Growing Pains
Rep Reuven Carlyle shared this e-mail he received today from an SPS student:
Dear Sen. Carlyle,
today on the first day of school my mom told me to write to my state legislator because I came home so upset.
I expected my first day of 8th grade to be awesome, but I walked in the door to find that the school was packed with over 1200 kids. Hamilton is a great school and I love the teachers and fellow students, but when 3 of my 6 classes were in portables and I had to sit with 5 other people at a 3-4 person desk, it did not feel like the school that I looked forward to coming back to.
To make space for the portables installed this summer, we lost our outside play court, which was a favorite part of the day for many kids. Also, over 100 students arrived at school to find out that they did not have a locker, forcing them to carry their backpack around all day or share a small locker with a friend.
I hope you can help our school so that our teachers can focus on learning and we can enjoy our classes instead of trying to figure out a way to do without enough space, tables, or lockers. Thank you!"
I also note this from Principal Brian Vance at Roosevelt High:
If you have not been on campus yet, you have not seen the new addition to the parking lot. Our current enrollment is 1780 students. This means we need more classroom space. Two portables were installed this summer. Good for overcrowding, bad for parking. We lost 18 parking spaces. We are encouraging students to use public transportation, bike, walk, carpool to school. Neighborhood parking is getting even tighter and will get worse as several major construction projects plan on coming online this school year.
One last reminder that school starts later(8:45am-3:15pm) and we will be running a different schedule. I encourage you to talk with your student about the schedule and in particular, managing their hydration and nutrition during the day. Lunch is later than many are used too, but we have an extended passing period after 2nd period to allow student a chance to eat a snack, get some water, etc.
But he continues (in what seems like good news):
One addition to our schedule this year is our RiderTime. This is a 20 minute extension to period 2. Students can use this time as a quiet study hall and we will be teaching students skills in Mindfulness on Thursdays. I attached the first week lesson and powerpoint we will be following. We want to keep families informed on what your students are learning and will email and/or post our lessons for you to review and learn along with your student. Any questions you can contact myself or Erin Bailey.
Dear Sen. Carlyle,
today on the first day of school my mom told me to write to my state legislator because I came home so upset.
I expected my first day of 8th grade to be awesome, but I walked in the door to find that the school was packed with over 1200 kids. Hamilton is a great school and I love the teachers and fellow students, but when 3 of my 6 classes were in portables and I had to sit with 5 other people at a 3-4 person desk, it did not feel like the school that I looked forward to coming back to.
To make space for the portables installed this summer, we lost our outside play court, which was a favorite part of the day for many kids. Also, over 100 students arrived at school to find out that they did not have a locker, forcing them to carry their backpack around all day or share a small locker with a friend.
I hope you can help our school so that our teachers can focus on learning and we can enjoy our classes instead of trying to figure out a way to do without enough space, tables, or lockers. Thank you!"
I also note this from Principal Brian Vance at Roosevelt High:
If you have not been on campus yet, you have not seen the new addition to the parking lot. Our current enrollment is 1780 students. This means we need more classroom space. Two portables were installed this summer. Good for overcrowding, bad for parking. We lost 18 parking spaces. We are encouraging students to use public transportation, bike, walk, carpool to school. Neighborhood parking is getting even tighter and will get worse as several major construction projects plan on coming online this school year.
One last reminder that school starts later(8:45am-3:15pm) and we will be running a different schedule. I encourage you to talk with your student about the schedule and in particular, managing their hydration and nutrition during the day. Lunch is later than many are used too, but we have an extended passing period after 2nd period to allow student a chance to eat a snack, get some water, etc.
But he continues (in what seems like good news):
One addition to our schedule this year is our RiderTime. This is a 20 minute extension to period 2. Students can use this time as a quiet study hall and we will be teaching students skills in Mindfulness on Thursdays. I attached the first week lesson and powerpoint we will be following. We want to keep families informed on what your students are learning and will email and/or post our lessons for you to review and learn along with your student. Any questions you can contact myself or Erin Bailey.
Comments
If you're going to write letters to legislators I would concentrate on what can be fixed at this point. There is an upcoming high school crunch many of the of current the middle schoolers at Hamilton are going to experience that's probably going to be worse still.
-Crunched
BT
Disappointed Dem
Realist
-SPS Parent
- you write to the principal and cc the Ex Dir for your region and cc the board (spsdirectors@seattleschools.org.) Tell your principal this is unacceptable especially for a second year in a row. (Frankly, I can't believe the principal - after last year - didn't make this a priority.)
