Seattle Schools This Week
On waitlists, here's the page and the pertinent wording:
Starting this week, it's Jump Start for kindergartners.
As well, I have written the Board to ask that the policy of NOT providing documentation online for committee meetings be changed. It is just silly to have to write - for every single committee meeting - for the documentation.
Monday, August 20th
ITAC (Information Technology Advisory Committee) meeting, from 4:30-6:00 pm at JSCEE.
Tuesday, August 21st
Curriculum & Instruction Committee meeting at JSCEE from 4:30-6:30 pm.
Wednesday, August 22nd
Operations Committee meeting at JSCEE from 4:30-6:30 pm.
Board Work Session on BEX V at JSCEE from 6:30-8:30 pm. (I will not be able to attend this one and hope someone else can and report back here.)
Thursday, August 23rd
Executive Committee meeting at JSCEE from 3-5 pm.
Immediately after this meeting, there will be a closed session for Bargaining.
Saturday, August 25th
Race and Equity Advisory Committee at The 2100 Building, 2100 24th Avenue S from 9 am to 1 pm.
District staff have been making waitlist moves since April, and staff continue to contact families as choice seats are available. Waitlists remain active until August 31, and moves will continue to be made where seats are available and such that waitlist moves do not impact staffing between schools.I continue to dislike this. I believe that it masks what is truly happening at schools and doesn't give the Board the truest picture of what parents want. And, it props up schools that the district should consider giving a change in order to transparently boost attendance.
In order to support attendance area schools and our district’s model, unfortunately not all students are able to get a different assignment beyond their attendance area school.
Each year, after open enrollment, district staff look at the effect of moving waitlists before making any adjustments. Typically, staff do not move waitlists that positively or negatively affect staffing. We recognize this can be confusing when there is physical capacity at a potential receiving school. Enrollment staff need to consider that a shift at one school has the potential to negatively influence the staffing and program viability at another school.
Starting this week, it's Jump Start for kindergartners.
Aug. 20 - 24, 9 a.m. - 12 p.m. Jump Start, a one-week free transition program for new kindergarten students at most schools.To note, there are no agendas yet available for any of these meetings. The Board's strategic manager, Nate Van Duzer, is gone now and the office adm has no published email.
Jump Start is a FREE week-long experience for Kindergartners to learn about school. Children will become familiar with their new school building, staff, typical school day activities and practices. Their parents/guardians will be able to meet with the school principal and ask questions about school.
As well, I have written the Board to ask that the policy of NOT providing documentation online for committee meetings be changed. It is just silly to have to write - for every single committee meeting - for the documentation.
Monday, August 20th
ITAC (Information Technology Advisory Committee) meeting, from 4:30-6:00 pm at JSCEE.
Tuesday, August 21st
Curriculum & Instruction Committee meeting at JSCEE from 4:30-6:30 pm.
Wednesday, August 22nd
Operations Committee meeting at JSCEE from 4:30-6:30 pm.
Board Work Session on BEX V at JSCEE from 6:30-8:30 pm. (I will not be able to attend this one and hope someone else can and report back here.)
Thursday, August 23rd
Executive Committee meeting at JSCEE from 3-5 pm.
Immediately after this meeting, there will be a closed session for Bargaining.
Saturday, August 25th
Race and Equity Advisory Committee at The 2100 Building, 2100 24th Avenue S from 9 am to 1 pm.
Comments
Greenwoody
"In order to support attendance area schools and our district’s model, unfortunately not all students are able to get a different assignment beyond their attendance area school."
This dramatically undermines school choice in SPS. It's basically saying you're locked in to your neighborhood school. This strikes me as a significant attack on the existence of option schools in SPS. Did the board authorize this? If not, the district staff have gone rogue and this ought to be addressed.
Optional
Because of the growth of the population of Seattle plus not enough buildings (i.e. the capacity management issue), that choice is in the rearview mirror (and I think JSCEE staff like it that way).
A previous board authorized the assignment plan but, at that time, there wasn't the capacity growth issue that we have now so they probably had no idea how rigid it would become.
It's one thing to have a neighborhood assignment plan that is flexible, and where parents can request their child attend an option school and have that be granted if there is space at the option school. I understood that to be how the process worked.
But now the district is saying that they will only process requests if the child leaving the neighborhood school doesn't affect staffing at the neighborhood school. That's a big change. So the option has now been significantly limited, and this could be the thing that kills off option schools entirely.
What I'm suggesting is that the staff made a major policy change - and I don't know if the board signed off on it. Did they?
Optional
I think you may be comparing apples and oranges.
What I read it to say is that the district wants to lock you into your neighborhood assignment and won't change it to another non-Option school even if there is room at that school. I thought the Board had said no to cutting people off like this but maybe something changed?
Every effort should be made through the choice process to move kids out of over-capacity schools even if it means a change in staffing.
Perhaps they are doing it now, but years ago they were not. They artificially capped Boren to prevent losses at two schools, one of which was over-capacity. Ridiculous.
Again, I think that the Board is allowing the district to artificially populate some schools. That will drive people to charters if they feel they have fewer options. And, it doesn't make those schools better, just fuller. It masks what may be real issues at certain schools.
In short, it's a bandaid for a real problem.
With a little flex in the system, a lot of students can be given choice seats without changing staff levels much or at all. Last spring when I ran numbers, you could give something like 500 high school students their first choice assignment and not change enrollment at any school by more than about 20 students. Staff have crippled choice by making the system rigid.
Fairmount Parent
Kids in poorer areas are assigned to less desirable schools, as a direct consequence of NSAP. The district can shrug this off as an of it we’re an unintended side effect of neighborhood zoning.
But then allowing kids in rich white neighborhoodd much greater access to option schools in order to support the staff funding model, which is fully within the district’s ability to change — how can they shrug that off as not racist? How does it pass the Racial Equity Toolkit test to allow kids in rich white neighborhoods greater access to option schools?
SE Parent