New Seattle school boundary maps approved

Geeky Swedes Ballard

Just after 11 p.m., the Seattle School Board unanimously approved the new boundary maps assigning which schools Seattle children will attend for years to come. The vote stretched into the night as directors added amendments to the plan, slightly adjusting boundaries here and there. For the Ballard area, the boundaries for Whittier Elementary/West Woodland and Loyal Heights Elementary/Adams Elementary were shifted slightly from last round of changes. The updated maps and address look-up tool will be available here by next week.

Above is a look at the new Loyal Heights/Adams Elementary boundary change. According to the Omnibus Amendment (.pdf), “Based upon current data, it is believed that moving the southern boundary for the Loyal Heights atttendence area from Northwest 75th Street to Northwest 73rd Street starting at 32nd Avenue Northwest running east to 24th Avenue Northwest, following the jog south in Northwest 73rd Ave at 28th Avenue Northwest to 24th Ave Northwest will result in a projections of 19 students shifting from Adams to Loyal Heights. This results in the projected enrollment at Adams moving from 13 in excess of functional capacity to 20 under functional capacity. Following the streets in this manner also ensures that the students who move into the Loyal Heights atttendence area are within the Loyal Heights walk zone.”

The southern boundary for Whittier Heights Elementary was adjusted from NW 67th to NW 65th St. Students north of 65th will go to Whittier, while students south of 65th will go to West Woodland.

The biggest remaining controversy was the dividing line between Ballard High School to the south with Ingraham High School to the north.

“Many families would’ve liked to have seen the boundary for Ballard to be further north than 85th St., especially those communities, North Beach, Blue Ridge, Olympic Manor, which now largely attend Ballard High School,” explained Seattle Schools Director Peter Maier. “I wish it would’ve been possible… but there simply isn’t the capacity at Ballard High School to do that while we’re serving the entire city.”

From here, a transitional plan will be developed, taking into consideration sibling grandfathering, transportation and educational programs for schools that will reopen. Viewlands Elementary is slated to reopen in 2011.

Geeky Swedes

The founders of My Ballard

128 thoughts to “New Seattle school boundary maps approved”

  1. It WOULD be possible for Ballard students who live north of 85th to attend their neighborhood school…if those seats hadn't been given away to students from Queen Anne and Magnolia. Now, instead of taking a 10 minute bus ride to Ballard HS, our children will have to travel for 1 1/2 hours (and three transfers) on a Metro bus to get to Ingraham. So much for the school district's claim that this new plan strengthens community ties!

  4. Why do you people north of 85th (Greenwood, Blue Ridge, North Beach) feel more “entitled” to attend Ballard than QA & Magnolia residents?

    QA & Magnolia are basically separated from Ballard by the bridge and they're closer to Ballard High then people north of 85th. Ballard is the closest high school for them to attend.

    As City of Seattle residents we all pay to support Seattle schools.

  5. I agree. When you all moved to North Beach and Blue Ridge, there was never any guarantee your kids would end up at Ballard HS. Why should kids in these neighborhoods go to Ballard HS when the kids a few blocks away in the less affluent neighborhoods (near Swansons & Small Faces) would still have to go to Ingrahm HS?

    It's funny how you all call where you live “North Ballard” to justify your claims to Ballard HS, yet when you tell people where you live or go to sell your homes with water views, you call it North Beach or Blue Ridge.

  6. Queen Anne high school and West Queen Anne grade school were sold to developers in the 80's and are now condos. I think Mic Densmore was superintendent then.

  8. “It does strengthen our community ties…with Queen Anne and Magnolia.”

    Which high school do you think QA & Magnolia students have been attending? This might be news for you but they're going to Ballard High now because it's the closest school to them.

  9. It's not an issue of entitlement for “you people”. I would like for my kids to attend their closest school, just like everyone else. By Metro, they would be closer to Roosevelt, Nathan Hale, or even Garfield (not to mention Ballard) than to Ingraham.

  10. Why do people always inflate the time it takes to ride the bus from 85th to Ingraham? 1.5 hours? Nice try. Check the metro trip planner. It is less than half that and not 3 transfers.

    Keep it real.

    Like you were going to let your snowflake walk over a mile down 15th to Ballard.

    Carpool…Everyone else does.

