Preliminary Boundary Presentation
From Superintendent Banda (I haven't reviewed the presentation yet myself):
To meet the needs of our growing enrollment, Seattle Public Schools is considering boundary changes for the 2014-15 school year. We will not change any boundaries or assignments for the upcoming 2013-14 school year.
In anticipation of these changes, we are having conversations about our current schools and programs with our stakeholders. On Wednesday, district staff will present several options to the School Board for early consideration, including for Hamilton International Middle School. We recommend increasing the number of highly capable (APP) elementary and middle school pathways, with guaranteed assignment, to increase access and bring services closer to where students live. If approved, this means APP services will be offered at additional sites – beyond Hamilton and Washington Middle School.
Again, these are all preliminary conversations. We will host five community meetings this fall to consider boundary changes and get feedback from families, staff and community members. There will be plenty of time for review and community reaction.
You can view the district’s initial presentation to the board here. This initial review of program placement will be presented from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Wednesday, May 29 at the John Stanford Center for Educational Excellence. This will be a committee discussion. There is no public testimony at this meeting and no votes will be taken.
Our goal at Seattle Public Schools is to ensure equity, access and opportunities for all students. We are planning for the future of our district, and any changes moving forward starting in the 2014-15 school year will help meet this goal. We also want to maximize walkability and minimize disruptions by aligning new boundaries with current attendance area boundaries, when feasible. The School Board will ultimately vote on the school assignment boundary changes on November 20, 2013.
If you would like to give feedback on these early recommendations, please send an email togrowthboundaries@seattleschools.org
We look forward to working with each of our school communities to make sure any changes are rolled out smoothly and to ensure we have a thoughtful, strategic and equitable plan for schools, programs and services.
Comments
In anticipation of these changes, we are having conversations about our current schools and programs with our stakeholders. On Wednesday, district staff will present several options to the School Board for early consideration, including moving K-5 STEM at Boren to the current Schmitz Park building in 2016-17 after Schmitz Park Elementary moves to its new building at Genesee Hill. Fairmount Park would become an attendance area elementary school opening in 2014-15, and K-5 STEM at Boren would continue as an option program.
Boy, is this thing a tough slog (but it does say draft).
So JSIS and McDonald become Option schools?
More Spectrum?
And those maps? My eyes.
Yes! I love it!
--Fremont Dad
Sign me: Watch the Numbers, then Scratch your Head
-reader
Hopeful
MEM
name confusion
Moose
Enrollment for elementary schools are measured by the Birth to K ratio. This is the ratio of the number of babies born in an area to the number of students who enroll in Kindergarten. This does not measure the same individuals, just a generic ratio and this ratio is used to plan enrollment.
District wide the birth to K is about 73%, so about 73% of the number of babies born in Seattle will enroll in public school 5 years later. This ratio is over 100% in the JSIS area. In other words, people move to attend language immersion. (I know, shocking news, but this is the empirical measure of that process)
So while it is wonderful for the families that move to gain access to language immersion. And is also truly lovely to have both a neighborhood feel and special programming that works for your family. This process creates an unmanageable assignment problem, because you can't add new buildings as fast as people will move to gain access to this type of program.
This assignment change is designed to fix the in-migration issue and that issue alone. It won't be a capacity fix, precisely, but it will stop that language immersion demand acceleration, so that hopefully, the growth rate in Wallingford will begin to resemble the growth rate (also high) at the adjacent schools.
However it is not a true fix, because the only true way to solve a lack of capacity problem is too ... add capacity. BEX simply does not add enough capacity. The addition at Greenlake will add some seats, but Bryant the next school over is probably the most over-crowded school in the State of Washington.
On the other hand, it seems to me with respect to Wallingford the district is trying to have its cake and eat it too. They want the freedom to shunt overflow population to other schools since the immersion schools are so popular. Yet the plan doesn't provide adequate neighborhood school capacity so it in effect relies on continuing to accept most of the neighborhood into the buildings. The immersion programs can't truly operate as district wide option schools and Wallingford in effect becomes an island of uncertainty within the School Assignment Plan. There isn't any new elementary capacity to add to the area which would be the only true solution to half of the problem. I'm surprised they didn't consider moving one of the language programs to another building and converting it back to a regular gen-ed program. That would be disruptive to all the existing students but this plan doesn't seem to guarantee much long term stability.
