Seattle Schools Community Forum

I have to thank so many of you for your input.   You don't know how many times someone either reaches out to me at my Save Seattle Schools e-mail (sss.westbrook@gmail.com) or writes something here that sticks in my brain.  It's like a phantom itch; it doesn't matter how much you scratch, you can't make it go away. So I think I have figured out (and some of you probably as well) why TFA is so damn sure they'll be putting their recruits into SPS.   That Wendy Kopp doesn't even try to demur should tell you something.  (Janis Ortega, the regional TFA director, does the same thing in her e-mails to the Dean of the UW's College of Education.   Funny, he never asks her why she's so sure.) They are sure because I would bet money that the district has a quiet agreement (beyond the contract) about TFA.  Here's how it will work: As many of you have point out, there are many schools (not just a couple) that the district projects as under-enrolled....

This is the first I've heard of this and echoing Kellie LaRue who forwarded it to me, I don't know what to make of it. SPS Demographics Review Task Force Application Date: Thursday May 19, 2011 Time: 9:00 am - 10:00 am   Location: John Stanford Center Notes: SPS Demographics Review Task Force Application Due Thursday, May 19, 2011 Seattle Public Schools is looking for a few volunteers from the community to participate on a Demographics Review Task Force. Current demographic projections suggest that up to 7,000 new students may enter Seattle Public Schools over the next 5 years. The total student population could rise from 47,000 students today to 54,000 students over the next 5 years impacting every school in the District. The purpose of the task force is to review the impact of demographics on the New Student Assi...

The information comes from the April 13th meeting of the Executive Committee.  The three Committee members - DeBell, Sundquist and Smith-Blum -  were in attendance.

From KUOW's The Conversation producer, David Hyde: We’re doing a show tomorrow that’s tentatively titled, “what are you doing to get your kid into K-12 school? (public or private).”  I’m looking for people who can tell us their personal stories on the air sometime between 12:40 and 1 pm tomorrow.  If you know anyone with an interesting story to tell please pass this on, and I can call in the morning to discuss it (between 9 and 10:30 am).  I would need two numbers:  the 12:40 and 1 pm number (land line).  And the morning / backup cell number. Or if any of your blog readers is interested, they can call our feedback line and leave a message (with contact information) @ 206 221 3663.   

As I started this thread, I went to look for the handouts that were available.  Here is the link to the agenda for the handouts.  However, I am very annoyed that I cannot easily locate the one that I thought was the most interesting.  What this means is tomorrow I have to call Tracy and then have someone send me the link because, of course, you can't find a darn thing at the new website.  This also means sending a letter to the Susan Enfield (and the Board)  to request that every single thing staff hand out be posted.   (Sorry to be grumpy but it's tiresome to have to do this multiple times in a week.)  More on the interesting handout at the end of this thread. 

Upfront, I want to get a few things off my chest from what I heard at both the Work Session and the Board meeting.  I'm going to write this opinion and then move on to what was said at the Work Session and Board meeting.

Today sees both the Work Session on Capacity Management and the regular Board meeting . The Capacity Management Work Session starts at 4 p.m.  These are the supporting documents. Presentation Timeline - with dates about BEX IV starting in October of this year Model Changes Sample Metrics - look! a matrix of metrics (say that fast three times) Look at the Presentation because there's a definition of Functional Capacity (collect 'em all) AND why it fluctuates.  According to the 2011 Capacity and Enrollment numbers, the district is at 97% capacity utilized with K-5 at 104%. The Board meeting starts at 6 p.m. The Board meeting looks like it could be shorter than usual with a lighter-than-usual agenda.   The public testimony list is full.  The Teaching and Learning update will be presented by Cathy Thompson on ICS and Inclusion.  I note that 6 of the speakers on the public testimony list will be speaking on the ICS program.  As previously...

Part of the last Operations Committee meeting was devoted to Capacity Planning and Management and there were several documents released. They finally made it to the SPS website (thanks to readers who pointed that out - I lost track in all the financial crisis tangle). They are: Enrollment Projections Facilities Planning Annual Report Capacity Planning Management Annual Report Unfortunately, there is one missing document which is the 2010 Enrollment Headcount and Projections by School. It has some data not in the Enrollment Projections document that is interesting. I'll try to get this one as well. The Enrollment Projections is a series of 30 charts (have fun, kids!) projecting enrollment to 2015. The big number here is that they are saying: Based on the adjusted projections, the 2015 moderate projected enrollment is 53,969 students. That is a difference of 9200 students. Let that sink in. Can our district handle 9k plus students? (Of course with the current debacle, t...