  12. David, which map are you looking at? The distance to 85th is just about the exact same distance as the distance to the Ballard Bridge. The southern end of Queen Anne is way further than any area that has disputed this boundary. Take a look at the map again.

  13. It's over now, n0 pitchforks needed. At least until we can get a decent lawsuit put together. Because as the old saying goes… if you're getting killed in the fight, at least scratch up their face a little bit.

    We need to ensure that Seattle Public Schools comes out of this in much worse shape than it went in (which may not be easy to do, given where it's at). Vouchers would be a great outcome here.

  14. As someone living in North Beach this doesn't bother me one bit. I will just send my kids to a private school which would be better than BHS anyways….

  17. I'll make sure that I take my affluence and not shop in Ballard, or attend any of Ballard High School's events seeing as I don't really “belong, ” according to your argument. (Do you know how much Ballard Beaver coffee I have in my freezer?)

    We say “North Ballard” because most people don't know where Blue Ridge, Olympic Manor, or North Beach are. It's easier to locate where we live if we say “North Ballard.”

  18. Excellent plan! We bleed the District of money, resources, and attention, then bitch that our students' schools don't have enough money, resources, or attention. Or we can live with the fact that we don't always get what we want and try to make the best of the situation.

  19. School bus? Also, it took me an hour and a half to get to ballard from kent so I have a really hard time believing it would take that long to get to north seattle from ballard.

  20. Boatgeek, I think the point is “our” students already don't get enough money, resources, or attention. But yours probably do. So what do “we” have to lose?

    In any case, for those parents who are interested in constructive change, another thing to look into is getting charter schools back on the map. These tend to make school boards a lot more responsive, and gives children more options, and in some cases, vastly superior options. Go to the below URL for more information about getting charter schools back in WA:
    http://www.wacharterschools.org/learn/nocharter…

    Vouchers would be better, but charters are a step in the right direction.

  21. Unfortunately, I can't give a direct link to it, as it doesn't generate a URL for a specific route. But you can go here:
    http://tripplanner.kingcounty.gov/cgi-bin/itin_…

    When I did it, I got two itineraries. One itinerary is a little over an hour and the other is about 1.25 hours. Note, these are scheduled times — my experience is this route tends to be slow.

    So these kids will spend over two hours commuting each day — and that's assuming that we don't lose metro bus routes, which seems unlikely from what I've heard from the city.

    It's pretty well known that public transit in North Seattle is MUCH worse than South Seattle and downtown Seattle.

    Itinerary #1

    Walk N from NW 85TH ST & 15TH AVE NW to
    Depart 15th Ave NW & NW 85th St At 06:42 AM On Route MT 75 University District
    Arrive Northgate TC AcRd & Bay 1 At 07:00 AM
    Walk 0.1 mile S to
    Depart Northgate TC AcRd & Bay 3 At 07:35 AM On Route MT 346 Aurora Village
    Arrive Meridian Ave N & N 135th St At 07:47 AM
    Walk 0.1 mile W to 1819 N 135TH ST

    Regular Fare: Senior/Disabled Fare with Permit:
    $ 2.00 $ 0.50 About Fares and Transfers

    ——————————————————————————–

    Itinerary #2

    Walk N from NW 85TH ST & 15TH AVE NW to
    Depart 15th Ave NW & NW 85th St At 06:42 AM On Route MT 75 University District
    Arrive Northgate TC AcRd & Bay 1 At 07:00 AM
    Transfer to
    Depart Northgate TC AcRd & Bay 4 At 07:05 AM On Route MT 348 Richmond Beach
    Arrive N 185th St & Meridian Ave N At 07:25 AM
    Transfer to
    Depart Meridian Ave N & N 185th St At 07:50 AM On Route MT 346 Northgate
    Arrive Meridian Ave N & N 135th St At 08:00 AM
    Walk 0.2 mile W to 1819 N 135TH ST

    Regular Fare: Senior/Disabled Fare with Permit:
    $ 2.50 $ 0.50 About Fares and Transfers

  24. What are you talking about distance! The furthest south that Ballard area covers is 5 miles driving distance south of the school following Elliott and then 15th all the way up.

    The furthest North that the boundary goes is 1.1 driving miles from the school. It absolutely is skewed to the south disproportionally!

