As part of the Student Assignment Plan (.pdf), the Seattle Public Schools will release the new attendance area boundary maps on October 6th. The plan, which was approved in June, gave the district the green light to draw boundaries around each school so students will know where he or she will go to elementary, middle and high school based on their address. There will be no more district-wide open enrollment to apply for schools.
Some Ballard parents are concerned because there’s been speculation that Magnolia and Queen Anne high schoolers will be assigned to Ballard, while Ballard-area high schoolers will be sent to Ingraham.
The attendance area maps will be released here once a School Board workshop gets underway at 4 p.m. on Oct. 6th. The district will hold informational meetings throughout the city to hear feedback on the attendance areas. The meeting for our area will be held at Ballard High School from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. on October 14th. The School Board will vote on the map on November 18th. The entire plan will be implemented in phases starting in the 2010-2011 school year.
BHS willl be a better school with more kids from Queen Anne and Magnolia.
Idle,
Will BHS be better by having fewer kids from Ballard as a result of having more kids from QA and Magnolia?
I will be pissed if my kid doesn't go to Ballard. We live 3 blocks away west of 15th. It seems ridiculous that he would go somewhere else.
I agree with you and I love your screen name. :)
Nothing against Mag or QA, but why can't they go to Lincoln High in Fremont? They have to travel anyay. Might as well go there. If the Ballard High School line is drawn lower than 85th I'll be upset. I'm 10 blocks north of BHS and 60+ blocks from Ingraham. Uff da! I'll see you on the 14th! Ballard parents unite!
“Being” a BHS student isn't some unfixed birth right. I think it'd be more accurate to say:
“Some Ballard parents are concerned because there’s been speculation that students who would have previously attended Magnolia and Queen Anne high schools may be assigned to Ballard High School, while some students who have previously attended Ballard High School may be sent to Ingraham.”
School district and attendance lines aren't handed down on stone tablets, they change all the time.
how is that so?
Lincoln High is not a regular high school, it is a utility building that is used to house school populations while their buildings are being renovated or rebuilt.
But you'd think since the Seattle School District's “walking zone” is 2- miles that they'd at least draw a circle around the school and include all within 2 miles . . .
We can't have neighborhood schools, that would be unfair to poor people, people of color. Think about education as a social justice issue and your rich, white kids are just the kindling.
Unless the number of kids within two miles of their closest school exceeds the capacity of school, in which case you'd need to enact “load balancing” of students among the available schools, some of which will be > 2 miles from the students' homes. The number and placement of schools and where the kids live is relatively fixed, so the only factor that can be adjusted in the commute distance for the kids.
Ideally, it'd be easy to expand and contract the size of school facilities (i.e. adding and subtracting buildings) to deal with shifting demographics, but we seem to prefer big brick buildings for schools.
Lincoln Hich School was once a regular high school. Look it up. It has been used as a temp for the last 12 years so that other schools could get renovated. Which was the first school to send its kids to Lincoln so their school could get rebuilt? Ballard. Once SPS is done renovating all the high schools, turn this school back in to a permanent one.
I am well aware of the history of Lincoln High School. It was practically condemned when Ballard moved in 12 years ago, and has been slowly improved since then as schools used it as an interim location. It is now in passable shape, but would still take work to be restored to a permanent high school.
But the fact is that SPS has been closing schools over the past several years. They will not be opening new schools, especially since they are not over capacity at the high school level.
I am curious where all of the speculation came from that north ballard would be excluded from BHS. Did the School Board say they were going to draw the line south of 85th? I even found a flier on my door one day urging me to call and complain. I am around 70th and 13th.
I can't figure out what you are talking about. This is all about reestablishing neighborhood schools. Do you realize busing is dead in Seattle because the parents of QA and Magnolia kids went all the way to the US Supreme Court to get their kids into Ballard HS ? They won, so your snide remark about 'white kids are just the kindling' is way dated, old news, ancient history and to keep bringing it up sounds like you've watched too much Fox News.
Last I heard it was still completely up in the air. There was initial speculation that they would draw the boundary at the street on the north side of the high school – 67th Ave NW, which was ridiculous. It makes no sense to spend money busing kids across town when they could just walk across the street to school. Then they said 80th, now I think it's totally up in the air. I'm not sure complaining would do any good. I think the SPS's are going to do what they're going to do no matter what a neighborhood (that isn't super rich) says.
The Ballard High School boundary issue is a huge fiasco, I agree with that. But as a mom of grade schoolers I am really glad that they are finally saying “this is your area – this is your grade school”. It was such a headache touring all the northwest cluster schools, having my head spin with “our school is better!!! that school sucks!!!” just to realize that really, all the NW cluster gradeschools are actually very good and no matter which one our kids go to they'll be fine. Plus, I didn't realize this, but if I hadn't put our reference school in our choices we would've been sent to an overflow school anywhere from 5 to 10 miles from our house, which is just weird. It makes a lot more sense just to say “this is the school your area goes to” and have that school be the closest one and leave it at that.
We need neighborhood schools. That is what this new plan is trying to create and I think the district/board are doing a good job at this. Unfortunately, there is a HUGE looming capacity issue in the north end and what is really needed is more buildings, not closures.
Go speak to your board reps, the district people, And the superintendent. Lots of easy ways to do this. If you are a parent, sign up with your PTA and keep informed.
There are no “bad” schools, only bad local involvement…
The whole idea that a student who lives just blocks away from a given school could instead be forced to be driven several miles to another school is just one more thing incredibly moronic thing Seattle does. Common sense says you should go to the school closest to your home if for no other reason than safety.
If I lived on Queen Anne, I would be clamoring for them to go to Garfield. This is the BEST public high school in Seattle. Test scores do not lie.
When I signed my kid up for BHS last spring, the school district employee told me that if he lives south of 85th, he will surely get into BHS. North would land him at Ingraham. I made sure to put Roosevelt and Garfield as 2nd and 3rd choices as insurance because they are also hard to get in to.
Funny, when I was in high school, everyone wanted to go to Ingraham. My friends in Magnolia and Queen Anne didn't care when they closed QAHS because so many went to private schools.