats available after these students are seated THEN siblings get a spot.
And at 6th grade at TOPS or Salmon Bay as there are ALWAYS more requests for spots than availability.
So for example, lets say you have a 7th grader at TOPS and a 5th grader at a K-5, but want TOPS for MS. There are 30 seats open for 6th grade. The students inside the "OPtion school service area" get seated first, THEN the tie-breakers kick in. If there are 35 students who live in the service area, 30 will get seats, five waitlisted and NO tie-breaker goes into effect.
This is a complete change from having SIBLINGS seated first, then onto the pool of applicants which was historically a lottery.
Salmon Bay, 6th grade has huge waitlist. So I don't see how siblings outside of the "service" area will get into this school.
"Under the new student assignment plan, entry grade seats will be filled first by students from within the school’s attendance area; any remaining available seats will be filled with students from outside the attendance area using a series of tiebreakers. The presence of a sibling is the first and highest level of these tiebreakers."
So as I read this, a sibling outside of the attendance area will have a tough time getting in because the seats will mostly likely fill with attandance area students.
Siblings inside the attendance will get in just because they live in the attendance area, not because of any sibling preference.
This is a HUGE change!
What are the tiebreakers that apply to APP?
The tiebreaker for assignment to APP is lottery.
I thought any student who qualified for APP was given entrance into APP? Is this a change? And wasn't the split intended to grow the program?
Not to get started on APP, but I have never heard of an APP tie-breaker and am wondering what this means.
Helen Schinske
Here is the entire quotation you referred to; while it appears under a question that refers to non-attendance area schools, the quotation talks about assignment to attendance area schools, not assignment to option schools:
"What will change, however, is the order in which we assign seats at an attendance area school. Previously, all entry grade seats were available under the open choice system. Under the new student assignment plan, entry grade seats will be filled first by students from within the school’s attendance area; any remaining available seats will be filled with students from outside the attendance area using a series of tiebreakers. The presence of a sibling is the first and highest level of these tiebreakers."
Just above that in the FAQ appears the following about option school assignments that makes clear that the sibling tiebreaker will work the same way that it works now:
"Option schools do not have a defined attendance area population; all entry grade seats are open just the way they are today. There will be no change from the current system for entry grade siblings applying to an option school. However, if a sibling lives in an option school’s geographic zone, he or she will be placed for assignment ahead of a sibling who does not live within the zone."
This is on the FAQ for Option Schools:
What are the tiebreakers for option schools?
Tiebreakers for assignment to option school seats are (1) sibling, (2) geographic zone, and (3) lottery.
There is no attendance area or service area tie breaker. The geographic zone term is still yet to be defined.
On Madrona as the Spectrum site... I think this would only work if there were a new principal. I also think that a new principal (well, the right new principal) would fix Madrona, without putting Spectrum there. Muir has a good reputation, so I don't think it makes sense to dismantle that program. Or, was your plan to move Muir out of the Washington Service Area?
On Madrona as an Option school... I'd be ok with it as an Option school, or as an assignement school with a new principal and a commitment to building a mainstream program, including an ALO (all elementaries are supposed to have them, right), arts, and recess, and without silent passing or WASL drills. I'm not ok with it as an assignment school with the current administration. That said, I think the time for Mary's proposal was last spring, before the boundaries were drawn, unless the new Option school, the administration/program currently in Madrona, can be moved to another building in a less crowded part of town.
How were Madrona's WASL numbers? Is it now in Step 5? Wouldn't that be a good excuse to replace the administration?
"The tiebreaker for assignment to APP for students applying to the non-linked APP site is lottery." So lottery kicks in only if you're choosing the non-linked site out of your reference area.
What caught my eye was this question:
"If a school loses its Spectrum program under this plan, what will happen to the students currently enrolled at that school and in that program?
This situation will be addressed in the transition plan. We anticipate that we will phase out the Spectrum program over time so that its closure will not affect current students."
Are they saying that Spectrum will be phased out district wide, to be replaced with the ALO model, or are they referring to an individual school losing Spectrum?
Every application to an Option school is considered a tie-breaker, siblings, the geographic zone, then lottery.
Helen Schinske
This situation will be addressed in the transition plan. We anticipate that we will phase out the Spectrum program over time so that its closure will not affect current students."
Are they saying that Spectrum will be phased out district wide, to be replaced with the ALO model, or are they referring to an individual school losing Spectrum?
I think they mean that they would phase out the Spectrum program at a school losing the program. I agree it's not clear from their wording, however.
About half the students in Leschi's Spectrum classes are teacher-identified, meaning that they never tested into Spectrum. That program is closing, and (I think) being merged with Muir's Spectrum program. In the transition plan, will these students be treated as Spectrum students or as general ed students?
And yeah Charlie I think Madrona spectrum makes great sense... Something should be done to salvage that school.
Though I would like to see some sort of community organization around the transpo issue, particularly if people are interested in choice schools...maybe pay a bit more (including scholarship for those who can't afford it) for bus service...car pools...jet packs or air drops...I don't know, it just seems that it would be difficult for teh district to manage transpo all around the district to choice schools if people want them.
Otherwise we're limited to neighborhoods.
I bet the saving will not be what we might expect them to be.
In the old SAP the district bused kids up and down and all across their clusters to whatever school they wanted to go to. With the new SAP they will still bus kids to any school in their attendance areas. And the attendance areas are bigger than the old clusters! Probably no cost savings here.
APP and SBOC have all city transportation with the current SAP and will continue with the new SAP. No cost savings there.
In the old SAP we provided multi cluster yellow bus transportation to many alt schools (AS1, Salmon Bay, TOPS, Thornton Creek, etc). In the new SAP we will only offer yellow buses regionlally for K-8, but we will also offer all out of attendance area MS students METRO passes. This is probably the area we will see some cost savings, but I doubt it will be very much.
HS should not even be considered. HS students got metro passes in the old SAP and that will continue in the new SAP. It's a wash here.
So, will we actually save any money on transportation in the new SAP? And, if so, how much?
APP transportation qualifies for other funding and actually *makes* the district some money. I don't know about SBOC, but wouldn't be surprised if they qualify for extra transportation funds as well.
I do agree with your general point, however.
Helen Schinske
Even if we saved, say, a million dollars by tightening up yellow bus use, is it worth it? The benefits of choice, of students being able to choose to go to a variety of programs that suit their needs or interests, are great. Surely worth more than the savings...
When classroom management is discussed, it is often brought up that teachers should engage and interest the students...what better way than through programs that engage and interest students who choose to go to them because of style or theme?
Even if we spend a million more, isn't the benefit greater? How much does it cost, financially and ethically, to deal with 1000 students who are not having their needs addressed and act out? Surely it's more than a thousand per kid in admin, remediation, societal cost etc etc.
The staff begins by saying that the numbers reported to the Board and the state do appear to be different, but that all of the line items are identical. The spending is all the same on both reports. They will hammer this point.
They will acknowledge that some of the categories for the spending is different. They will explain this by saying that the state insists that the district use their category names for various expenses but that the categories that they used when reporting the numbers to the board were better. They will claim that the categorizations they used more precisely described the expenses and allowed the Board to more readily follow the spending and group the costs.
Then they are going to stop talking about it because it is a tempest in a teapot since, as initially stated, all of the line items and the total spending are the same on both budget statements.
At this point they will want to turn the page to something they consider a more meaningful, urgent, and fruitful area for discussion.