  25. How come when I do the Trip Planner thing, I get…

    Itinerary #1

    Walk N from 15TH AVE NW & NW 85TH ST to
    Depart 15th Ave NW & NW 85th St At 06:57 AM On Route MT 75 University District
    Arrive Northgate TC AcRd & Bay 1 At 07:15 AM
    Walk 0.1 mile S to
    Depart Northgate TC AcRd & Bay 3 At 07:35 AM On Route MT 346 Aurora Village
    Arrive Meridian Ave N & N 135th St At 07:47 AM

  27. Unless you can get Ingraham to start at 10:30am this doesn't make sense :-)

    Certainly, we can do this route in 15 minutes at 11pm, but we don't get to pick which time students are expected to commute to and from school.

    Use the actual bus schedule aligned with expected start/end time for the schools.

  32. So why are people intent on a futile lawsuit or a pyrrhic victory against SPS by “bleeding” it dry, rather than working with Metro to get a morning and afternoon school-day bus run going, as Metro has arranged for getting people to the UW?

    Too logical I guess.

  34. May seem logical, but defies recent history. I suspect if one were to go down that route they'd add 10 new express lines for Magnolia/QA and probably cut all buses to Ingraham. That would be consistent with how things have worked thus far.

    The thing that seems to work best is lawsuits. It sucks, because they're slow and costly (although can make a career), but for this city, they are exceptionally effective.

  36. I'm not saying you don't belong…I'm saying you never had any guarantee your kids would go to Ballard HS under the old system. Your kids could just as easily ended up at Ingraham, or Roosevelt, or Nathan Hale.

    People who live in North Beach and Blue Ridge, Loyal Heights, Ballard proper, etc. don't do *all* of their shopping in Ballard anyway…considering there is no Costco, Nordstrom, Gap, Target, Bed Bath and Beyond, Barnes & Noble, PCC, Old Navy, etc.

    And you haven't answered the question as to why kids from North Beach and Blue Ridge should go to Ballard HS but kids who live on the other side of 15th Ave NW from Swanson's, near Small Faces, should go to Ingraham, especially considering they're phsyically closer to Ballard HS than North Beach or Blue Ridge.

    There was a petition circulated and sent to the school board that specifically requested that kids west of 15th NW and north of NW 85th Street – North Beach and Blue Ridge only – get to go to Ballard HS.

  37. It's based on population distribution, which is skewed to the south…there are more kids in Queen Anne and Magnolia than in Ballard.

  38. Not effective if you are bound to lose.

    But I agree with you about QA and Magnolia. They get EVERYTHING!!! The past 10 years when many of their kids couldn't get into OUR school, and didn't even get into any of their choices, well that was just an elaborate ruse to throw everybody off. They don't want us to know they run everything.

    In fact, I hear it's sunny down there right now!

    Bastards!

  39. then why did you even comment on this? other than to make sure we know how affluent and elitist you are and to bash seattle's public schools. why don't you just move to the eastside where you belong?

  40. “And you haven't answered the question as to why kids from North Beach and Blue Ridge should go to Ballard HS but kids who live on the other side of 15th Ave NW from Swanson's, near Small Faces, should go to Ingraham”

    These students should also go to BHS. No question there. Not sure who created and circulated the petition, but it should have included that area too.
    I didn't make the petition so I can't speak for it.

    I don't think anyone is saying that students felt they had an guarantees, but there is a belief that if you're creating “neighborhood” schools that you'd attend the school that is more than twice as close as another school.

    The ONLY other students in the school district that will face similar circumstances are those at the very southern tip of the WSHS boundary. The benefit they have is better transit — although that boundary is also screwed up.

  42. A) It's not unconstitutional. SCOTUS ruled on that and said as long as there is choice then it is not unconstitutional. It even says so off the site you linked:
    “A school-voucher program is permissible under the U.S. Constitution only if the families who receive the vouchers are genuinely free to use them at any one of a wide array of secular and religious schools, and the government does not encourage attendance at parochial schools over secular options or otherwise design the program to favor religious schools or families whose children attend those schools.”

    I don't think anyone here would want otherwise.

