Enrollment - All is Revealed

First, here's the agenda from the Seattle School Board meeting where this issue was discussed. The "Enrollment Planning Update" is item IX. You can see that there is a "previous materials" link and a "presentation" link. They are different for sure. That's because the first iteration was informational and the second one is to make staff's case. One glaring omission in the second iteration was a heat map in the first that had interesting information. 

Superintendent Brent Jones said yes, "we changed the deck a bit" and "it's an "evolving piece." I'm sorry but no Enrollment presentation should change that much in a couple of days. CLEARLY, the Superintendent and staff want their way, all the way, no matter what parents say.  During the discussion, it felt like "oh those parents, they just don't know what we know." 

He also stated that "We may even sound defensive but we are just trying to explain what it is." 

Were they defensive? Not really but they refused to acknowledge that parents have a point that is valid, given what the district does with waitlists and what that looks like.

Fred Podesta, Chief Operations Officer, said, "It's not a value proposition."

But "value proposition" is VERY much what it is. Because it's about what the district values in running schools over whether they want to make parents feel empowered in the choices they make for their students' education. They have no malice in what they are doing but they very much want to continue  their big plan around buildings that they have not and will not fully explain. 

Because there is a plan and in order for it to work, they need to control how many students are in which buildings. That's it, plain and simple. They have particular buildings they want to save and others they want to starve out. 

I suspect some of that is based on building condition, overall continuing falling enrollment, and dislike of Option Schools. 

Staff wants you to know that if they did it YOUR way, smaller schools would get smaller and have fewer services and just fail. But somehow, the district doing it in reverse is okay. 

Let's suss this out. The district has a plan to consolidate buildings. This is clear from the building of multiple elementary schools at a 500-600 student size over the last decade. That issue has NEVER been openly discussed.

And, it means closing some schools.

What the parents who are advocating for choice and the movement of waitlists are providing the district is what was advocated for what? three decades ago. Namely, competition. Those waitlists prove what is popular and desired by parents for their students. This should be a great thing for staff to know and try to emulate in other places. Those waitlisted schools also tend to not just be popular but do well academically. 

But those are NOT the schools that the district wants to keep. So you keep their enrollment down so you can later say, "Well, their enrollment continues to drop." When in fact, it's manipulation by Enrollment office staff, year after year. It's the reason many families leave the district in frustration. 

The Discussion

Superintendent Jones brought forth Dr. Marni Campbell, Well Resourced Schools Officer,  to explain. 

Just as an aside, if you have never heard Dr. Campbell before, either on tv or in person, she's a very active listener so you do feel like you are being heard but she also went to principal charm school and sometimes it comes off as phony. 

She said they had a "great team" that had PhDs and demographers. That's interesting because I thought the district had no demographers. She said their projections come from a great deal of analysis. And, at some point, "we freeze the design." 

She also said a lot boils down to looking at "the outgoing class (5th graders) and the incoming class (kinders)." That got used a lot but not really explained. Is it number of students, characteristics, what?

She said that since 2010 the district has guaranteed a neighborhood assignment as well as some choice. 

She said that parents needed to remember there are tiebreakers that don't apply to all so that may be part of the confusion. It's things like on-time applications, geozone, siblings, etc. 

I want to point out that "siblings" USED to mean that the incoming student would be follow a sib already at the school. With the current version, if it's a school where they want to keep the enrollment down, the older sibling will be guaranteed a spot at the school the younger sibling was assigned. 

She also said that they are still "normalizing" after COVID AND that the discussion around school closures may have spooked some families. 

Questions

Director Brandon Hersey asked if they could explain it to him like he's 8 years old. "It might make sense to me, but parents look at these factors and not all may apply, and yet all do impact them."

One thing that was stated was when parents submit their choice application. My read from the Enrollment section of the SPS website is that ALL choice applications are batched together, not processed as they come in. Does anyone know this for certain?  That section does say that you can apply for choice after February but you cannot use tiebreakers and you fall to the bottom of the list with on-time choice applications coming first. 

Campbell said that "the waitlist comes with later choice applications." I wish she had made it clear what that specifically means. 

Hersey continued and asked:

1) Do we give a rationale for the decision?

2) Why have waitlists with 100s of students and no movement, kind of "the Eternal Waitlist?"

Campbell said no, they don't generally give a rationale except that it does say on the form that choice is NOT guaranteed. She later said that if someone asks by phone, they will give a rationale but probably just a generic answer if an email. Hersey thought they should ALWAYS give a rationale if a parent asks.

Hersey said that people may make up their own reasons they didn't get in if the district doesn't give a clear answer. 

She also said families on a waitlist who got contacted that they cleared the waitlist had two days to accept.

Then it started getting tense. Director Rankin laughed and said that this was not a Board discussion to have. President Topp said the Board learning about the process by asking questions was good. 

I want to make the point that Rankin was trying to use SOFG to stop the discussion. But at NO TIME was there EVER any discussion by any Board director about telling Dr. Campbell and her staff to change anything. The Board asked informational questions which is an absolutely perfect use of their time. When they understand how it works AND what parents get told and why, then they can talk to their constituents. 

Topp did ask about what happens if one child leaves a school versus 10 leaving that same school. Campbell said too many exiting would impact the school that is being left and that the receiving school might not necessarily get more staffing. 

I would agree that just because the building isn't full doesn't mean that there's room at all grade levels. However it's just as valid to say district staff and school staff are loath to have to go to the trouble of reorganizing just because a bunch of parents favor one school over another. 

Rankin against said this is "operational" (which is outside the scope of SOFG) and it's fine for detail but she seemed to think that the directors were trying to create change for different people and "you lose the big picture." 

Interestingly, Dr. Campbell said something like well, if it's your one child, how are you supposed to look at the big picture?"

Rankin said something about a proposal from staff to deal with this in a way that aligns with our values. 

She said "the elephant in the room is that we are at 65% capacity in our elementary schools. If we had schools with three grade levels per classroom, it would be better." and "I don't understand why were are not talking about that."

Know what "that" is? Closing schools. If you close some schools and move kids to the bigger buildings, then you could have 3 classes at every grade level. Most of the current buildings could not support that. 

Topp tried to stop that complaining, twice. She asked, "Staff, do you need something from us?" Rankin seemed miffed and said they were "blurring the line between governance and operations."

Folks, if Board directors asking informational questions and hypotheticals so that they understand the running of the district is wrong, then we're in trouble. 

Director Sarju said she heard that the district does not tell every family why they were declined. Campbell said no, families will be told if they call or email. Sarju again said that was NOT what she was hearing.

Campbell made a note of that.

One student director asked about immigrant families trying to do this in two days if accepted in. Campbell said they make sure that with those families they would answer by phone in home languages. 

President Topp made a good point saying "the construct we created, resources following students, we decide on resources before assignment?" Campbell just repeated her point about incoming and outgoing classes. Topp looked confused.

Director Clark asked about projecting enrollment February from October numbers from last year? Campbell said something like, yes we go back a couple of months. (I note at this point that Sarju and Rankin were not listening and having their own conversation.)

Rankin raised another point, asking if DHH parents could get a priority since many spoke a first language at home - ASL.  Campbell made a note on that.

This discussion certainly made it clear that resources DO get assigned before assignments. And, that staff withholds spaces at a receiving school if too many students are leaving the same original school. 

Stability versus choice is what staff says but it is stability that the staff can either shore up or topple. 

That's exactly what THEIR version of enrollment is doing.