The presentation is a tough slog. Very poorly done, like so many of these, designed to confuse rather than enhance discussion.
I don't believe it was intentionally designed to confuse, but instead just designed poorly. The design of communication that integrates graphics, tables and written is rarely taught to college students who end up in administration, etc. It is a communication design function that is not even taught much in official communication courses, hence the bulk of most communication is badly designed and ends up confusing at best. Sad but true.
SolvayGirl
At least the district is finally tackling one of the biggest enrollment problems in the north end. People will be up in arms, but this fix is long, long overdue.
DistrictWatcher
Here are two examples from last time.
Viewlands was opened with assignment boundaries and families in the Viewlands area were assigned to Broadview Thompson, with an option to either remain at BT or move to Viewlands when Viewlands was scheduled to open in two years. So families were temporarily assigned to an already existing school, because there was still some capacity in the area.
McDonald was the opposite, as there was no capacity in the area. McDonald was started at Lincoln for two years. So the new school started from scratch in an interim location and then moved to its permanent home two years later.
North end middle school is likely to see both of these styles, as there won't be true new capacity until 2016 or 2017 when the Jane Addams E-stem program moves to its new home and Wilson Pacific opens. For the 2014, 2015 and 2016 school years, there could be a wide variety of staged implementations. Schools could be temporarily assigned to currently over-crowded middle schools AND most likely the Wilson Pacific middle school will be started in an interim location.
The high school omission is more an admission that there is nothing that can be done. That should be the most distressing point in this puzzle.
There is no new high school capacity planned until 2019I have no clue how this system can hold until then. Roosevelt is scheduled to have 100 more students than Garfield next year. Per the districts choice report, there were ZERO choice seats at Nathan Hale, Ballard, Roosevelt, Seatlh, Garfield and Franklin. High School is full today and there is nothing but larger cohorts on the way.
The high school issue is further complicated by the issue that you need time and planning to make a comprehensive high school. While a homeroom based elementary school can be designed and opened in less than a year (Hello West Seattle STEM!), you can't do this will a high school with specialist teachers. Also since most of the high schools were recently rebuilt, I don't think any of them can handle an additional wing.
Opening Lincoln should be at the top of the list. However, it is simply not possible, because Lincoln is fully utilized as the emergency elementary overflow. I don't think it is a coincidence that the hot spots for APP enrollment coincide with the most over-crowded schools.
I think the graphics are pretty good. Granted they are geared for the "inside baseball" crowd. There is a lot of presumed knowledge but that would be expected as part of board presentation.
In particular, I find the first map very helpful. As a district we are going from 9 middle schools to 12 middle schools. This is a huge shift and having the "as the crow flies" distance lines really helps me get a sense of where the boundary process will start and makes it clear that schools like Greenlake or Olympic View really could go anywhere.
I know you have a great eye for this type of thing and I would love to know what types of graphics would you like to see?
I understand that they need to make a stable home for north-end APP, hence the capacity focus on the program. But with the re-opening of Meany as a middle school, WMS overcrowding is ameliorated. Capacity at Thurgood Marshall is fine and stabilizing; TM added only one classroom in 2013-14.
Further splitting up the south-end program creates more problems than it solves.
Is it John Rogers, Sacajawea, Olympic Hills? Or is Wedgwood part of it now?
-SPSAlum
"Anonymous said...
And wasn't immersion a curricular focus too?"
yes, thanks Anonymous. Focus is correct. I am unclear on the distinction between curricular focus and program, except for what Charlie has noted.
MEM
If the option schools change fixes the in-migration issue--and effectively places an enrollment cap on such "programs"-- does that mean even greater capacity crunch for surrounding schools? It seems like it could actually takes some of the existing capacity offline.
Also, can you tell me where to kind those birth to K enrollment data? I'd be curious to see how things look for other schools. I suspect that international programs aren't the only draw, and that many people factor the quality of their neighborhood schools into their renting/purchasing decisions elsewhere as well.