- if it does not get fixed, you need to get parents together and go to Board meetings and call this out, meeting after meeting.
- Do what Realist said but tell the principal that is what you are going to be doing and you need the principal's help to do it.
At a minimum, find some math materials for home so your child does not get further behind. Kuta software has some basic (free!) worksheets which we have used over the years. They cover topics from pre-algebra through precalculus.
https://www.kutasoftware.com/freeipa.html
And two teachers resigning just before school starts? What's up with that? Certainly seems odd.
-been there
NE Mom of 3
Capacity crisis has arrived.
HS parent
Ingraham is up to 1300 students this year, the most in 8 years and with classes of 38 or so, most teachers are really teaching close to 200 students. When we talked with the counselor, it was clear that there are a lot of IHS students with scheduling problems and that it will be difficult to work them out. Quite a few classes have 35+ students in them. The strain on every part of the school is apparent.
Tami
Momof2
I'm not too hopeful that he will make it through high school without major over-capacity issues, since Lincoln will be re-opened and Ingraham will have a major addition both after he graduates.
Momof2
QAE Parent
Oh, right, I forgot. The City of Seattle is owned and operated by and for real estate developers, so there's no way that the City would assess any sort of tax on them for the infrastructure their new housing units will require.
NW Mom
Criminal Mayor
Where are the news stations on this disconnect between the city and schools and the problem created by rapid development with no school infrastructure in place to absorb the increased enrollment?
This isn't a surprise.
Ridiculous
1. Making public space available for K-12 education of children is more important than making public space available for the recreational needs of anyone (including grandma). See -- NOT a "useless old people" thing at all -- a matter of prioritizing space for the most important civic needs.
2. Historically, because old people can vote -- and kids cannot (though their parents can), it seems to me that public policy in this country has often shorted children at the expense of adults (of all ages -- once again -- not an "age discrimination" thing -- ALL adults). The funding of cancer research is a great example. Many many millions go to breast, colon, lung, and prostate cancer research (virtually ALL adult diseases). The statistic I have heard is that only about 4% of federal cancer research dollars goes to pediatric cancer research. The testing of drugs for pediatric use suffers from the same problem.
So yes -- if the city has space, I think it would be great if they made it available, but I think you should lose the "pickle ball grandma" stuff.
https://www.seattleschools.org/UserFiles/Servers/Server_543/File/District/Departments/Enrollment%20Planning/Projections/5%20Year%20Projections%202015%20to%202020%20(Feb%202016%20Update).pdf
-MF
Ridiculous
High Schools
Ballard: 1,607 (1684)
Center School: 276 (247)
Chief Sealth Intl: 1,285 (1113)
Cleveland STEM: 926 (817)
Franklin: 1,397 (1228)
Garfield: 1,594 (1666)
Ingraham: 1,194 (1214)
Nathan Hale: 1,158 (1141)
Nova: 510 (312)
Rainier Beach: 1,176 (633)
Roosevelt: 1,215 (1647)
Seattle World School : 343
South Lake: 286
West Seattle HS: 1,215 (940)
Hamilton is 985.
-sardine
Jane.
Genuinely wondering
2) option high schools with popular foci- 400 kids, can go in many more places. Just a couple would take enormous pressure off.
-sleeper
SPS owns a lot of parcels around town that are leased out. The Lake City Professional center, Oak Tree shopping center, etc. There is also former SPS land that could be obtained through eminent domain (Queen Anne High, Maple Leaf Elementary )...
--Sadbutnotsurprised
Ballard Parent
The Board has to date stated they do not support small "foci/boutique" high schools. The high school ed spec is for comprehensive schools of 1,600-1,700 students.
All the district properties sadbutnotsuprised references are occupied by tenants. The one that was a high school is on a 99-year lease.
Things can sound easy until ... well, you actually have to do them.
In all seriousness I think given the enormity of the crisis it's time to think about whether whatever reasons they have for not supporting option high schools is more important than the loss of education so many thousands of high school students are facing. I agree with you that it is a difficult problem without many solutions. So that the board would airily "not support" something that could actually help is breathtakingly callous at the very best.
-sleeper
But they didn't - and the students will suffer for the next 3 years, if not more. More, since Lincoln not having field space will have tremendous repercussions to their students as well as many users of field spaces all over the city. And since the Eagle Staff school won't have any auditorium for middle school students to perform music or drama, there will be longstanding repercussions in terms of who wants to go there, the inequity this creates, etc.
Momof2
Kellie LaRue noted in the comments on this blog a few months ago that High School is the master schedule .