    (B) Don't read the biased summaries from this biased site. Go to the reports they source. You'll find the summary in the original source with a very different view. For example, for DC schools, read the actual report at: http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20094050/pdf/200940…

    Some highlights:
    “After 3 years, there was a statistically significant positive impact on reading test scores, but not math test scores.”
    “The OSP had a positive impact overall on parents’ reports of school satisfaction and safety, but not on students’ reports”
    “The OSP improved reading achievement for 5 of the 10 subgroups examined…. No achievement impacts were observed for five other subgroups of students”

    This looks pretty good overall. Improvement in some areas. Flat in others. No negatives.

  43. ” Improvement in some areas. Flat in others. No negatives.”

    I guess Gurple hasn't noticed what a fine job progressive secularists have done running urban public schools….and I'm an atheist!

  44. 82% of the students in the DC voucher program, in year 3, attended religious schools. Religious schools are generally cheaper than their secular equivalents. So a voucher program that gives parents enough money to attend a religious school but not a secular one is a governmental inducement to attend a religious school. You're right, though, that there are ways to level the playing field, in a program like this, e.g., with tax credits. It can be done, but the details are important.

    8% of the students who /left/ schools in the DC program, left because of pervasive religious influence in the schools. That's right, those kids left because they were being proselytized to on the federal dollar.

    More details on what you quoted:
    -“After 3 years, there was a statistically significant positive impact on reading test scores, but not math test scores.” Yes, but not for kids from Schools In Need of Improvement. Those kids didn't do any better, and they're the ones that the program was meant to help. The kids who did better were all in the top 1/3 to start with.

    -“The OSP had a positive impact overall on parents’ reports of school satisfaction and safety, but not on students’ reports”. Did you even read that? Parents /think/ students are having a better experience at school, but the students /aren't/. The students weren't encountering any fewer incidents of violence, etc., than at their public schools, but the parents /thought/ they were.

  45. i think if i had all the money in the world i wouldn't subject my children to private school.

    i would rather my kid learn to deal with a larger classroom size and less supplies than trying to fit in with all the kids who feel a sense of entitlement b/c their parents can afford private school.

    i would also have them deal with the challanges/pitfalls of pot and alcohol over the distribumtion of their moms prescription pills.

    yes, these are generalizations, but ones based of many kids i know that go to both types of schools, and they aren't way off base.

    my point is… different type of school…. different problems. so why pay for a different problem

  46. I don't think any of the students in this state get enough money for their education. I'm lobbying the state legislature on this. I would also love to see the District's central administration cut way back, and that money returned to classrooms. I just don't think that diverting money from the classroom to the lawyers is a great approach.

    The parent communities at both of my kids' schools put in a lot of time, money, and attention into our schools, for which we are extremely lucky. Parent involvement is one of the best indicators of student success.

    I have seen a good charter school firsthand, and I've seen some really scary ones. Personally, I would prefer that parents take that energy and put it into their local school, working for improvement.

  47. The petition didn't include the area east of 15th because there was absolutely no possibility of getting those students into Ballard without a major redrawing of boundaries for every high school from Garfield north, which wasn't going to happen at the stage when the petition was circulated. There just wasn't space at Ballard for more students.

    It was a case of trying to get half a loaf, and in the end, even that didn't happen.

  48. “had a positive impact overall on parents’ reports of school satisfaction and safety, but not on students’ reports”. Did you even read that? “

    You obviously don't have kids because trust me, sensible parents trust their opinions are like farts in a hurricane.

  49. “Yes, but not for kids from Schools In Need of Improvement. Those kids didn't do any better, and they're the ones that the program was meant to help. ”

    Note, they also did no worse (actually they did a little better, but not statistically significant — maybe noise). But again, lets be clear. This subgroup was not negatively effected at all. The nonSINI group was very positively impacted.

    Regarding safety… we simply don't know if the schools were safer or not. But again, we have a situation where the students are flat on safety, while the parents are positive. It certainly didn't get any worse.

    And in terms of general school satisfaction parents are much more satisfied with the voucher schools (again the students are flat — but again its worth pointing out they are NOT negative on it).

    One of the problems with asking students in school about this is a lack of context. I think most of us would rate our experience as blah, although our parents would have a different view. As an adult, my view of my education is very different than when I was in school — when the biggest deals were how much homework I had, who sat by who, who was dating who, and who got their picture in the paper. I never thought, “Wow, we have a lot of AP courses at this school” or “This teacher is adjunct faculty at the local university”. My parents got it, and I get it now.