MEM
Jane
The problems we're seeing are being exacerbated by rising capacity. No school assignment plan is going to work well when you're running at or beyond the red line. A regional wide choice would be hamstrung by the lack of seats and the need to guarantee places within the region just about as much as the current system - there would only be different pain points (And more easily movable programs will also be looked at first in times of crisis) . To paraphrase Kellie the only way to truly solve this issue to to build new seats.
Ben
Anytime SPS "guarantees" a seat, problems arise. We live in NW Seattle. My kid has only 22 kids in his K class since the school had to add a 3rd class last minute due to "guaranteed" access to the school. Now, the school three blocks away has 28 & 29 kids in their K classes. This year for K is great for us, but maybe not for those in the huge classes. However, next year, the other kids might luck-out compared to us since we are facing huge classes and a split grade.
Wouldn't it be better if the District could manage that a little better simply by removing the guarantee? The capacity issues are there no matter what so better to remove any/all guarantees.
I would think that what parents want is to have the opportunity to go to a nearby school and try to get into alternative schools (like TOPS K-8) that serve broader regions. Most schools should have Spectrum available (which is not available currently) and some schools should have special education. Is that what is meant by equity? Or is something else meant?
Our k-5 is considered an ALO school by the district, but does not have a single ALO effort in place. Not even lip service. Nothing.
The district should not tell a school it's an ALO school. They should assess the school's programs, and give it an ALO label if it provides advanced learning opportunities.
Otherwise it's just a joke.
Not laughing
What doesn't add up with this staff decentralization proposal is that if the self-contained pipeline will really be continued through elementary school, there can NEVER be more elementary APP locations than there are *1st grade* APP classrooms. In contrast to the current five 5th grade homerooms, because so many of those students arrive in the higher grades, typically there are only two 1st grade homerooms at APPatLincoln. This would thus cap the potential northend elementary APP cohorts at that very number -- UNLESS the unstated premise is that elementary APP students will in future be forced to switch schools over and over again in midstream so as to attend self-contained classrooms at higher grades in schools ever closer to their homes? Maybe in the very schools that they already left to attend APP? Or maybe in yet another service area school after already leaving the neighborhood school for APP in the early grades?
In other words, isn't it irrelevant that you could perhaps choose five or six self-contained locations for north-end 5th grade APP classrooms based on current numbers, unless the staff plan is to make APP elementary students hop back and forth from school to school as they go up each grade at a time, without ever staying in the same place from year to year?
That would not sound like a stable elementary educational experience for any APP student. What is really being proposed here?
I believe the answer is that all will be revealed...someday. AL is being revamped, without input or information, and will someday be clearly explained (likely as a fait accompli).
My recollection from the tours they gave incoming parents at B.F. Day was that Katie Pearl said that her capacity was about 550, and that she expected to be at that number within three years. I was very surprised when the enrollment projections came out this year with a tentative net increase of something like two students.
From what I could tell, a lot of things at B.F. Day could be fixed with a higher enrollment, and I'm looking forward to that school's attendance going back up. So yes, I really do love it.
And if you think overcrowding is bad now, historylink.org says that B.F. Day had more than 900 students in the mid 1920's.
--Fremont Dad
You put into words the vague thoughts that I have been having about this whole thing.
The cohorts are likely to be awfully small at some of the locations, and I think the words "self-contained" will quietly disappear for APP classes. APP will be treated like Spectrum has lately and classes will be filled with school-chosen kids.
As a veteran of the last two splits, I don't have hope that the district will make this work, or that they even care to. APP currently has no curriculum and no requirement that teachers work together to ensure consistency around the district. The district has not said what it would like Advanced Learning to be in the district and principals have been allowed to make it up.
-fool me once
I like the plan to make language immersion schools option school.
Hopeful
parent
As far as I can tell we won't see the boundaries or feeder patterns until Sep/Oct timeframe. The south part of the current Wedgwood boundary could walk to Eckstein and the north part could walk to Jane Addams so who knows. Maybe they would even re-draw the Wedgwood boundary.