The struggles that Tami has indicated above are a problem with the master schedule, which is a giant optimization problem. Unless you have a little wiggle room (capacity wise) with some classes that are a touch under enrolled, it will be extremely difficult to solve the optimization problem for all students.
And then you get situations like Tami's, where her student will probably have to look towards Running Start to knock out a pre-req or two at night (hey, taking Spanish at night at North Seattle CC during your senior year of high school won't be so bad, right?)
northwesterner
It is a school building that was poorly designed, with difficult interior circulation, and some extremely small classrooms (the middle room on the south side of all the learning pods - with the folding walls on both sides). Additionally, there were other cost saving decisions taken including the single chemistry lab with two (very small) class rooms on each side to "share" that become major bottlenecks to operating an efficient school with an optimized master schedule. The school was way underbuilt for its site (substantially smaller than old Ballard) and has to be absolutely miserable with that many students housed in it.
northwesterner
If Eagle Staff had been a high school, what about the middle school crowding at Hamilton? Would you have put another middle school at Lincoln?
Sadbutnotsurprised,
Do schools have eminent domain authority?
Genuinely Wondering
Momof2
Not soHopeful
Care to explain "boutique" school? I've not heard that term, before.
More choice
@northwesterner - Running Start could be an option if my student hadn't already committed to doing the IB diploma, classes which aren't offered at North Seattle. Dropping the diploma isn't something we are considering. Kellie's right about the schedule. In my opinion there are 2 immovable objects in SPS - the schedule and the budget. If you can't get past them, it isn't possible.
I was wrong in thinking that my student wouldn't be affected so much by the increase in student population as she is in the last class that isn't huge. The consolidation of 4 IB Lang/Lit classes into 3 classes (of a much larger size) means less flexibility for the students. Combined with a slightly unusual class choice, this means there is no possibility for her chosen schedule Yet, IHS needs the classrooms and teachers for the increased number of students.
Our solution may be independent study for one class. She's done it before and it worked out, but it isn't ideal, nor is it really an option for all students. We need options that work for all.
Tami
The Center School is under-enrolled. The district needs to find out why. They need to look into making it a larger school by renting additional space to offer up 700 seats call it a mid-sized high school. Add sports, they can take advantage of Memorial Stadium. Whatever it takes to add HS seats in the middle of Seattle.
Cleveland is not at capacity, why? Time to take a look at STEM and if not attracting students turn it back into an assignment area school and fill it to the brim.
And what is up at WS high school with almost 300 empty seats? Time to fix that problem.
These three suggestions could offer up nearly 1000 seats. So why aren't we hearing anything from the board, the district?
Why do we just hear, "when Lincoln opens up...?"
It's okay when you have what you need for capacity but that was never the case.
Po3, you would drastically change Center if the district did what you said. However, maybe that would be for the best. What you are suggesting is a comprehensive high school which is just what Magnolia and Queen Anne parents wanted all along.
Yes, good question about Cleveland; I think that's more about propping up Rainier Beach.
Why are you just hearing about Lincoln opening? It's a good question and one I think that may be answered by yesterday's Ex Ctm meeting.
They are revamping the BAR format for Board meeting (Board Action Report). You may think what this template looks like is a housekeeping item but it's not. There are some additions and some deletions (I'll have a separate thread.)
But to this discussion, what was taken out was "alternatives" to any given BAR. Directors asked that this be put back because they want to know what, if any, alternatives to what the BAR is proposing have been considered by staff.
There is this very real tension between staff and the Board on this point. (And it's all Boards and all staffs.) The staff is comprised of professionals who want to do their job while meeting legal requirements and the oversight of the Board. But many on the Board want to know what staff considered AND why they chose the solution they did. I think staff doesn't always want to explain; they want the Board to accept their considered plan.
So, staff thinks Lincoln will solve it all when, in fact, there are other solutions.
I read something the other day that indicated the district is planning to phase out middle school grades at Madrona in a year when Meany reopens. That's a smart decision given the expense of operating small middle school programs.
Cleveland's enrollment is kept artificially low to increase enrollment at Rainier Beach. West Seattle has not had a reputation for being a great school for advanced students. Enrollment will increase as huge groups of kids move up from Lafayette, Schmitz Park and Fairmount Park with nowhere else to go.
NOVA's program is too unique to force enrollment, so not did not include in my list of suggestions.
I guess I am thinking that the Center School could be school for QA/MAG and DT students if made into a mid-sized comprehensive school.