  50. Gooner,
    You ignorance of private schools is astounding. Seattle has the highest rate of private school attendance in the country….1 in 4 children attend private schools. They are not all populated by some cookie cutter “rich kids”. There are many alternative schools. My children go to a Waldorf school and the majority of families are not affluent. There is a lot of tuition assistance, fund-raising and sacrificing by committed parents to this alternative education for their children. I might add that we pay taxes that go to educate YOUR children…it seems you all are the ones with a sense of entitlement!

  51. Ballard High southern border is Denny Way!!! 85th street is the northern border!!! It's obvious the Superintendent, district staff and the school board are not interested in students, community or fiscal management! How could people who profess to have students as the driving force then make a 'plan' that hurts students at every stage of education!!

  52. “relatively short and unimportant time of life”? An education is for life-long! I can't believe anyone would feel a short time is so unimportant!

  55. Would you now comment on “Magnolia and Queen Anne” as being in Bsllard area. Hmm, let me see, let's call Denny “South Ballard”??? As for the 'new plan', there is a statement to make – “This is another fine mess you've got us in, Ollie”!!!

  56. Honestly, it is not true that QA/Mag is closer “then” those north of 85th. From 85th St to BHS is One Mile. One. It's walkable in 20-25 minutes.

    It's over now and I'll make do with the new plan, but please don't spew crap that QA/Mag is closer to the high school.

  57. I think you're misunderstanding what the DOE did in this study. They didn't just ask kids “hey, how are things?” (though they did that, too). They tallied up the number of violent incidents they were exposed to. That number was no different for voucher kids than for their public school counterparts.

    There's a whole other side to this issue: what about the public schools? How were they impacted by this program? There's been no study done, but here's an important point: the DC Chancellor of Schools expressed distress over stopping the voucher program, because she doesn't think the DC school system can re-absorb those 1,700 kids.

    Which makes complete sense. De-fund the public schools, and sure enough, they can't serve everybody.

  59. A person gets the education he or she wants. I taught high school for 33 years. There is importance in education but buildings and communities and friends are not part of what is important. Really neither are parents to a great extent.

  60. In theory I like the idea of getting involved in public schools. However if a school has a mediocre teacher who is resting on tenure there's just not a whole lot parents can do thanks to the teachers union. I've yet to hear of a case where parents were able to get a mediocre, tenured teacher removed (not just reassigned).

    At first we were upset about the boundary results since we're just north of 85th. However, the more we looked at Ballard HS the more we realized while it might be better than Ingraham it's still not a very good school. Keep in mind this is the school that recently received an award because their passing rate on the science section of the WASL increased to a whopping 53%. 53%?!?! That's still a F grade and nothing to be proud of considering how easy the WASL is.

    More and more we're looking at private schools where our tuition payments give us more of a voice and where participation is more strongly encouraged (and even required in some schools).

  61. These are educators, right? Then perhaps they can explain the math behind this statement:
    “…result in a projections of 19 students shifting from Adams to Loyal Heights. This results in the projected enrollment at Adams moving from 13 in excess of functional capacity to 20 under functional capacity”

  62. This is for for anyone who's interested as to why the eastern border for Ballard suddenly moved a little further east after the original boundary maps were published.

    Could it be that a certain member of the School Board would have had one child at Roosevelt (currently) and another who would have to attend Ballard under the original boundaries?

    Move the Eastern boundary a little further east, and hey presto! She gets the luxury of having both kids at the same school! (Unlike me, who will have one kid (currently) at Ballard and another going to Ingraham.) If only they could have moved that pesky 85th St boundary just a couple of blocks further north to accommodate my kid…

  63. The plan and borders are based on population distribution of students throughout the entire city of Seattle, not based solely on students' geographic locations and their proximity to one high school vs. another.

    In order to have a system where every high school student went to the high school closest to them, Seattle would need to have a population of high school students that is evenly distributed geographically and have high schools that were evenly and uniformly located.

    But this isn't SimCity…it's Seattle. There are no high schools in Queen Anne and Magnolia, and there are lots of current, and future high school students and based on where other high school students live and where the current high school buildings are located, Ballard High School makes the most sense for them. By that same reasoning, it also makes the most sense for everyone north of NW 85th to go to Ingraham.

