Seattle Schools Community Forum

The Supreme Court today struck down both Louisville, Kentucky and Seattle's use of race in their school assignment plans (as presented to the Court). The vote was 5-4 down the conservative versus liberal lines with Justice Kennedy being the swing vote. Here's the article from the Times. Justice Kennedy wrote a concurring opinion: "Yet Justice Anthony Kennedy would not go as far as the other four conservative justices, saying in a concurring opinion that race may be a component of school district plans designed to achieve diversity. To the extent that Roberts' opinion can be interpreted to foreclose the use of race in any circumstance, Kennedy said, "I disagree with that reasoning." He agreed with Roberts that the plans in Louisville and Seattle violated constitutional guarantees of equal protection." Justice Kennedy leaves the door open to carefully crafting an enrollment policy that uses race as a factor but, of course, the devil is in the deta...

The New Student Assignment Plan has been sketched out. We're all pretty familiar with the features as the lines are getting inked in: * Right-sized elementary school reference areas - matching the student population size with the school building capacity * Default assignment to a reference area elementary school * Guaranteed enrollment to a reference area elementary school * Continued choice in elementary schools * Elementary school transportation limited to clusters * Clusters reduced in size to cut transporation distances * Single middle school reference areas * Middle school reference areas aligned with elementary school reference areas (feeder patterns) * Default assignment to a reference area middle school * Guaranteed enrollment to a reference area middle school * Continued choice in middle schools * Middle school transportation limited to reference area school * High school transportation by METRO * Continued choice in high schools Also written, but not as darkly: * Single h...

The School Board will be voting on the revised School Assignment plan tomorrow night at the Board meeting at 6 pm at the Stanford Center. Today on Crosscut, former Seattle School Board member Dick Lilly has an interesting article about the proposal: Seattle's contradictory school-assignment proposal .

Tomorrow on KUOW's Weekday at 9 am, Cheryl Chow and Michael DeBell will be talking with Marcie Sillman about the proposed changes to the school assignment plan. Call (206) 543-5869, (800) 289-5869, or e-mail weekday@kuow.org to join in the discussion. If you miss the broadcast in the morning, you can listen to it later by visiting the Weekday page on the web.

Congratuations to Seattle Public Schools, and the Board in particular, for addressing Student Assignment. The District is making a clear and rational effort to match the use of facilities with the demand for facilities. This is a truly wonderful thing and the Board and the District staff are to be congratulated and thanked for making this effort. The work that Tracy Libros has been doing has been both very important and very good. She has genuinely invited the public to participate in the conversation, and the public input is clearly reflected in the framework document. The data that she and her colleagues have generated is meaningful to the process and she has been very open about sharing it. The right-sizing of the elementary school reference areas is long overdue and very welcome. It has been goofy to tell 550 students that a 300 student building is their neighborhood reference school. We must all be very pleased that these mismatches will be fixed. People should have confidence tha...

On Wednesday evening the Board willintroduce a motion to approve the Framework for a Revised Student Assignment Plan . This is an interesting document. Here are a couple of intriguing points in it: Elementary school reference areas will be re-drawn to align with student population residing in each area and the building capacity. What number will they use for student population? The current public school population or the schoolage children population? What building capacity number will they use? There are a number of building capacity numbers for every school. None of them appear reliable or credible. Let's see these numbers before they act on them. How will school programs such as bilingual, special education and Spectrum be treated? Will each school be expected to provide these services for the students living in their reference area or will the District reserve seats for these programs that draw students from several reference areas? It isn't addressed, but it is a big deal....

I attended the Board work session on student assignment yesterday. There were lots of maps and data posted but I didn't get to look at them much. I'm assuming it's what is at the community meetings. All the directors were there except Bass and Stewart (it was being recorded for them). I thought there was much good discussion by the directors. There was one slight oddity which was that Director Soriano sat completely away from the other directors. I don't know why. The following is not a complete record but highlights as I took notes. Raj and Carla both spoke. Here is what Carla said that they are looking to do/have occur in terms of the assignment program: -equitable access to quality instruction -family engagement -access to programs and services -diversity -curriculum alignment through solid feeders Her requirements: -Quality teachers at every school -strong leadership at each school -increased resources and opportunities -intentional location of programs...

Please make time to attend one or more of the Student Assignment Plan events happening this week and next week. The decisions made about this policy will have far-reaching effects. Workshops start tonight . Drop-in meetings started last week and continue until May 30th. The schedule of upcoming events is: Workshops Tuesday, May 22, 6:30-8:30 p.m . - Hamilton International Middle School Thursday, May 24, 6:30-8:30 p.m . - NewHolly Gathering Hall Drop-in Meetings Wednesday, May 23, 6:30-8:30 p.m. - Ballard Community Center Thursday, May 24, 9:00-11:00 a.m. - Garfield Community Center Thursday, May 24, 1:30-3:30 p.m. - Delridge Community Center Wednesday, May 30, 3:30 - 5:30 p.m. - John Stanford Center More details can be found on the Student Assignment Plan page on the district website.

The District has created a new web site specifically for the review of the Student Assignment Plan. The web site includes information about meetings and events for community participation. The site also claims to offer the same information that is being provided to Board members. So far, the District has scheduled these opportunities for community members to participate in the discussion process about the New Student Assignment Plan: Community Forums: Tuesday, May 22, 6:30 - 8:30 pm Hamilton International Middle School, Auditorium, 1610 North 41st Street Thursday, May 24, 6:30 - 8:30 pm NewHolly Gathering Hall, 7054 32d Avenue South Drop-in Meetings: Wednesday, May 16, 11:30 a.m. - 1:30 pm John Stanford Center, 2445 Third Avenue South, Room 3700 Wednesday, May 23, 6:30 - 8:30 pm Ballard Community Center, 6020 28th Avenue NW Thursday, May 24, 9:00 - 11:00 am Garfield Community Center, 2323 East Cherry Street Thursday, May 24, 1:30 - 3:30 pm Delridge Community Center, 4501 Delridge Way ...

As a follow-up to the previous post , here's a short piece from Michael DeBell with thoughts about proposed changes to the assignment plan. I've also copied the 6 proposed policy changes below for reference. This is a difficult, emotional topic, and I appreciate Michael's willingness to put a draft plan out and solicit public feedback. ************* Long waitlists and perilously under-enrolled schools indicate we are not using the best assignment policy for our city. I wrote a preliminary essay/plan that I hope will move the discussion forward, help us start talking about changes and tradeoffs. Sibling and distance tie breakers offer virtually no citywide choice for popular high schools. Equal access to the specialty programs are particularly concerning, so the set-aside seats are a starting point to address this issue. Some urban, open choice districts have adopted automatic triggers for low enrollment schools resulting in reconstitution, consolidation or closure. An annu...

Interesting discussion today at Board Work Session on changing the school assignment and transportation plan. Here's what I took away from this meeting: The School Board members seem to have reached some level of consensus that the systems need to be overhauled and that, probably, will include limiting choice and transportation. This was an opening conversation, and not a presentation of concrete options or suggestions. Changes to the systems for 2007/08 will be small -- only what is necessary to support closures and consolidations. Major systemic changes will be implemented for 2008/09. Spent a fair amount of time talking about the purpose of each plan, who is currently being well-served, who isn't, and what some of the issues are for both the transportation and assignment systems. Surprisingly, when discussion got very focused on dollars and cents, many Board members returned the focus to academics , and what is best for children and families. I was encouraged by comments fr...