- another sps alum
k5parent
We don't share the same definition of "success." I think the growth of APP is a sign of problems around the district, not that the splits worked. I think that if Spectrum were kept as a real program and if many schools weren't filled to bursting, many kids could successfully stay at neighborhood schools
I also don't know how you define "success," but there have been many posts here about the quality of the program at various sites around the district. The fact that the promised APP curriculum has never materialized has been a huge problem. For me personally, I am far less happy with the program at middle school than I was at the elementary level.
-fool me once
Hopeful
Why is this process so opaque? I think Melissa is correct and they will unveil their plan once the deal is done and it is too late to change, and probably when they think the least people are paying attention.
Also agree with 'parent' - growth is not success, growth measures popularity or perhaps disatisfaction with/failure of the alternative.
Has the district ever studied actual outcomes of APP? If not they should - how can they make decisions about changes or keeping status quo or introducing at more sites if they don't know how currently working/ what the strengths or weaknesses of the current program are.
This seems to be a fundamental weakness of SPS - everything they do seems to be a stab in the dark, something done a haste to fix the latest crisis (often the result of the last thing they implemented in haste!).
One thing that complicates it is that a lot of data seems to be generated (it doesn't have to be done this way though!) school wide so APP is bunched in with gen ed as far as stats for each site go. They have effectively hidden the actual performance of each of the populations served at the co-housed sites. I am not even sure if Lincoln APP data is even being collated separately from Lowell even 2 years after the move (does anyone know?)
Sniffy
-Future SPS Parent
Please correct me on how this works so I understand what converting JSIS and McDonald would mean to kids who live close enough to walk there.
That's particularly important for families who are in now, wondering what Option status will do to the younger sibs.
Wondering
That's particularly important for families who are in now, wondering what Option status will do to the younger sibs.
Wondering
Looking at the possibilities
A JAMS update letter from SPS went out a few weeks ago to families at John Rogers, Sacajawea, Olympic Hills, and Olympic View. The letter stated that students will be assigned to JAMS beginning 2014-15.
So, from the addressees on the letter from SPS, it looks like Olympic View will feed into JAMS.
-North-End Mom
Madrona neighbor
- class of 21
MEM
So now I'm wondering which elementaries will be going to Wilson Pacific. I'm thinking Bagley and Greenwood for sure, probably Greenlake, and . . . I'd love to hear what other are thinking, even though I know it's all just speculation at this point. And when do we think it will start rolling up for W-P? I've got a current 2nd grader at Bagley, so I'm interested.
MEM
Northgate would be a great location to relocate one (probably McDonald since it is the youngest).
BUT McDonald should get some kind of bone thrown to it for all that they have put up with during these years.
Most readers and District staff have no idea how hard it is to start a school from scratch. All the new schools deserve a lot more support than they're receiving.
Waiting.
Anne
The district has not supported the international program/language immersion program in middle school and high school. Officially, it’s always been about budget. I always thought it should have been an option, not a neighborhood school - but if that changes - I don't know how that won't kill the barely existing immersion language program at Hamilton. Ingraham is the next International High School, and I've heard from Karen Kodama that the faculty at IHS have completed overlaying their curriculum with the international perspective. However, the language component, which is what most people most strongly associate with the international program, is not as strong as it should be in Middle School and doesn’t exist in High School. Part of that is down to the low numbers enrolled - and the low numbers have to do with the program not being big enough or strong enough to be a critical factor in choosing a middle school and high school.
I think this is representative of what I see is SPS's main problem: SPS hasn't figured out how to deliver strong general education to every school, that’s why parents start looking for special programs. SPS starts programs to attract students to schools with low enrollment, but doesn't see past the start-up. Lots of SPS programs are successful: immersion/international, APP, Spectrum, Montessori, etc. But SPS didn’t plan for what happened after the initial success.
JSIS started with grants - but no grant giving organization wants to pay salaries. They like to support equipment purchases, software, or hardware. Thus, JSIS started the annual direct appeal, mostly to fund IA salaries. (2013 goal is $450k, and they raised almost $400k!) The schools are supposed to be come "self-sustaining." I don't think that "self-sustaining" should mean constant fundraising by parents. Schools aren’t businesses – SPS’s plan increased demand, but it’s clear that increasing supply to meet demand is a different problem. Maybe McCleary will solve it – but I’m not holding my breath.