Seattle Schools This Week
Monday, October 3rd
Starting today and thru November 30th, the district is asking for input on K-5 instructional materials.
Growth Boundaries meeting from 6:30-7:30 pm at Viewlands Elementary.
Wednesday, October 5th
Board Work Session from 4:30-7:30 pm.
4:30-5:15pm: Oversight Work Session - Distribution Services
5:15-5:30pm*: Interrelated Initiatives Process Update
6:00-7:30 pm*: Work Session - Advanced Learning
I can't wait to hear what both staff the Board have to say on Advanced Learning.
Thursday, October 6th
Advanced Learning applications due.
Executive Committee meeting from 8:30-10:30 am in Board conference room. Agenda not yet available.
No community meeting with directors on Saturday.
Starting today and thru November 30th, the district is asking for input on K-5 instructional materials.
Growth Boundaries meeting from 6:30-7:30 pm at Viewlands Elementary.
Wednesday, October 5th
Board Work Session from 4:30-7:30 pm.
4:30-5:15pm: Oversight Work Session - Distribution Services
5:15-5:30pm*: Interrelated Initiatives Process Update
6:00-7:30 pm*: Work Session - Advanced Learning
I can't wait to hear what both staff the Board have to say on Advanced Learning.
Thursday, October 6th
Advanced Learning applications due.
Executive Committee meeting from 8:30-10:30 am in Board conference room. Agenda not yet available.
No community meeting with directors on Saturday.
Comments
I don't know how many HCC middle school students there in the north end (incl. Magnolia and QA), but it has to be over 1000. It's a large percentage of the middle school population in the north end, and as such, must be accounted for in the boundary redraw. It is absolute nuts not to incorporate this into the decision making.
Go nut-free
For the last two years, there has been no capacity oversight as FACMAC was dissolved and then capacity management was removed from the top three board priorities.
This plan is what happens when there is no oversight from either the board or the community for two years. Feeder patterns that don't work, a planned geo-split that moves students out of schools that are not crowded and into schools that are crowded and no plan for high school.
Nobody liked FACMAC but at least they were proactive, thought about future consequences and pointed out these types of basic math errors to staff before it went to the board.
- crazy capacity parent
WTH? (Aka WTF)
Now the district is saying the following:
--very small HCC cohort at Eagle Staff as it will be mostly attendance area kids
--Eagle Staff will be pretty much at capacity when it opens
--Whitman's population is going to decrease significantly as kids will be shifted to Eagle Staff
--Doesn't look like Hamilton's population will change much
--They won't put HCC kids at Whitman (email from Flip Herndon to a parent)
--They won't make decisions on where HCC goes until next year
I genuinely don't understand where the District is planning on housing HCC kids next year if there's no capacity at Hamilton or Eagle Staff and they aren't putting them at Whitman.
My kid is a 6th grader at Hamilton and will likely be moved to a different school next year. I'm not thrilled about this but willing to accept it. But I'm very unhappy that I won't find out until February. I'm also concerned that there are a lot of parents who would be helping with planning for Eagle Staff, fundraising, etc. now - but instead are going to be waiting to find out if their child will be going there first.
Jane
Jane
Don't fool yourself. The decision is being made now. Once the board votes on the growth boundaries plan, and IF they do not fix the chaos that is planned, HCC middle school pathways will be splintered again. HCC kids from Queen Anne and Magnolia will be sent to Washington. HCC kids from the Eagle Staff area will be sent to Eagle Staff with a tiny little cohort size. Where will the Whitman service area HCC kids go? They think they are going to Hamilton, they may have been told they will still go there, but when there isn't enough space at Hamilton and the only seats available are at Whitman, what is left?
