New Student Assignment Plan: Pay Attention
BEX V? Sure, that's important but it is off in the more distance future.
But the Student Assignment Plan is coming like a freight train and affects every single family in the district. I urge you to pay attention AND ask your PTA to devote an early meeting to this topic.
Rather than calling it a "new" SAP, they say they are making updates. I suspect these will be sweeping so it's almost like a new plan. The SAP would go into effect in 2018-2019but not changes to high school boundaries or Advanced Learning. (Editor's note: I'm seeking clarification on when the changes would go into effect for AL; I suspect the same time as the SAP since AL is part of it.)
Here's how the district sees this work:
Here's the latest from the district:
Also somewhat in tandem are the high school boundaries. The next meeting for that Taskforce is tomorrow at noon at JSCEE in room 2750. I am not able to attend this one. There are no supporting documents on this agenda but I will check again later today.
On the Thought Exchange, I'm a little unclear whether this is for AL or SAP; I'll ask.
But the Student Assignment Plan is coming like a freight train and affects every single family in the district. I urge you to pay attention AND ask your PTA to devote an early meeting to this topic.
Rather than calling it a "new" SAP, they say they are making updates. I suspect these will be sweeping so it's almost like a new plan. The SAP would go into effect in 2018-2019
Here's how the district sees this work:
In the 2019-20 school year, Seattle Public Schools will reopen Lincoln High School, a comprehensive high school in Northwest Seattle. Reopening Lincoln will require redrawing of the high school boundaries, which identifies the district areas that will feed into each high school.
At the same time, we are making updates to the Student Assignment Plan (SAP). The SAP ensures that students have access to the services they need and outlines options for programs and enrollment outside students’ designated schools. One area of review is Advanced Learning.
Given the increase in enrollment across our district, the opening of Lincoln High School in 2019, and the upward trend in students who are eligible for advanced learning services, we are seeking input on how to improve access to high school advanced learning opportunities. Any High School Advanced Learning changes made would not go into effect until 2019-20. Read more about Advanced Learning.
These bodies of work (High School Boundaries, SAP, and Advanced Learning opportunities) are interconnected and require community engagement. Over the course of the next couple months, district staff will be asking stakeholders for ideas, analyzing impacts and making final recommendations to the School Board.It's interesting because they will approve the changes to the SAP before the high school boundaries. But when will the decisions be made for AL? Because where HCC services are will be very important for some parents in high school.
Here's the latest from the district:
SAP recommendations are planned to go before the School Board on Nov. 1. Any recommended changes to High School Advanced Learning will not go into effect until the 2019-20 school year.
We anticipate High School Boundary recommendations will be introduced on Jan. 3, 2018, to the School Board. The approved high school boundaries will go into effect in the 2019-20 school year with the reopening of Lincoln High School. School Board meetings are open to the public. You can learn more about attending a meeting on our School Board Meeting webpage.
The district will host open house style meetings to share proposed updates and gather community feedback. All meetings are from 6:30 to 8 p.m.If you or someone you know needs translation or ADA services, please email communityengagement@seattleschools.org.
Monday, Oct. 23, 2017, Eckstein Middle School (3003 NE 75th St)
Thursday, Oct. 26, 2017, Ballard High School (1418 NW 65th St)
Monday, Oct. 30, 2017, McClure Middle School (1915 1st Ave W)
Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2017, Cleveland High School (5511 15th Ave S)
Thursday, Nov. 9, 2017, West Seattle High School (3000 California Ave SW)
Anticipated School Board Dates
The anticipated timeline for School Board consideration of the Student Assignment Plan is below. Action by the full School Board will not occur before the regular Wednesday, Nov. 15, 2017 meeting.
Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2017: Operations Committee of the Whole
Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2017: Introduction to the full School Board
The district is hosting in-person community meeting to connect with families who need additional language interpretation support or ADA services to ensure our diverse community can participate in this important conversation.I'll note here that the Action vote by the Board would likely be the Nov. 15th Board meeting which is right before the Thanksgiving holiday. However, waiting until after Nov. 15th would likely be the first meeting in December which is when new Board directors come on. So November 15th is probably the date for a final vote on SAP changes.
