Seattle Schools News Update

Coming fast and furious.

The District is have a press briefing right now over the staffing cuts (with less than an hour's notice to reporters - I could not have made it down there).  I'll let you know what is reported out by other media sources.

Second, there's this new Bell Times schedule possibility,dated Oct. 13. 2015, but I have no time to really review it.  It is three-tier and labelled "cost neutral."

Discuss among yourselves.

Comments

Anonymous said…
9 tier 3s? Why bother?
West
Anonymous said…
WTH. The bell times are substantially moved around again. Didn't it say FINAL recommendation on the last round? How are our school communities supposed to keep up? If this blog hadn't posted the document, our school wouldn't have known we've now booted into a different tier. Had staff planned to let us know or are they going to stay hunkered down hiding from the mass of us disgruntled had-it-up-to-here parents until the board goes ahead and okays the staff's unfamily friendly suggestions?

Curses
Anonymous said…
Those are the schools that use the most buses. My guess is it actually does even out, bus-use wise, with just those 9 schools on that tier.

-sleeper
Anonymous said…
Closer to two tiers--hurray! I'd call that a HUGE step forward!

Maybe there are good reasons why the handful of schools on tier 3 need to be that late? For example, I've heard it argued that since APP at Lincoln kids have long bus rides, an early start might be a bigger challenge.

HF
Anonymous said…
The West Seattle blog is reporting live on the press conference here.

Sounds like staff is doubling down on blaming the state, taking no responsibility for their choices, and marching forward with their actions. Oh, and they don't have an actual list of their decisions but "they'll let us know."

An uprising is in order.

West Seattle
Anonymous said…
I have a child at app at Lincoln and think the later start will just mean 5 pm or later bus drop offs, and an earlier start would have both captured young children's peak learning time and meant more reasonable bus lengths. This will also mean the dnd of beighboehood friendships if you choose to send your child to app, since most of the other schools start so much earlier. So I feel like this is being balanced on the back of my child. But it is a resource rich school, so many people can hopefully deal with it, and the benefits are so profound. My child will eventually reap the benefits of a late secondary start time. So I am for it. I wish secondary starts were later, but this is an improvement.

-sleeper
Anonymous said…

I have kids in all three levels and the sacrifice in ES is worth it for the extra sleep.

Thank you all for your work on this. I feel this is a worthy change!


-Thanks!
Reader47 said…
@West Seattle - Thanks for the link. Looks like once again the strike is being blamed for inaccurate enrollment projections, and zero acknowledgement that enrollment projections are the fault of ADMIN not teachers. That and the disingenuous bit about "other districts" doing same thing, even when it's been mostly disproved that this is case by various local reporters (as mentioned in the West Seattle coverage).

Clearly, they are unwilling to acknowledge that something down at JSCEE could have been "sacrificed" so that this upheaval didn't get dumped on the kids.

bleahhh bleah I say!
Anonymous said…
I think this is the "least worst" of all the options that have been presented.
I'm glad Title I schools get the early start.
I would love to know how the 20 mins will be added later on.

-LM
mirmac1 said…
Of course, they are embargoing enrollment data. LIke last time, they don't release the public records until they have a press release or put it on the website. What is it about "public" records they don't get. Brent Kroon thinks he doesn't have to disclose until it's in powerpoint on the website. Figures
StringCheese said…
As always, the West Seattle Blog is a great place to find up-to-date information on the press conference.
http://westseattleblog.com/2015/10/teacher-cuts-final-word-going-out-to-schools-district-media-briefing-at-1230-pm/
Anonymous said…
Could you tell us where you got the new bell times sheet? I can't find it on the SPS site.

Thanks

SPE Parent
Anonymous said…
I'm with SPE Parent, I also just searched the District site with no success. If anyone has a link it would be greatly appreciated.

-StepJ
Anonymous said…
I thought APP at Lincoln was now called Cascadia. ?
NEmom
Anonymous said…
I think they are hearing parents but they don't want to cut at John Stanford headquarters. I can't believe they think a first grade or a second grade should have 29 kids. I thought they wanted equity. Equity would mean that all first and second graders get attention so they can master reading and math.
NEmom
Anonymous said…
Nyland still nowhere to be found for days in this mess. This is the beginning of the end for Nyland and his hires. I need to hear board candidates denouncing these funding choices. Those who do have my vote.

As for the ridiculous super v board document: How dare staff propose to limit the timing and depth of my board members representing my and every other voter's concern.