    Think about the kids in the NE section of Seattle. Many will have friends who end up going to a different high school – Roosevelt of Nathan Hale. North Beach and Blue Ridge kids aren't the only ones who will suffer a separation of sorts from their current school communities.

    Again, unless you can redistribute the population of high school students in the city and evenly disperse high school buildings amongst them, not everyone is going to happy.

    It's called democracy…it was a unanimous decision by the school board, who we all elected. Vote them out next time, run for the board yourself rather than circulating petitions that have no ultimate power.

  65. In order to have a system where *every* high school student went to the high school closest to them, Seattle would need to have a population of high school students that is evenly distributed geographically and have high schools that were evenly and uniformly located amongst them.

  66. The home life the parent provides does affect the child's decision regarding what the child wants from schooling. HOME is the operative of course.

  67. very true bbseattle. not all privates schools in seattle are full of rich kids. i have one child in Seattle public schools and one in private school. my wife works specifically to pay for our child's private school as i don't make enough money myself to pay for it.

  68. “Could it be that a certain member of the School Board would have had one child at Roosevelt (currently) and another who would have to attend Ballard under the original boundaries?”

    pennygirl – Do you actually have any evidence whatsoever to support such an assertion? Considering you neglected to name who the “certain member” of the school board is, I tend to doubt it.

    besides, based on the scenario you describe, the eastern border would have had to have been moved further west – not east – for the certain member of the school board's child to go to Roosevelt instead of Ballard.

  69. The Board member in question lives in the area immediately north of Green Lake. That area had no business being in the Ballard zone in the first place. It's walking distance to Roosevelt, and two buses away from Ballard. Roosevelt was under capacity in the plan, and Ballard was over capacity. Fixing the original error was the best policy decision in the entire process.

    Moving the rest of the Roosevelt western boundary to Greenwood/Phinney made it so Ballard had a little spare capacity for siblings without moving Ballard's north boundary south of 85th.

    Don't get me wrong, I wanted to have more of North Beach in the Ballard area. I put a lot of work into finding a rational way to do that, but it involved changing a lot of areas away from the school that they historically went to, particularly for Roosevelt students. In the end, the District staff didn't do it my way. I'm OK with that–you don't win them all.

  70. Board Member Carr. She has one kid currently at Roosevelt, and another who, under the original boundaries, would have had to attend Ballard.

    Now that the new set of boundaries have been drawn up, both kids will attend Roosevelt.

    And, yes you are correct, I meant to say west. Apologies.

  71. yeah, but based on the scenario you describe, the eastern border would have had to have been moved further west – not east – for carr's child to go to Roosevelt instead of Ballard

  73. As long as they manage to grandfather siblings, I'm okay with it.

    Save your money by using public schools and then send your kids out of the NW for college. Let them move back here, bringing all of their out of state friends with them and make this a real city with fresh persepctives. This town is way too provincial and y'all take yourselves way too seriously.

  74. okay. so where's the proof that moving the border west was done just to accommodate *one student*? i think this is purely coincidence. it's entirely possible that it had the same effect on other sibling pairs, like any in carr's neighborhood?

  75. i couldn't agree more about sending your kids out of the NW for college…as an east coast (NYC suburbs) transplant who came out here in 1992. seattle's made some progress, but has a long way to go.

  76. Wrong gurple. They did just ask people. Read page 42 of the report and A-8, A-9. That is because they specifically wanted the effect on that given child.

    To quote from the study: “There are no specific tests to evaluate the safety of a school as there are for evaluating student achievement. There are various indicators of the relative orderliness of the school environment,
    such as the presence or absence of property destruction, cheating, bullying, and drug distribution to name a few (see appendix A.3 for more information). Students and parents can be surveyed regarding the extent
    to which such indicators of disorder are or are not a problem at their or their child’s school. The responses then can be consolidated into an index of safety and an orderly school climate and analyzed, as we do here.”

  78. I see what you're saying, but I really don't think it was a factor. Firstly, the 10% 'open choice' seats have sibling as the first tiebreaker, so it's likely her other child would have been able to attend the same high school as her first child. Secondly, the original boundaries had Ballard overenrolled by something like 40-50 kids and Roosevelt underenrolled by 400 kids. So the 2nd round of boundaries evened this out.

  79. h20_girl

    I know…I'm just kind of ticked about how it's worked out for my family!