The full list of additional engagement opportunities will be available on this site by the end of the week.
Also somewhat in tandem are the high school boundaries. The next meeting for that Taskforce is tomorrow at noon at JSCEE in room 2750. I am not able to attend this one. There are no supporting documents on this agenda but I will check again later today.
On the Thought Exchange, I'm a little unclear whether this is for AL or SAP; I'll ask.
An online discussion board through Thought Exchange will be sent to families of current 5th-12th graders as well as high school staff to facilitate this conversation.
Thought Exchange is a way for our families, community and staff to share their priorities and ideas with us online as we consider systems change in the district.
Thought Exchange is an online engagement tool that helps Seattle Public Schools lead discussions about important issues effecting our district.
All participants will have the opportunity to share their thoughts, discover, compare and prioritize different points of view using a common scale rating.
Do let us know when you get onto the Thought Exchange. It will be interesting to see what is said.Participant privacy is vital to the process. All thoughts are confidential, but the process is moderated and to ensure the conversation maintains a safe and constructive environment. The district will not tolerate any hate speech or rude or inflammatory comments.
Comments
So annoyed
fyi
HP
Frelardian
crazy making
Receiving HCC 23 12.92%
HCC Eligible 28 15.73%
Roosevelt to Hale:
Receiving HCC 2 8.00%
HCC Eligible 2 8.00%
I think they are limiting the number of HCC assigned to Hale.
HP
It's also taking 35 kids out of Rainier Beach- I though RBHS was under-enrolled already?
-DMR
So far, there appear to have only been six people to take the survey, so there wasn't much 'thought' to exchange. Also, it does not give you the opportunity to comment on others thoughts, just rate from 1 to 5 stars. This limits the exchange quite a bit, but it also alleviates the issues of endless back and forth arguments and trolling. I also believe that they go through some sort of approval process before they are posted for others to see. Hopefully, this only weeds out troll/offensive posts and is not a means of removing thoughts that SPS doesn't want to hear.
I believe that you can go back and add thoughts as well as rate newly posted thoughts at any time. If you received one of these invitations (I got mine yesterday), I encourage you to do it. I am curious as to how it will turn out.
As far as I can tell, they are aligning the high school boundaries with the elementary and middle school boundaries, with the Wedgwood attendance area going entirely to Roosevelt (it is now split between Hale and Roosevelt).
-North-end Mom
The three open-ended questions being asked are:
1. What are the most important things for us to understand as we consider changes to our high school advanced learning services?
2. What are some things we could put in place to increase high school advanced learning opportunities for more students?
3. What questions do you have about these possible changes?
TM
Also, no clarity on what was meant by giving stars - am I agreeing with the question, the what, the why?
I can't see how this would be actionable or useful as input.
QA Parent
Scenario G = 1314
Scenario H = 2179
Scenario I = 1846
It would be great if they also released the reasoning behind each scenario. In Scenario H, what benefit is gained by moving almost 2200 students?
N by NW
And I was perplexed that I couldn't easily just skip over a statement. Some statements were just not applicable for me (like North Seattle sites), or some I simply didn't have an opinion about. When you press skip, they make you type in a reason why before allowing it ("this is not applicable to me") and I pretty quickly got frustrated and just gave up.
Whitman Fam.
- CP
SPS mom
My kid was about in the middle in his performance at his last school which was great because there was always kids for him to get help from.
Newbie
Stop the madness.
Concerned Parent
It wasn’t that long ago that students a few blocks from West Woodland were assigned to BF Day, until Im guessing there was an outcry, and they moved the boundary a couple blocks south.
Students are now assigned to Hamilton, but back to Ballard for high school.
Curious as to whether now that Lincoln is in the mix, if Hamilton students will be assigned to Lincoln.
Interestingly, my father lived in Greenwood and my father in law in Victory Heights, and they were both assigned to Lincoln, so it seems that the Seattle school district has a long history of unpredictable boundaries!
