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 2018-2019 but 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:
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.

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)
If you or someone you know needs translation or ADA services, please email communityengagement@seattleschools.org.
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.

The full list of additional engagement opportunities will be available on this site by the end of the week.
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.

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.
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.
Do let us know when you get onto the Thought Exchange. It will be interesting to see what is said. 

Comments

Anonymous said…
How many times has SPS changed the SAP since we went back to neighborhood schools? It feels like this happens every year.

So annoyed
Bookin' said…
I, for one, love that the district is attempting to get feedback. I'm sure there's a good chance they'll do the opposite of what families want, but it still shows a vague interest in what the users of the system think. Which is a huge step forward. The planning for where to put students in high school will work out much, much better if the district is able to admit that some of the students want to go to college and allows some kind of mechanism for students to attend schools not just based on the wealth of the families who own houses in the neighborhood (Roosevelt and Ballard, I'm looking at y'all), but also based on the advanced learning needs of students independent of family wealth. Schools shouldn't be meting out advanced learning as if it were some rare commodity. These are schools. Stop rationing what kids learn. Let kids learn regardless of how much money their families have.
Anonymous said…
Newly posted, updated boundary scenarios linked in September 28 meeting info. Proposed changes involve RBHS and FHS as well.

fyi
SusanH said…
fyi: can you please post a link? I can't find anything other than a one-page agenda for the meeting on the 28th. What are you looking at? Thanks!
SusanH said…
Here it is, for others: http://www.seattleschools.org/cms/One.aspx?portalId=627&pageId=27901377
Anonymous said…
Hale's boundaries are crazy stupid. Kids that could easily walk to Hale would be sent to Roosevelt.

HP
Anonymous said…
Well Magnolia, where would you rather go? Ballard or Lincoln?

Frelardian
Anonymous said…
...and kids who could easily walk to Roosevelt (Maple Leaf area) are being sent to Hale.

crazy making
Anonymous said…
Hale to Roosevelt:

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
DMR said…
Why are they moving the Franklin/Rainier Beach boundaries in Scenario I? It's swapping one high needs population for another, moving kids that would likely do better with more stability. I don't know those neighborhood well- are the current boundaries splitting neighborhoods in a weird way?

It's also taking 35 kids out of Rainier Beach- I though RBHS was under-enrolled already?

-DMR
StringCheese said…
I just got finished answering the questions on the Thought Exchange. The link that I received was for proposed AL changes for high school. The questions are broad and open ended with no limit to the number of thoughts/suggestions/questions you can post. You can then read through the thoughts and suggestions of others and rate how you feel about the comments made by others. Although, I must admit that I am not entirely sure what I was supposed to be rating – my agreement? my opinion on the relevance of the comment?? All comments are presented anonymously.

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.
Anonymous said…
OMG. The Hale-Roosevelt proposed boundary changes really are totally insane! Kids living just a few blocks from Hale will be assigned to Roosevelt, and will probably have to take Metro to get there.

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
JLardizabal said…
The AL survey comes from a private company, Thoughtexchangs, not a district email address, so parents should check their junk folder for it. It was apparently sent only to current HCC families with children in grades 5-12. My survey link had a nine-digit code at the end of the IP address that linked me with my child's school. I'm not sure, therefore, whether an individual's link can be shared with others.

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?
Anonymous said…
One thing I am confused about, what do they mean when they say there are students at non-HCC pathway schools receiving HCC? If my JAMS HCC kid goes to our neighborhood high school (Roosevelt) and doesn't need to re-take Biology and gets placed in Chemistry as a 9th grader, does that mean he is "receiving HCC services"? Thanks!

TM
Lynn said…
No. HCC Services in high school means the cohort. Those kids listed as receiving services live in the Roosevelt attendance area but attend Garfield or Ingraham.
Anonymous said…
Thanks, Lynn!
JLardizabal, thanks for that info. Odd that they didn't ask an equity question.
Anonymous said…
I found the ThoughtExchange interface very user UNFRIENDLY. It was obvious how to add your own comments (what/why) but once that was finished, it was not at all clear how to review what others posted and to rate them. It took a lot of random clicking to get to where I could see other comments and rate.

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
Anonymous said…
I added up the numbers listed as moving from one school to another ...

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
SusanH said…
QA parent, totally agree! Very bad research interface.

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.

Anonymous said…
I got the survey and don't have a child in advanced learning. She did qualify for Spectrum several years ago but there wasn't room (Whittier), so she's never been enrolled.
Whitman Fam.
Anonymous said…
I got the survey and I also don't have a kid in advanced learning. I didn't fill it out because I didn't want to have to create a thought exchange account.
- CP
Anonymous said…
I have kids in HCC and did not get the ThoughtExhange survey even though I got an e-mail last week that I should look out for it (yes, I did check my spam folder).

