High School Boundaries - What Do You Want to Know?

Update: the latest from the district and the High School Boundaries Task Force.

end of update

The Board is to have a Work Session this week (Wednesday - with two of them - one for high school boundaries and one for Budget; I will let you know when the agenda is available which one appears to be going first).

What questions DO you want to see the Board ask/that you want an answer for?  
Please don't say, "A plan for how they will deliver HC services to all the high schools."  It's not going to happen anytime soon.  (I will update the Seattle Schools This Week thread with the resolution on HC high school services by Directors Geary and DeWolf.)

I worry that much of the discussion may be - yet again - taken up by where HC students will go.

One question I have is where have the Executive Directors been in all this?  They oversee high schools.  I never once heard Mr. Jessee state that EDs had meetings with their region's high school principals and what unified messages they heard from those regions. 

Here's a concern from another reader:

Something, that is very difficult to factor for are those families that are willing to rent and move to obtain the school assignment they desire.

It is not against the rules to move to a new rental within boundary. Or to rent and move to a new establishment within the boundary of the school you wish to attend and then rent/lease/airbnb your home until after graduation.

With all of the new construction around BHS and RHS these are two schools quite prone to this legal practice to obtain school of choice. (Provided you actually move and live in your new rented abode.)

With the recent lack of wait list movement this practice is becoming more frequent. (Based on personal knowledge.)

There is an impact to not moving the waitlists that falls beyond the control of Enrollment Planning.

I wish they would consider movement of waitlists to attempt to meet parent demand and a more predictable flow of enrollment.

I note that in years past, the district would investigate reports of people whose children attended a school and yet did not appear to live in the enrollment area.  I don't think the district does that anymore but they may have to consider it.

You might say, "Who can afford that?"  Well, if you have two kids in high school and you really want Roosevelt over going to private school, it would be cheaper.
 
Yet another reader:

The number of housing units being added in the Roosevelt corridor, many within a few blocks of Roosevelt light rail and some being added at the fringes near LCW, along with proposed zoning changes near RHS, makes one wonder if Roosevelt boundaries drawn now will even hold until 2021. 

Having lived in that area, I concur.  It's going to be a dogfight to be in Roosevelt.

Highlights from the discussion at the last Board meeting on this topic:

As I mentioned, Directors Mack and Burke led this discussion because they are on the Operations Committee. You'll see more of their comments.

- Burke wanted a "small number of viable scenarios" from staff for HC, dual language, grandfathering, etc.  He seems worried about unintended consequences from not clearly parsing out "if then, then that or this?" for scenarios.

- Mack, as I previously reported, listed factors to determine the boundaries as stated in the Student Assignment Plan.

-The discussion of a downtown high school came up with Geary asking when that might be able to come on-line.  Herndon said that would depend - and then threw out the idea of a levy, separate from BEX V, just for that school.  (I like that better than having two high schools on BEX V - new downtown and RBHS - because two high schools will take up a huge amount of funding.  I question whether it would pass.)  He said 2022 but Kellie LaRue and I think it would be much further out, like 2025 because of funding and having to negotiate with the City.  He also stated that the model for the downtown one - given it has to have a stadium - is Union City, NJ where the stadium is on the roof.  It cost $165 M but that was several years ago.  I put that price tag at $200M.

- DeWolf said he had a lot of email but mostly from Ballard and wondered about other parts of the city.  Herndon said they had heard from parents, a few students and teachers.

- Harris said her community meetings were many HC parents wondering about the program for high school.

- Director Geary always has good and then puzzling statements.  She spoke of "trying to engineer a child's education" but it was unclear to me if she meant that was good or bad.  I actually think most parents DO try to guide their child's education.  She also said, in Board comments, that parents were trying to "rationally bring emotional passion before us" in their testimony on boundaries.

- President Harris asked a key question, "What about the PASS (principals association) contract and putting in HC to Lincoln?  Does that violate the contract?"  Mike Starosky said there was nothing in the contract about HCC or planning, just that if a new school opened, there would be a planning principal.  He said she was "doing the best she can" with direction from the Board and Superintendent.

- Burke wondered about the boundaries being viable if returning HC students then would bump out students from further out. Geary chimed in and said that she wanted "an anchor" for boundaries.  (She said this was a contradiction of herself because she had previously stated that they have no way of knowing the future and how the boundaries would stand).

- Mack stated that the Board's plan to return HC students to their regional high school would not change from 2021 but the transition time was the thing.  Burke agreed and spoke of "portables and mitigation."

- Pinkham said he thought that the schools would be even more racially imbalanced with the return of HC students to their schools.  Herndon stated that they can project enrollment but not demographics and, with a growing city, those demographics are changing quickly.

- Harris spoke of the need for funding and mitigation for AL classes.  She also mentioned how the district cannot undo what the city has done for decades with zoning laws.  Herndon said she was correct that it is an urban city and the busing attempts had "impactful" results.  He said the transportation costs to the district and students being very far out of their communities are two big issues.  The goal is for every school "to be a fantastic school."

- Pinkham seemed irritated at the focus on HC (perhaps not realizing that where those students go highly impacts the boundaries).  He also stated that he wished that among the languages that he sees on signs in schools, that there would be a Native American language as most of the schools sit on indigenous land.  He said he realized that not many people spoke the language but it would honor that heritage.

I also note that both Geary and Burke spoke to their families histories of NOT going to the closest school.  It was the first time I have heard Geary acknowledge that one of her children had been in HC at Ingraham.

Burke said, "Where you go, that's your community.  He called walking "a convenience" and talked about the spirit of compromise.  I'm not sure I would agree about the "convenience" because the ability to have kids walk and bike to school is a big issue both for costs and health and community.

Pinkham spoke of flashing back to when Native American children were taken from their homes and forced into non-Native boarding schools.  But he also said, in thinking about what we say to kids, "home is wherever I am."

I will again say that this idea of keeping kids together from K-12 really surprises me.  I don't have issue with wanting to stay in your region but kids are resilient more than you may know and they make friends and find their way.  It puzzles me about keeping kids together because what happens when they go to college?  Will they fall apart without that cohort?  (And the number of times in public testimony that "cohort" was used made me smile given the pushback against an HC cohort.)