I attended a brand new elementary school in 5th &6th grade, and a brand new jr high for 7th-9th.
They didnt start slow, but opened the schools with full classes.
It was exciting to be the first class in a brand new jr high, and most of the teachers seemed fairly young.
However, for the most part they were great teachers, and I & my classmates still have very fond memories of our time there.
( howevet, it was difficult for me when a large group of my friends attended Juanita high school for 9th grade when that opened)
I hope they are tracking demographics, eligibility and participation info and will incorporate that into their analysis, otherwise it's going to be a mess. The majority of those asked to participate in the survey are NOT advanced learning families, so the data that come out of this will be interesting.
Asked Them
Boundary Fatigue
SPS. Sigh...
QA Parent
Duh
Welcome to SPS HCC - your experience jives with ours. Our kid got a much more rigorous education in her walk to math elementary school. In HCC - she and another child were forced to teach math to the other HCC students because, somehow, the teacher was not competent to do so.
My strong feeling is that SPS has been using HCC identification to shunt students to other schools to artificially prop up test scores in those schools.
ItsARacket
SPSParent
Tokenism
It's not either/or. The district could set aside seats reserved for underrepresented populations, especially using FRL (entirely legal). SPS could actually have some option schools in the true sense of the word.
Heck, the district could even revamp its HC identification and services protocol
to follow state law. That would make the possibility of HC site services a moot point in terms of demographics concerns.
It is very, very disingenuous to hear the tidal wave of response to the new SAP scenarios follow this argument: If HCC students are moved back to neighborhood high schools, what about those unfortunate HCC students who will be stuck in high schools that don't have equitable AP offerings...
Those highly impacted schools are ALREADY offering scant challenging courses to their current students. You didn't see Sealth on the U.S. News and World Report listing, did ya?
This self-serving argument about returning students to neighborhood schools would be taken as something other than what it is--had these new "equity ambassadors" been concerned about the students in those highly impacted areas all along.
Since when has this same crowd cared about segregation? Where's the outcry about the SAP been? Where's the concern about the segregated demographics in HCC been?
Transparent Narcissism
There are a number of reasons that SPS is a segregated school district. HCC is not really at the top of the list.
TN, get a moniker and hang onto it. This constant changing of names fools no one.
Equity Warrior$
But there's the rub - if you want to break up HCC kids, then you HAVE to provide enough of those classes in high school. There is no way, really, around that unless you have much smaller class sizes (like a private school) and really good teachers who have PD in providing rigor.
This is also the option that moves the most kids like you mentioned near 2200.
It also takes 1000 kids (mostly QA & Magnolia) out of Ballard (that's alot of students) to send to Lincoln. I am concerned about all the kids in the various academies etc. Seems also like Ballard AP offerings could really reduce as well with this demographic leaving. I think this will be a surprise to many Ballard parents.
- T
even though it moves the most kids, hands down?
Or, let me rephrase that: How does map H serve and further their interests the most?
They post their dirt and "get real" on the APP/HCC blog, too smart to
remember it's a public forum, I reckon. On this blog, they are more careful
about what they "share" and use self-censorship when they're away from their homies.
It's often "uncanny" how the same poster changes messages from here to there, even though they use the same moniker. They get that Happy Hour sort of jargon and syntax, and it's a thrill to read--like catching your teacher smoking a cigarette in the lounge when the door briefly swings open. What a hoot!
Btw, don't you think the algorithms of ThoughtExchange will have your demographics down to a science by how you vote and respond? Maybe they'll sell the results to some local radio stations or, better yet, Russia.
Act aFool
Option H was reported as the favorite of those attending the SAP meeting, not the favorite of "the HCC crowd," whoever that is.
The only attempts at deception here are by you. HCC blog posters aren't trying to hide anything. Is there sometimes different language used? Of course. That's often the case when working in specialty vs. generalist settings. Plus, there are a lot of people (like you?) who are so biased against kids who are different that we parents need to be extra careful. But you know that.
Act wUnderstanding?
No you misunderstood my post. To clarify, Map H is what task force (not HCC parents) put forth as recommendation.
-T
discharge before period