If the board does not insist that they day-light and approve the HCC middle school pathway as part of the growth boundaries plan, it will already have been done, and there will be no opportunity to change it come February.
cartbeforehorse
With that illumination the writing is on the wall for me. They'll fill up Eaglestaff with HCC kids after everyone else is placed, with the rest staying at Hamilton. And Whitman is clearly the escape valve for HCC if they are mistaken on Hamilton and Eaglestaff and JAMS and Washington being able to handle the cohort. That announcement will come so late and be so 'dire' that the staff will just shrug and say sorry it is an emergency, we have to do another split to Whitman. No time for other ideas. We families have gone down this road before haven't we!
I am sad for the kids being divided up again and I'm sad for how Washington will play out and I think that after this split the district will probably keep dividing the program out until it is just a part of every middle school. To me that means the kids who come after ours will be unlikely to get the services they need as HCC will not be something a lot of the middle school principals will be happy to have to deal with I am thinking.
Sad mom
NW HCC parent
WTH
Elementary School Highly Capable Cohort Pathway
Middle School Highly Capable Cohort Pathway
High School Highly Capable Cohort Pathway
Advanced Learning Opportunities for Grades 1-5
Where Spectrum Eligible Students in Grades 1-5 Live
Where Spectrum Enrolled Students in Grades 1-5 Live
Where Spectrum Eligible Students in Grades 6-8 Live
Where Spectrum Enrolled Students in Grades 6-8 Live
Where HCC Eligible Students in Grades 1-5 Live
Where HCC Enrolled Students in Grades 1-5 Live
Where HCC Eligible Students in Grades 6-8 Live
Where HCC Enrolled Students in Grades 6-8 Live
Where HCC Eligible Students in Grades 9-12 Live
Where HCC Enrolled Students in Grades 9-12 Live
And all can be found on this page under Enrollment Planning - HCC maps listed above are at bottom of page
Maps
There's also this data set from 2015 that gives HCC enrollment in various breakout charts
Highly Capable Cohort
reader47
The maps also make it clear that Lincoln should offer as many AP classes as Garfield or Roosevelt (or IB?) to be a good option for these kids. It's proximity to UW and seeking partnerships there could be great.
JAMS Parent
Ah the benefits of hindsight eh? ;o)
reader47
Total Chaos
Old-Timer
WTH
Old-Timer
Someone has the great idea that if they sold QAHS, then maybe they wouldn't need to close as many schools and they started the authorizing of the sale of almost a dozen buildings that year.
It was a very bad idea. The closure era was truly a time of just madness.
The decision to purchase Queen Anne High School in 2007 was made by the developer under terms of a contract signed by the school district in 1986, which allowed the developer to make that decision at a time convenient for the developer, without consulting the school district. It coincided in time with the 2006-2007 closures, possibly for reasons having to do with the state of the real estate market then.
The school board in 2006-2007 was chaotic to say the least and it was indeed a time of madness. The sale of Queen Anne High School was a repercussion of an earlier time of madness, exacerbated by astonishing legal incompetence at the district in the 1980s, which resulted in only a small fraction of the purchase price of QAHS being paid to the school district.
The building is very high value and it is conceivable that someone at the district might have thought of selling it to collect a lot of money and forestall school closures. But that ship had sailed 20 years previously.
Old-Timer
You are absolutely correct on the official timing.
At one of the board meetings towards the end 06-07 closure time, Michael DeBell and Mary Bass instructed staff to start the sale process for several buildings as a strategy because they did not close enough schools.
This triggered the sale of multiple buildings over the next few years. Michael DeBell was the organizer of this big push as he wanted to get the old inventory "off the books" before the NSAP was implemented. I was just so crazy sad.
It was all about optics. They wanted the buildings off of the inventory sheet BEFORE boundaries were drawn so that people didn't request schools that were never going to be needed, like Queen Anne High School, University Heights, etc.
The district got pennies on the dollar for these critical properties.
Coulda shoulda
UW is plenty glad they didn't sell their extra block of land in the middle of downtown Seattle, even if they don't hold classes there. I can think of NO circumstance in which it would have made sense to sell Queen Anne High School, and certainly none that would justify selling it at a loss.
Old-Timer