In taking a look at their website, I am starting to see why enrollment may be on the decline:
Course catalog is from 2011-2012
Still listing HSPE as grad requirement
School involvement page is empty
Last update on the homepage is 6/23/2016.
Does staff understand that the school's website is the point of entry for prospective students? Time for the exec director to light a fire and get those remaining seats filled...at the very least!
Did Cleveland have a waitlist for this fall? Important to know because if it didn't that indicates declining enrollment. If it did, then it shows forced enrollment cap.
Increasing enrollment at West Seattle should be a #1 priority!
What do these executive directors do every day?
Genuinely Wondering-Let's be clear, it is not parents job to figure it out, it is the job of our state and district administrators to figure it out. The mayor should also be involved with mandating impact fees. It is part of managing growth. They did it on Mercer Island & passed a levy that has funded new schools by charging impact fees to developers. Why not Seattle? It seems the district does not listen much to parents who suggest ideas & perhaps not to consultants they hire either.
-MF
The plan for the future, evidently, is to place a double portable by the middle entrance on the north side (in the space now occupied be the old day-care playground, and then possible a double portable out by the track.
That would add, what, 120 more seats. If capacity is now 1607, adding 120 seats brings BHS up to 1727, still not enough to comfortably seat the 1750 anticipated this year.
if a projection of 2000 is accurate, BHS would need an additional nine portable classrooms BEYOND the aforementioned planned two double-wides. Where these would go, I have no idea. Staff parking? Football field? Apartments and condos are rapidly surrounding the school (a nine-story building is going in just south across 65th; north of 67th is almost filled with skinny condos; north on 15th is rapidly building up apartments - there WILL be no other parking for staff. Or students.
-Maria
Not impressed
HP
My point is: if a school has declining enrollment the exec director should be all over it and things like making sure the website is robust is just so basic.
The note about the big new fancy building downtown reminds me, there is tons of empty space at the big new fancy building downtown. Time to fill it with a high school. Make it a public admin/gov't focus.
Honestly, we really shouldn't be in this mess...there are options!
Ballard at 1900, good grief.
Is there space? Yup.
If it is granted, and I don't know what the requirements are but usually it's a location imperative. You have to have this property because it is the only place the runway can go. Or you're widening the street so you need 4 feet of property. Doesn't apply here. And if it did, SPS would have to pay market rate for the property. So the old QA High School condos would be prohibitively expensive.
What about evening classes, say 2-hour classes twice a week, if the student opts for it, to fill out the schedule? So certain students would have 4 classes daily, plus two evenings a week they'd take the 5th as a night class. Would require schools to stay open two nights a week. Don't know if enough students would go for it, and you couldn't mandate it. Maybe CTE classes and draw professionals to teach them.
asdf
Because high school is the master schedule, the way that high school enrollment is reported makes the bulk of the high school problem invisible. This is because students will less than a full schedule are reported as part time students. Therefore the official number of 1700 FTE (full time equivalent) could represent 1800 or more individuals.
As many people have noted, when a student is unable to get their class via the master schedule they need to make "other arrangements" - running start, online classes, partial homeschool, etc.
Once a student becomes part time, they are then reported as part time and ... viola! problem solved. There was the September attrition that brought the numbers magically into the right range.
Unlike elementary school, where a student is placed into a homeroom, a high school student is NOT guaranteed any specific class.
Enrollment across the board has increased. however, the high school enrollment reports have been FLAT for 5 years, despite all of these increases. The reporting for high school enrollment needs to be adjusted or this problem will never improve.
HP
-StepJ
So numbers on October 2nd?
And when Lincoln reopens and the area around Roosevelt is built up, I suspect who gets to go to Roosevelt will become an interesting question.
Ingraham's 500 seat addition will require redrawing boundaries too.
It seems pretty likely that Lincoln will end up being the north end HCC high school, given the imminent enrollment numbers disaster, thanks to the obscene growth that has been allowed over the past decade. At that point it may very well be "who gets to go to Lincoln", as there will be demand for the program and resultant classes.
The downside of course is the continued erosion of APP/HCC, but at least it may provide a pull-driven safety valve for Roosevelt, rather than a "boot kids out" solution. Only time will tell, but Garfield will not survive more than a couple years as things are, and even that's going to be rough.
Also note that the number of 8th grade LI students isn't all that big at HIMS in the first place. Plus, many of the them are also HCC, and it remains to be seen what happens with HCC pathways, if they are even continued at the HS level. All in all, it doesn't seem like the LI pathway is likely to have a big impact on capacity issues.
HF