    Plus the fact that I've gone through this nonsense with the School Board before. We were involved in the last round of shenanigans when they had they bright idea of closing schools to 'save' money. That didn't work out so well.

  80. That's actually not correct bigblue. An even distribution is completley irrelevant. What you do need is decent planning to put high schools in the right places to meet population density.

    A better way to put it is that you need the high school capacity sufficient to handle the number of students allocated to it. You can have any distribution of students you like — and any distribution of schools (for example all of the students east of I5 and all the school wesst of I5). Now just slice the space such that each student is assigned to their nearest school. Now you simply need to ensure that the school can accomodate the number of students assigned to it. This is called basic city management.

    And frankly, that's not all that hard to do. What it means is that you build more/bigger schools at city centers and fewer at the edges (assuming the population isn't at the edges).

    Now there is the other issue of having each student have a bounded distance that they travel and for each student to attend the nearest school. In that case you need to have the schools distributed along with the student population density distribution. But it doesn't require any particular distribution of students (although you can run into some issues like single person schools — but that's a theoretical issue really).

    The point… with a little bit of planning this type of thing is avoidable. I think the school board and city seriously dropped the ball on this one.

  83. I think we're basically saying the same thing, I was just oversimplifying it.

    Although without a perfectly even population distribution and building placement, there will still be instance where kids (close to borders) might end up going to a school that's farther way than a closer one. Albeit not nearly as great a difference in distance as in the case here.

    You hit the nail on the head regarding poor planning. The city and the school board really dropped the ball back when they sold Queen Anne High School. How they could have missed the coming population of high school students is just baffling.

    Since no new high schools are going to be built at all, much less in Queen Anne and Magnolia, the school board worked with the hand they were dealt. I think they made the best, objectively based decision the could. This shows in the fact that the vote was unanimous…unlike the vote on school and program closures and splits.

  84. That is your choice not to pay for a private school, but why bash those that do?

    I think the characterization of private school students as having a sense of entitlement and their mothers popping prescription pills is mean at the least hackneyed at the worst. I mean really what is that from a 60's era TV show?

    I wonder if you really feel that at all, or if you feel that you need to justify not sending your kids to a private school.

    The private school communities that our family has been a part of typically have 30-50 % of the students on some type of scholarship. So they aren't elite.

    Here's my generalization of the kids in public schools I know: they work hard, they come from families who care about their education. Some are nice some aren't.

    Here's my generalization of the kids in private schools I know:
    they work hard, they come from families who care about their education. Some are nice some aren't.

    One last generalization: I bet you went to public school, I doubt you worked hard since you didn't learn to capitalize and you are not nice.

  85. I think the school board did what is best for them, but not what is best for the students. Unfortunately, I've seen this with many school boards I've interacted with. And I must admit Seattle seems to be one of the worst. Mary Bass was one of the bright spots, although she was ineffective.

    I'd love to see an all new board come in. One really they do something and for once you say, “Hmm… that's a pretty good idea”.

    BTW, there is a simple reasonable plan one could do if you left Cleveland as a neighborhood school, and then made Ingraham a school with a much smaller boundary w/ 50% open choice with a magnet program.

  86. My post was in response to your snide remark about how we refer to our neck of the woods. But now with 5 folks liking your response, I see that this ignorance is spreading.

    Barfly! Move over!

  87. Funny, I actually met the vice principal from Cleveland HS at a party this past weekend. Nice guy – unlike the vice principals I remember from my HS. ;-)

    An all-city draw program like the program at Cleveland – which is being turned into a “technical school”, for kids of that mindset – belongs at a more centrally-located school than Ingraham – the northernmost high school in the city.

    A technical program like this would also seem, to me at least, to be likely to draw more kids from the less affluent, southern sections of the city. This would mean locating it at Ingraham would create a bigger inconvenience for those kids than does sending North Beach kids to Ingraham.

    That's the reason APP – an all-city draw program – is at Garfield.

  88. How is this what's best for board members – volunteers btw, who have to fund their own campaigns – and not what's best for the students?

    What possible personal gain could the board members get out of this? All I see them getting is a lot of angry letters from upset parents.

  89. 5 folks who read MyBallard.com and thus likely live in Ballard. If “ignorance is spreading” (throughout Ballard) as you claim, why would you want your kids to go to Ballard HS? Sounds like Ingraham's a better choice to me.

