Yesterday afternoon, Seattle Public Schools unveiled the proposed new school-by-school attendance boundaries.
For those of you without kids, not a big deal.
Got kids? Big deal.
Once the news hit that that the boundary maps were live, local parents began to log on to the new Address Lookup Tool to determine their proposed school assignments. It didn’t take long for parent and school email lists to light up with discussion, confusion, and questions.
Many parents directed others to this excellent article by The Seattle PI, excerpted below:
The new student-assignment plan, approved by the Board in mid-June, uses a community-based approach towards school assignments, sending students to schools closest to home.
[ ... ]
Under the plan, students entering kindergarten, sixth grade and ninth grade in the public school system will be assigned an attendance-area school beginning the 2010-2011 school year.
Students in other grades will be “grandfathered in” until it’s time to move to a higher grade at a new school or graduate. Option schools, also known as alternative schools, still require applications to get in.
[ ... ]
Five [schools] will be opening [including] McDonald Elementary School [which] will open during the interim at Lincoln High School in 2010. McDonald will open in its current Wallingford location in 2012 after much needed renovations.
[ ... ]
Parent Elena Waite, who has a son in kindergarten at Sacajawea Elementary School, is worried about what will happen when her 3-year-old gets to be school age, and how the school will implement the sibling plan. Her proposed attendance-area school is Green Lake Elementary.
“Eli loves Sacajawea,” she said.
[seattlepi.com]
Looking for a play-by-play reporting of yesterday’s announcement? The Seattle Public Schools Community Blog is great source. See for example, their reporting on a question raised by School Board Director (and Green Lake resident) Sherry Carr:
She asked about this finger of Green Lake at the top of the attendance area that goes into Maple Leaf. She also asked about McDonald straddling I-5 which she said could be a dangerous area because of drug activity. [ ... ] She pointed out that part of GL that would go to Eckstein would then go to Ballard and was in Roosevelt’s walk zone. (There are several of these anomolies around.) [ ... ] [Peter Maier] also wondered about the Green Lake finger that will go to Eckstein and then to Ballard. Harium explained that the #48 goes from GL to Ballard easily. (It still seems weird.)
[Seattle Public Schools Community Blog]
In wake of the news, a brand new blog has hit the scene. McDonald School will “focus on the new ‘attendance area’ that will be served by the now closed McDonald school.” The blog’s first post reads, in part:
According to the new plan, McDonald Elementary is scheduled to open in the fall of 2012, and will be housed in the interim at the former Lincoln High School building in the fall of 2010.
I hope that this blog can serve as a place to disseminate information and to gather questions. To the best of my knowledge Seattle Public Schools now has little information on the reopening of McDonald. The proposed opening does, however, raise a number of questions, such as, when the principal and teachers will be hired for the school, when there will be tours to meet the staff, when there will be information on curriculum, what options will be available for before and after school care, just to list a few.
The phone number for Enrollment Services is 206.252.0760 (press option O to get a live person) for those who wish to be more proactive in gathering information, or simply to let the school board know that there is a segment of the population that would like more information.
There will be several public meetings to solicit community feedback, and you can also submit comments via email. The school board will vote on the proposed boundaries Nov 18.
[McDonald School]
In addition, a yahoo group has formed “for those of us affected by the McDonald School change who are interested in staying abreast of those specific issues as Seattle Schools works out its plans.”
McDonald School View Larger Map
Parents have expressed many concerns on other neighborhood and school email lists:
Bagley kids have always gone to Hamilton and Eckstein so I know nothing [about Whitman Middle School], yet that’s where I’m currently assigned.
Has anyone else been shifted to the McDonald School?? We were in the Green Lake reference area, but now are in the McDonald School reference area, which [ ... ] will not be ready until 2012, so school will be temporarily (for two years!) at the Lincoln High building in Wallingford. This feels like a disaster to me. We can’t even tour our reference area school, and we had been gearing up for Green Lake.
The lines for Ballard High are not-yet-final, it is speculated they will move the line south of 85th. This definitely concerns me (living [below 85th and] a 10 minute walk from Ballard High). Now is the time to e-mail the school district, or attend the meetings if you have concerns about the boundaries.
We live [near] West Woodland, but I see we are now in BF Day’s area… I thought the intent was to send kids to their closest school??? Boy, the more I learn about SPS, the more I’m considering private school!