North of 85th
Anonymous said…
The new Bell Times sheet is embedded at the very end of this document (Ops Committee meeting packet):

http://sps.ss8.sharpschool.com/UserFiles/Servers/Server_543/File/District/Departments/School%20Board/committees/Operations/2015-16/20151015_Agenda_Ops_Packet.pdf

- North-end Mom

Anonymous said…
I LOVE it for our family, though I don't understand why View Ridge Elementary would be starting so much later than the majority of Elementary schools. That said, we would only have to live with that for the one year we have left at elementary school and then all my kids would have the same start/end times at reasonable times (8:30 ish to 3:30 ish). If I had younger kids at VRE, I'm not sure I'd like it as much. I'm used the later start, but also used to all the surrounding schools being similar.

NE Mom of 3
Prosleep Mom said…
You can find the spreadsheet in the agenda for the Operations committee of the Whole. It's on pages 394 and 395.
Here's the link:
http://sps.ss8.sharpschool.com/UserFiles/Servers/Server_543/File/District/Departments/School%20Board/committees/Operations/2015-16/20151015_Agenda_Ops_Packet.pdf

It is the best proposal we've seen so far, though not perfect; it goes a long way to putting way more kids in biologically appropriate tiers than any previous plan. I had heard there is a possibility of tightening up the tier spacing by 2017, which will help offset any additional time in the school day.

I'm still in shock that a schedule change like the extra 20 minutes was done without an iota of community engagement, or any data as to why this is the top priority negotiating item for the district. I also don't know where they will get the money to fund it.
Prosleep, I don't get it either.

Anonymous said…
Will the extra 20 minutes in year three put the elementary schools at the state required 1000 hours for k-5 (6)? Maybe there wasn't parent input considered because the legislature makes it a moot point.
-guessing
Anonymous said…
It does make more sense for the middle and high schools to both have the 8:50 time, which they now mostly do, so I'm ok with that part. Of course in a couple of years they will have to add 20 minutes to their day so we'll see what happens then.

However, my really big concern is that they are ripping neighborhoods apart by putting some elementary schools at 8 am and some at 9:40am, which is a really big gap. We lobbied to keep NE Seattle schools together so that kids could engage with each other and share after school activities. In the original 'final' recommendation every single one of our close by neighboring schools had been assigned the 8 am slot, except us. We asked for and managed to get 8 am, but now half the schools in the area have been scheduled at 8 am (Wedgwood, Bryant, Thornton Creek and Sand Point Elementary) and half are at 9:40 am (Laurelhurst, View Ridge, APPLincoln/Casdadia).

I imagine that some of the schools asked for the later time, but I wish we had been consulted as a group so we could discuss the impact on our community. Hopefully there will still be some consultation on this.

SPE Parent
Watching in Bleachers said…
I cannot understand why SPS wouldn't align all three Queen Anne elementary schools (Coe, Hay and QAE) ... instead you have Coe and QAE starting at 8AM and Hay at 9:40 (starting even later than it is now). In the previous recommendation of a month ago all three were aligned and that seemingly made sense as a cluster... Hay and QAE are separated by mere blocks... now one is glaringly out of sync and leaves parents scrambling.
GarfieldMom said…
For anyone like me who likes a visual representation of this kind of thing, here are maps of the various bell-time scenarios. You should be able to click the various tiers on and off. (I don't have the Early Learning Center in there because I can't figure out what or where that is -- anyone?)

The first three are color-coded by tier: Tier 1=yellow, Tier 2=green, Tier 3=red

Current 2015-16 bell times, by tier

Proposed "modified flip" for 2016-17, by tier

10/14 Super’s proposed plan for 2016-17, by tier

The next three are color coded by type of school (Elementary=green, MS=yellow, K-8=red, HS=blue)

Current 2015-16 bell times, by school type

Proposed "modified flip" for 2016-17, by school type

10/14 Super’s proposed plan for 2016-17, by school type
Anonymous said…
Also meant to say thanks to North-end Mom and ProSleep Mom for posting the link!

SPE Parent
Thanks to all for these valuable links.

SPE Mom, the previous schedule for the NE had Sand Point as the ONLY elementary to have a different time from the others which was really unfair. This is at least a little more balanced.
Prosleep Mom said…
I so wish this proposal was accompanied by an explanation of how it was developed and what values drove the decisions it reflects. We're moving HS and MS to after 8:30, I get that; Elem earlier, also understandable- but some elem are later, presumably to balance the tiers. It would be so helpful to understand why schools are given a particular time. What value is driving the decision, what compromises are being made; if we knew this, parents might be able to accept a plan that isn't ideal for them because there is some sense to it.