Update: found the listings for elementary tours. Very convoluted to find. Most elementaries do not have tours until late January and most go into late Feb./March. However, Bailey Gatzert has two this week (on the 11th and 13th) and Madrona has an evening tour on the 13th. I have to say that with very few elementary schools having a tour during Early Enrollment (ending Jan. 31), it might make it hard for parents to decide "do I enroll now or do I want to want for Open Enrollment?" Elementary school tours are organized by service area: Aki Kurose Service Area Denny Service Area Eckstein Service Area Hamilton Service Area Madison Service Area McClure Service Area Mercer Service Area Washington Service Area Whitman Service Area The district has put out some info on enrollment . if you are continuing at your school (or are a new student who completes Early Enrollment by Jan. 31), you should receive a confirmation letter by mid-March . Assignment letters will con...

FYI, SPS is conducting early enrollment for incoming kindergarteners as well as students who will be new to SPS next fall. Early enrollment started in October and continues thru January 2011. Open Enrollment starts is from March 15-31, 2011 with notifications mailed in May 2011. I note that Queen Anne Elementary is having a couple of kindergarten meet-and-greets, one on December 14th and one on January 5th. These are NOT at the school but at a PTA parents' home so they are limiting it to 40 people. This information comes to us from the Queen Anne View. QA Elementary has a spiffy retro spaceship logo. Please let me know if you hear of any other kindergarten events before the regular January tours start. They have already posted the tour dates for high schools. These vary. A few schools do not have tour dates posted (Hale, Garfield, RBHS). Most are having 2-3 tours with Roosevelt having 1(!) day tour and one evening event.

I attended the first drop-in session for the NSAP and the Transition Plan. It was headed by Tracy Libros. About 7 people attended but I wouldn't have expected more given the lack of outreach by staff to let people know about it. I didn't come away with much info as Tracy and her team are still working on data analysis from this fall's enrollment patterns. (The Annual Enrollment Report will do analysis on Oct. 1 enrollment versus last year's, school choice trends, enrollment by attendance, option and service schools, siblings, by grade level, new schools, Spectrum/APP, International schools, K-8, demographics, where students live versus their school, kindergarten and projections.) So we just went over the some of the Powerpoint given at the Work Session and discussed our issues. Tracy handed out the Powerpoint and a US Census timetable for information which goes from Feb. 2010 - June 2013. It looks like the most basic info will come out in May-June 2011. (I could...

Here is the October 1, 2010 Adjusted enrollment count . Worth noting: Garfield grade 9: 547 - times 4 = 2,188 Garfield total: 1,788 Franklin grade 9: 432 - times 4 = 1,728 ***The size of the Franklin freshman class indicates that shifting the Garfield's southern boundary north will require shifting Franklin's southern boundary north as well. Otherwise, Franklin will be over-crowded.*** Cleveland grade 9: 233 Cleveland grade 10: 211 ***STEM is proving popular. I look forward to learning where these students live.*** Chief Sealth grade 9: 338 - times 4 = 1,352 West Seattle grade 9: 291 - times 4 = 1,164 Denny grade 6: 284 - times 3 = 852 Madison grade 6: 249 - times 3 = 747 ***We need to watch the imbalance between the North and South ends of West Seattle. Madison and West Seattle High have only four feeder elementaries. Denny and Sealth have six feeder elementaries.*** Rainier Beach total: 425 ***The enrollment at Rainier Beach continues to be desp...

There was a question about waitlists as some parents are hoping they will move and that their younger child can join an older sib at the older sib's school. I asked Tracy Libros, head of Enrollment, about them. "We are handling them centrally. We are constantly reviewing data and identifying where we can move waiting lists and then calling families. It doesn’t happen instantly – but it happens pretty quickly! (For instance, I worked Labor Day weekend to get as many calls as possible made before school started.) " So that's your answer for now. I would counsel patience because people do move around but it may not be until October. How many might move is anyone's guess. I honestly believe Tracy except for one thing (and this goes for the overenrollment and any other issues that will come up in the next 2-3 years with the NSAP). That one thing is that they really don't know for sure how it will all play out. You can't ascribe past attrition patterns ...

