Yesterday, Seattle Public Schools announced a set of revisions to the attendance boundaries which will affect K-12 students across the city [read coverage here].

Since then, many Green Lake parents have, through school listservs and comments on My Green Lake, expressed their reactions to the news.  Several parents were surprised and saddened by the boundary shifts.

Ray Barker, who lives between McDonald School and Green Lake Elementary School, shared this note with us, which he sent to the Seattle School District, Sherry Carr (the representative for Green Lake area schools on the School Board), and school administrators:

SSD, Ms. Carr, administrators.

I failed.

I failed to to the one thing we always forget to do. To speak up and and say. “Hey this is good on this Map, All is well”

And perhaps speaking up earlier would have meant the REVISED changes would never have happened. I live between the proposed schools of McDonald and Green Lake Elementary.

I am also an active member of the “Friends of McDonald” and this summer spent time fundraising for Playfield toys for McDonald.

The original proposed boundary was 60th, which with two schools located at 55th and 65th made sense.

Now the revised the southern boundary for the proposed school is 57th, A MERE TWO BLOCKS AWAY from the school. (Why have any Northern boundary at that point)

The purpose of these boundaries were to build communities around schools. This boundary change does just the opposite, it shatters and divides an already EXISTING community (Actively involved in the School before SDS even consider reopening) actively committed to building the playground.

I strongly urge the council to revert back to the original 60th street boundary and allow this active McDonald community to stay intact.

I wish to speak out on this issue as soon as possible and look forward to attending the upcoming Forums.

Thanks

Ray Barker

There will be a Community Feedback Meeting tomorrow (Thursday, November 5th) evening, 6:30-8:30 p.m., at Roosevelt High School (1410 NE 66th St), as well as several other community meetings over the next two weeks.

The School Board will vote on the final boundary map on November 18th.  If approved, the changes will effect students entering kindergarten, 6th grade and 9th grade in the 2010-2011 school year.

Have thoughts that you would like to share?  Add them to the comments of this post.