SPS mom
More Info said…
It is important that the folks in AL hear from families whose children qualified for services but, for various reasons, did not officially enroll. This would actually be a good line of inquiry all on its own. I'm glad that they are sending it out to all families of qualified (if not enrolled) children. For a variety of reasons we have not enrolled our HCC qualified child at the designated HCC schools. I would love to see an increase in AL offerings at all high schools. I will fill out the survey.
Anonymous said…
I have a kid in SPS HCC and it just seems not good enough. It seems like my kid is miles ahead of the other kids in SPS HCC. We moved here from out of state so it could be that SPS HCC is just inferior to the program we came from.

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
Jet City mom said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said…
This is yet one more example of the district not clearly spelling out the rationale and the tradeoffs implicit in the various scenarios they say they are considering. The board and we, as parents, need to hold them accountable to provide EVIDENCE and PRO/CON and RATIONALE for the decisions they're making or considering making.

Stop the madness.

Concerned Parent
Jet City mom said…
When we moved to our house, students on our street attended West Woodland, Whitman and Ballard.
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)



Anonymous said…
FYI, I just heard from the district that the advanced learning survey was sent to ALL families with kids in grades 5-12, not just those with students in or qualified for the AL department's programs and services.

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
NESeattleMom said…
Newbie, what grade is your HCC kid in? Some years start slowly in some subjects because people have added in (for example in 6th grade) and they are catching up from skipping a year of math. I'm not expert, only a parent of two with that experience. Do you know there is a blog like this for HCC? It is called discussapp. People on this blog sometimes get sick of discussing HCC.
Anonymous said…
I have been madly scrutinizing the series of high school boundary maps (now versions "G" "H" "I"). Can anyone explain the progression of this latest versions of maps from prior? From the June 1st meeting to now, there are now 9 progressive options. Does each release of options (now "G" "H" "I"), represent the most current working options, or are all the prior versions still on the table? I do not go to the High School Boundary Task Force Meetings (although I would like to) to understand how the next series of proposals are made.

Boundary Fatigue
Durkan Yes. said…
School boundaries are always changing and evolving. When my dad was at Lincoln he had classmates who came from as far north as Haller lake. (There were no Shoreline schools then). In a city this dynamic, with capacity in some areas so tight, it would be impossible to draw "forever" boundaries.
Anonymous said…
It was clear that the ThoughtExchange survey was given to more than just AL parents based on the comments I was asked to rate. Some real hostility there - not a surprise, but again, unless they track the source, how will they know how to segment the respondents?

SPS. Sigh...

QA Parent
I did ask the district about this issue of the ThoughtExchange and who was being asked to respond. I have not received an answer.
Anonymous said…
Newbie=troll.

Duh
Anonymous said…
Newbie,
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
Anonymous said…
I tried the ThoughtExchange survey. It is a very cumbersome and bizarre format. I doubt anyone, including SPS, will review it. There are no substantive questions on it.

SPSParent
Anonymous said…
I'm just going to say it. They brought in MGJ to end bussing and now Ashley Davies is the front person who gets to kill the HCC program, both moves creating the most segregated school system in SPS history since segregation.

Tokenism
Anonymous said…
Equating the effects of potential HCC changes with the resegregation of schools that resulted from the SAP is a new low.

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


Tokenism, Davies is the front person but she's not making the decisions.

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.
Anonymous said…
So, West Seattle and far South Seattle HC Students would be assigned to their neighborhood high school? Far, NNE HC students to Hale? Hmmmm. Some high schools will offer more AP classes because there is a supportive principal and a concentration of HC $tudent$ living in that area? If you don't like it, then buy a hou$e in that neighborhood?

Equity Warrior$
Equity Warrior, yes, that's how it looks. We have now circled back to the issue of how many AP courses each high school has which was huge about 10 years ago. They decided to concentrate them at several, while offering them at all, mostly because of HCC.

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.
Anonymous said…
@N by NW- A parent wrote up minutes to the SAP meeting and posted on the HCC blog. Seems the group thinks map H is the best option.

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
Anonymous said…
Why is the consensus of the HCC crowd that map H is the best option, do ya think, 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









Anonymous said…
@ Act aFool, you sure did.

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?
Anonymous said…
@act a fool "Why is the consensus of the HCC crowd that map H is the best option, do ya think, T,even though it moves the most kids, hands down?"

No you misunderstood my post. To clarify, Map H is what task force (not HCC parents) put forth as recommendation.
-T
srikanth said…
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