I taped the Board meeting Wednesday to listen to public comment and see what the Superintendent might have to say this time around. I'll go in reverse order on these two. The Superintendent herself didn't speak much for her updates. She had Tracy Libros, from Enrollment Services, talk about how this enrollment season had gone, early data and what to expect before school starts in September. Highlights: during Early Registration, 84% of those registering were kindergarten students Enrollment processed 7,038 forms, 5,780 were for choice seats Notification of waiting list movement should start soon (but again, it depends on the school) there are 8 schools that have 6-10 K sibs on their waiting list, 6 that have 6-10, 3 with 11-15 and 2 with 16-20 Enrollment will be collaborating with principals to see if they can revise their enrollment to put in more kindergarten students (okay, but what does collaborating mean? Arm-twisting or promises for more resources? It's hard to...

Thanks to StepJ who let us know the district had posted a document about the kindergarten sibling waitlists . There are 148 siblings on the waiting lists for schools that are not their attendance area school. There is a fairly even city-wide distribution of siblings who didn't get their sibling assignment with the largest for Kimball at 19 and John Hay at 18. Here's the document summary : "The following chart shows results for non-attendance area K siblings who applied for their sibling’s attendance area school during Open Enrollment. In summary: • 556 non-attendance area K students applied for their older sibling’s school.2 • 73% of these applicants (408 students) were assigned to their sibling’s school. • 27% of these applicants (148 students) are on waiting lists for their sibling’s school. These results are in addition to: • Students assigned to their attendance area school their older sibling attends. • 132 K siblings assigned to the Option School their older si...

If the school you named as your first choice for Open Enrollment does not have a waitlist, then you are in. That's confirmed. My daughter and her friend named Chief Sealth as their first choice for assignment. Chief Sealth doesn't have a waitlist, so they know for sure that they will be assigned there even though they don't yet have their assignment letters. You can check your school of choice from this web page to see if the school has a waitlist.

On the district Enrollment Service s page today: "NEW! We anticipate mailing assignment letters Friday, May 14. "

The early enrollment numbers are in and posted on the District web site here . Some highlights: There are 182 students assigned to the 9th grade at STEM. The District expects about 158 of them to actually appear in the October 1 count. That would be great. Yet for some reason the District says that there are only another 50 seats available. That doesn't add up to the 250 seats they claim are available in the 9th grade at STEM. There are 125 students assigned to the 9th grade at Rainier Beach High School. The District expects 91 of them to actually appear in the October 1 count. That would be a smaller 9th grade class than this year's. There are 140 seats available - more than are taken. Wait 'til some of those folks learn that there are seats available at Franklin and Chief Sealth. Garfield has a waitlist of 110 in the 9th grade, Roosevelt has 66, and Ballard has 38. West Seattle has 40 9th grade seats available, Franklin has 26, Nathan Hale has 22, Chief Sealth has 9. Ingr...

Thanks to the heads up by RavennaJen (hey neighbor!), there is a PDF posted by the Enrollment Office over the automated phone snafu as well as other enrollment information. Among the information: An override command inadvertently downloaded preliminary assignment information for next year to the automated phone line before the information was proofed and finalized. This should not have happened and we apologize for any inconvenience. A cross-departmental team has been working hard to process assignments. At this time it looks like we will be ahead of schedule with getting letters out to families and providing information to schools. (Original estimate was late May). Schools can’t assign students to classes until this data transfer is complete. Schools need not only individual student names, but a summary report of projected enrollment, space available, waiting lists, etc. The target date for providing this information is Friday, April 30. We updated the School Board last week ...

( Update: 9:10 am - Nevermind. I guess the district staff really does visit us (that was fast). The numbers are not giving out information now except to tell you to call Transportation. Question is: why were they live in the first place and will the information given be valid for people who did call?) Apparently some folks have tried calling automated enrollment numbers and have learned their child's assignment. You can try one of two numbers according to our readers. 206-252-0410 OR 206-252-0760 However, here's a caveat which is don't give it 100% credibility until you get it in writing in the mail.