Central Region Elementary Schools

I had a question today about the probable fate of the southern end of the Stevens attendance area when the District re-draws the attendance areas in a couple years. It made me realize that there are going to be some changes coming for elementary schools in the Washington Middle School service area when the District re-zones. Let's look into our crystal ball and consider what they might be.

First, the District is re-opening Meany as a middle school. That means that students from Montlake, McGilvra, Lowell, and Stevens will get a default assignment to Meany rather than Washington. Madrona may be in the Meany Attendance Area as well, but 5th graders from Madrona will get default assignment to the sixth grade at Madrona.

One of those schools will have to be the designated Spectrum school for the service area. I would guess Lowell. Why? Because despite any policies or claims to the contrary, the primary determinant in program placement is space available and Lowell has a lot of space available.

Lowell has a capacity of 508 and an enrollment of 182. There are 326 available seats there. Lowell could take a hundred students from Gatzert, a hundred students from Stevens, and still have room for one hundred Spectrum students. I think you can see how silly it is to talk about building a school in South Lake Union when there are over 300 empty elementary seats just six minutes away.

So I think we can expect the Gatzert attendance area to shrink a bit in the north and for the entire southern part of the Stevens attendance area, probably everything south of Madison, to be shifted to Lowell. Lowell's attendance area could grow in the north as well to include more of Eastlake.

Thurgood Marshall is getting over-crowded and it is going to get worse. Thurgood Marshall is following the same path as Lowell, just a couple years behind. All of the schools around it - Gatzert, Leschi, and John Muir - are already overcrowded, too. Knowing the District, their solution is likely to be another split in elementary APP by creating a site in West Seattle. I'm not saying that's the best solution or even a good solution, but that's the one I think they will go with. Look for one of the newly opened schools in West Seattle - Fairmount Park, Schmitz Park, or Genessee Hill - to be designated as an APP site.

Conjecture is easy. Facts are hard. Seriously. It's hard to get any facts. Here is what I could find to use as building capacity numbers and enrollment numbers. Here's a table:

SCHOOL	CAPACITY	CAPACITY W/PORT	ENROLLMENT	SURPLUS
Montlake	154	253	232	21
McGilvra	230	279	297	-18
Lowell	508	508	182	326
Madrona K-5	304	304	186	118
Stevens	380	380	379	1
Gatzert	376	376	383	-7
Leschi	379	379	361	18
Thurgood Marshall	383	383	450	-67
John Muir	429	429	461	-32

We need to remember, of course, that these capacity numbers are pretty fluid. So, as hard facts go, these are pretty soft.