Tuesday Open Thread

I'll have a separate thread on the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy that splits up families but I urge you to stand up against it.  There will be a Families Belong Together protest this coming Saturday, June 30th at the SeaTac Detention Center, 2425 S 200th St, Seattle at 10 am.  

Directions: Link Light Rail to the Angle Lake station is best. The detention center is right across the street.

Please note: we don't need to hear from anyone saying, "But the parents broke the law." Right upfront, I'd say yes, that is true.  But children should never be hurt for the sins of their parents.  There was no need to do this, it's clear the administration has no idea who is where and this may take months or even years to unravel.

Imagine if it were your child.  Enough said (I hope).

I attended both Work Sessions yesterday on the Facilities Master Plan/BEX V and Waitlists.  The Board asked some very good and very direct questions.  I'll do a full thread but here's the link to the two presentations.    Chock-full of interesting (and somewhat astonishing) data (Franklin High more underenrolled than Rainier Beach?)  I direct you to the following pages:
  • 41-43 - info on each school building and site classification
  • 44-46 - school demographics
  • 51 - ed specs page 
  • 57 - schools in the worst condition - I would consider this page to list the ONLY schools under consideration for BEX V (except the staff's baby, a downtown high school/elementary school)
  • 58 - Facilities rankings, worst to best.  Worst elementary? Alki.  Worst middle school? Whitman. Worst K-8? Salmon Bay.  Worst high school?  Ingraham (which I call BS on - the amount of capital funding that has poured into Ingraham pales in comparison to RBHS). 
  • 96 - Ever wanted to know about other land the district owns but is leased? Here it is.
Waitlist Presentation starts on page 99.

The Seattle Times' Danny Westneat had some thoughts on SPS as his daughter graduated from Garfield this year.  He points out the strides (and storms) that the district has been thru in those years and finds good in it.

Good news, bad news from the Capital Hill Seattle Blog: 

CB 119256 will set up funding to power the Mayor’s ORCA Opportunity program to provide the passes to Seattle Public School students at no charge at a cost of about $4 million per year. 

But, if approved Monday afternoon, another part of the $11.5 million annual boost in transportation spending from new sales tax and vehicle license fees implemented in 2014 would go to a limited private bus system.

The update on the private bus service:
Committee chair Mike O’Brien has pushed a vote on the legislation back two weeks to pound out issues around the private operator plan.


What's on your mind?

Comments

Sandy said…
Thanks for attending and posting the link to the Facilities Master Plan/BEX V and Waitlists work session presentations. As parent with young kids and a full time job I really appreciate your taking the time to do this. You are so much better at communicating than the district!

Thanks!
Anonymous said…
Metro can't provide enough buses for what is needed. They don't have enough bus drivers and barn space for maintenance. Plus, bus service east-west is awful. Better bus service to the light rail would be great too.

HP
Anonymous said…
Tried to read through the whole capacity agenda but I couldn't find the high school capacity that they kept talking about, nor could I find what they were proposing to do for Roosevelt, Hale, and some others to increase capacity. It was good to see that they still propose replacing Rainier Beach.

HP
Anonymous said…
Has Ingraham ever had a full remodel? The main gym was remodeled in 2011 courtesy of ESPN. The 2012 addition included a remodeled library, but the core building is relatively unchanged. The 500 student addition opening in 2019 will simply hide most of the original building from view.

https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/high-school/ingraham-high-school-will-get-extreme-makeover-treatment-8212-from-espn/

no BS
Argle Bargle said…
@HP,

The enrollment numbers are on the last two pages. The capacity forecasts for the future are provided earlier on but as bar graphs without a lot of detail, although they give a rough idea. Hard to see any page numbers, though...
Jet City mom said…
91% of students at Whitman are SPED?
Either resource room or self contained?

Jet City mom said…
With only 11% of students at Ballard high school in SPED, the Whitman number seems strange.
Anonymous said…
Why are there only 11% SpEd at Ballard?

The answer is behind Door #2.

Monte Hall



No BS, no Ingraham has never received a full remodel. However, to the best of my research, they are the only school to have appeared on every single BEX and BTA. It would have been better to give that school a cohesive remodel but it never happened. Ditto for Sealth.

Rainier Beach HS has had the lowest amount of work and money spent on it for BEX funds,
Anonymous said…
@ Melissa Westbrook-The high school population and Ingraham exploded in the north end and (as we know) Rainier Beach is very under enrolled. I wonder if this has something to do with it. Also, wondering about specifics about each buildings needs, maybe Rainier Beach is a better building and needed less work. The district is very concerned with equity, so I would love to hear the explanation. Ingraham has historically also has had a very diverse student population. We also can't really blame the HC program as they have many times put those kids in delapidated buildings.
KL
Well KL, wait until I get to the Waitlist Work Session. RBHS is no longer the most underenrolled high school.

But that underspend, over decades, for RBHS is not it just being underenrolled. It's pretty glaring. And Ingraham and RBHS were built within just a couple of years of each other.

I have no idea why you said anything about HC.
Anonymous said…
Which is the most underenrolled high school now?

HP
Anonymous said…
Chief Sealth has 326 empty seats plus 76 students assigned to the school who are on waitlists for another school. Rainier Beach has 302 empty seats plus 118 students on the waitlist for another school.

If every student was allowed to attend the school they chose, under capacity at each high school would be:

Ballard 409
Chief Sealth <401>
Cleveland 42
Franklin <148>
Garfield 184
Ingraham 163
Nathan Hale <9>
Rainier Beach <420>
Roosevelt 145
The Center School <44>
West Seattle <193>

I wish the district would contact students who have left/are trying to leave high schools and ask them why. A simple survey asking them to identify their attendance area school, which school they’d like to attend they’re assigned, and a list of reasons for their preference would not be difficult to create.

Fairmount Parent
According to the district, it's Franklin. Yes, I was surprised as well.
Also, there's a chart showing overenrolled schools AND the number of kids assigned there who are on a waitlist for another school.
Anonymous said…
Any word on whether we can expect the waitlists to move?

Fingers Crossed
Sandy said…
Their own numbers make it look like Franklin is NOT as under enrolled as RB or Sealth. How are they saying Franklin is more underenrolled?

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