This seems to be the same process we see in boundaries; put up a proposal, people complain, put up a new one, different people complain, etc until the clock runs out. Wouldn't a values driven discussion make a lot more sense? There are hard choices to be made, not everyone will be happy- but knowing the why would help a lot.

and thanks to Garfield mom, who is an absolute data wizard!
GarfieldMom said…
I have the current route times in a spreadsheet -- I'll look at those when I get a chance later to see if the length of the routes could be part of what is driving the placement of some schools into tier 3 vs tier 1. Ideally you'd have your longer morning routes in later tiers, but your longer evening routes in earlier tiers -- that's got to be hard to balance.
Anonymous said…
Melissa, it does seem more fair not to target only the Title I schools, but I wouldn't use the word 'balanced' because it seems to me that it unbalances a neighborhood to separate the schools in it by so much time when we share so many before and after school resources and friendships too.

SPE Parent
Whaaaaaa???? said…
I am appalled that my early-rising kindergartner might be going to school at ALMOST 10 AM if this thing gets approved. What on earth led to that decision? And the other elementary schools in his neighborhood start almost TWO HOURS earlier. Huh?
Anonymous said…
In other news, the updated 5-year projections are finally posted on the Enrollment Planning site! I haven't reviewed them yet, but will be interested to hear others' takes!

HIMSmom
Anonymous said…
First crazy bits of info from the new 5-yr projections:

1. They used the May 2015 projections of October 2015 enrollment as their 2015/16 projection, rather than the current actual October data. So are the projections are built upon a current year enrollment of 51,745 rather than the 52,399 we actually have. Why start with data you know aren't accurate? Maybe because the lower number helps hide the capacity crisis?

2. Hamilton shows 1068 for the current year, when it's actually close to 1100. Next year's projection is a whopping 1172--so that might be closer to 1200 if they started with the current true count. In either case, there's no way all those kids can fit. Good luck with that!

HIMSmom
Lori said…
1850 at Garfield next school year, then nearly 2100 in 2017-2018. Any precedence for those kinds of numbers at Garfield? If not, will it have to split off some students (most likely APP) next year or the year after?
Anonymous said…
Cascadia is projected to be at 875 when it opens, and over 900 in two years... Isn't it being built for 660?

In the year before Lincoln HS reopens, Garfield is projected at 2274, Ballard at 1972 and Roosevelt at 1805. Can those schools handle that?

HIMSmom
Anonymous said…
@ Lori, split them off to where?
Anonymous said…
Ah - I see they finally posted the October 2015 Enrollment Data (Form P223 that has to be reported to OSPI

You can take a gander HERE

reader47
Numbers Matter said…
reader47 (or anyone) could you explain the numbers I am seeing? I would think that the P223 enrollment count should equal the P223 FTE count. Clearly I must be mistaken because, if that were the case, almost every single elementary school is UNDERSTAFFED by at least 1 FTE. I am just trying to understand. Thanks!
Anonymous said…
APP is part of Garfield, not a separate school.
NEmom
Wallymom said…
We"ll that is what a lot of us have been living with
mirmac1 said…
Given that SPS will not disclose detailed Oct HC data vs projected by school by grade, I expect they're clawing back funds from a .4 FTE here and .8 FTE there to get it. Blow smoke by hinting that strike and (less than professional) forecasting had something to do with it.
mirmac1 said…
Here you clearly see the use of rolling averages over three years with a very few outliers.

No science involved

Download these in .xls format and do some analysis. That's more than Brent Kroon did.
Anonymous said…
High School: another reason to voting no to the levies

"In the year before Lincoln HS reopens, Garfield is projected at 2274, Ballard at 1972 and Roosevelt at 1805. Can those schools handle that?"

NO.

FACMAC told the district to build a high school at Wilson Pacific and convert Lincoln to the middle school, Hamilton to the elementary school. It would have been a fast, economical, and efficient. The cost difference was about $20M, which the District and Michael DeBell and Sherry Carr howled at as being way too much, and yet now, the same District says, "whoops, did we say we needed $19M for Lincoln? No, I mean, $40M? Well, we really meant $80M. Zing! Gottcha!

FACMAC was the only conduit to keep the District honest. The Board needs to demand the Super gets them focused on how to make capacity work.

Those projections are why high school is going into shifts, even though they won't tell you that. They want to get your the February Levies passed, then they will tell you the bad news.

They are all ready planning for high school shifts. They just are not planning transparently. The really disturbing parts are that (1) nothing can basically be done at this point to rescue high school and (2) they have no idea what they are doing, because 5 years ago when Garfield first overloaded post-NSAP implementation (duh, who could have predicted that? Oh yeah, all of us), they thought they could just tack on an extra periods, but then they realized that would accomplish nothing really, because during the majority of the day, ALL of the ENTIRE student body would be there, causing congested halls, plus they had to consider those pesky teachers and that CBA and all of the costs and SpEd. Smart staff knew running start would be their saving grace to partially offset the high school crisis, but then staff in operations who report to Ms. McEvoy messed with Garfield's bell time, making running start not possible in some cases. It really is this bad. And sadly, Dr. Nyland has no clue. But he doesn't have to worry. Or care. It is not his problem. He gets his $276K regardless. 3 years x $276K = $828,000. That doesn't include benefits. More like a million. When high school crashes, do you think we taxpayers can do a go-back and ask him to refund, say, $500K? Do you think our children will get one million dollars of value out of his tenure? Is he that impactful (in a good way)? Nah. By the time high school is imploding, he'll be skating away. Queen Anne and Magnolia are missing their high school, they need it back. Dr. Herndon should have been getting the ball rolling on that. Instead, he focused all of his muscle on preschool (to play politics nicely) and on the downtown building (again politics took priority, not actual planning of actual priorities). Bringing back the Magnolia building absent a plan is wasteful. They should have started talking 2 years about to the community about recasting the junior high campus at Catherine Blaine as a 1,000 seat high school and pivoting the QA/Mag K8 into the Magnolia building, thereby adding net seats in segments that were imperative. But none of this has been done. Does he not understand all those kids in Queen Anne Elementary, Coe, CB K8, etc, that they will need a place to go after 5th grade, and after 8th grade? What exactly is he thinking? Mark my words, he's going to be out of here too, so that he can duck the worst of it. So predictable. The 'plan' now is to put a high school at the Stadium. But that is flawed. And yet, he'll pursue it only because they own the parking lot. Not a good reason to put it there, but that reflects his strategic (in)abilities.

Facilities Planning?
GarfieldMom said…
OMG, Facilities Planning? -- it's not just a high school at the Stadium -- he's looking at doing a high school with a stadium on top! He saw one in Union City, NJ and was inspired. LOL. I mean, it might not be totally crazy, maybe it's a brilliant idea. But is it really THE right way to get more high school capacity? Do we have no other options?
Anonymous said…
In the first draft of the new bell times North Beach was at 8 am. Now we are at 940 am? We are already at 930! This is way too late to be starting school for young little brains. My kids wake up early. I work a full time job, so now I have to find before and after school care for my kids for next year, too? I would much prefer an 8 am start and have to just need to get after school care. Why can't all the k-5s be 8 am start? It's a burden on working families to find care for kids in these little fragments. 8-940 and 350-5? Ridiculous. Who gets to start their work day after 10 am? What a luxury...
Anonymous said…
I would so appreciate knowing the logic of starting the few elementary schools later than they currently are...Moving from a 930 to 940 start makes no sense to me without anything to back it up. We are doing the exact opposite of what was intended in the first place of why we needed to look at flipping bell times...which I was very supportive of. Why can't all elementary schools start at 8? Little ones are at their best in the earlier mornings, just like the teen brains are best a little later on in the mornings. Why appease the contingent who believes this for the teens, but then disregard and make it worse for the elementary students? Please reconsider and make all elementary schools start at the same time...8 am.
Anonymous said…
I would think that the P223 enrollment count should equal the P223 FTE count.

I believe the enrollment count (number of students) may differ from FTE because not all students are counted as 1.0 FTE. Students part-time homeschooling in middle school? They may be considered 0.8 FTE or less. Students doing Running Start in high school? Also less than 1.0F FTE.

-parent
Anonymous said…
People keep mentioning high school in shifts, but not explaining it. What actually have people heard? If folks downtown are making plans & just not publicizing it, what are they actually planning? Is this half the kids 6-12 and half 12-6? or some kind of block schedule & they go 2-3 days per week? Or July to Dec and Jan - June? Something completely different? I have a 7th grader that is due to start at Garfield in 2 years, so I'm rather curious.

Mom of 4
Lynn said…
Mom of 4,

I have heard that the teaching and learning department requested sample schedules for both split shifts and year round schooling. I expect it will be split shifts (6 to noon and noon to 6) as that would be easier to implement than a calendar change.
Anonymous said…
Noon to six only provides enough hours if they also skip "lunch" break and kids work six hours straight, or if they lengthen the school year.

Or I suppose they could make younger students go longer to make up for the HS shortfall...

HF
Lynn said…
I can't think of a solution that won't make most people unhappy. Maybe they could encourage Running Start enrollment (assuming the community colleges have space) by arranging transportation and master class schedules so that students can take a couple of college courses and take a couple of electives at their high school.

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