  90. And all this will help the students how? And, what benefit is there to making SDS worse than it is now? Aren't they in the business to make sure ALL kids in Seattle get an education that can ready them for life? Perfect, tie up all the resources arguing about this instead of dealing with the outcome in a more positive manner and making the city a better place to live and raise our kids.

  91. Hey gobigblue, when describing where I live, “North Ballard” makes more sense than the blank stare I receive when I say Green Arbor. If I still get the blank stare after I say Crown Hill, I go directly to North Ballard, and there's never been a problem.

    Unless you really know your pocket neighborhoods, words like Loyal Heights, Whittier Heights, Blue Ridge, Olympic Manor, etc. aren't going to mean a lot to people.

    But everyone can figure out where North Ballard is.

  93. Quit backpeddling, gobigblue. I called you on a snide comment. If I had been anything other than white and affluent, you would have been nailed for stereotyping by the good souls at MyBallard.

    The depressing thing to me is how many folks like your comments. My point is that snide attitude must be more prevalent than I knew. Lesson learned.

  94. “We people” don't feel “entitled.” The school is closer. We drive by it every day. We support its events. We prefer the simplicity of our children walking to school.

    Simple as that.

  95. Love the comment about the vacant stares, mamalicious! In San Francisco, North Beach is an Italian area where there are a lot of strip joints.

  97. We're thinking the same thing, I mean 53% passed an easy science test? Mind you, the world does need people to work the chip fry and I'd prefer my kids go to school with those kids to see the consequences of failure up close. We're doing the public/private thing, using tutors and outside schooling to fill in the gaps.

  98. I'd rather my kids go to school with kids from QA and Magnolia, who will be coming to Ballard from families with high expectations and higher standards for their kids. that is 99% of what makes a good school. I hope North Beach can be added to BHS boundaries for the same reasons.

  99. Why do you think that the QA/Mag kids will be 'better' than the kids North of 85th? (I assuming that's who you are referring to). And why do you assume that the kids west of 15th are 'better' than the kids east of 15th?

  100. Well, if all the posts are correct, Magnolia and QA kids are more affluent. I'm sure statistics will indicate that affluent kids get better grades, have parents that are more active and supportive in their schools,are more likely to graduate. I'm thinking that BHS, being the closest school to my house in Magnolia, is my neighborhood school. Ingraham, where my first kid was assigned is most certainly not my “neighborhood” school. Center School, where my second kid was assigned is, I guess, our “almost in the neighborhood” school, but no thanks. Both my kids went to private HS. Seattle school district's loss . . . two straight A students, two highly supportive parents.

  102. Because that would require foresight and planning – two things Seattlites seem to be completely inept at! Just look at 520, the viaduct, public transit, etc., etc. Long term planning simply isn't something this city is good at.

    Honestly, with all the development going in South Lake Union it's just a matter of time until the people living there start raising families and will need a school to send them to. They really should start planning for that now instead of waiting until it's too late.

  103. Amen! I grew up in AZ and lived in the Bay Area – two places where natives are few and far between. Here in Seattle it amazes me how many people grew up here, went to school here, and are now raising their families here. Granted, it is a GREAT place to live but at the same time it really is pretty provincial (not always a bad thing, BTW) and personally I can't imagine why someone would want to spend their whole lives in just one area. It's a big world and worth exploring!

  104. You're an idiot. There have been plenty of studies that show who your parents are has a much greater impact on how successful you will be in life than where you go to high school. I'm guessing you're one of those teachers who thinks a 53% passing rate on WASL is perfectly acceptable! It must be lonely in the middle…

  105. A snide comment based on personal experience with people from North Beach and Blue Ridge.

    One of my children went to North Beach for one year. We picked it over our neighborhood/reference school, Loyal Heights, because of the impressive PTA and the match curriculum. We were super excited to put our child there.

    What we found was a community that generally (there were exceptions) did not seem all that welcoming to families with a pair of working parents nor to our child's spirited personality. Everyone seemed overly obsessed with WASL scores, which given the small size of the school, could easily swing to a less-than-district-average with just a couple of less-than-average kids in a given class year.

  106. You're a moron. I know 4 people who have their kids in private school:
    One works at REI, one is a firefighter, one is a machinist and the fourth is a Seattle public high school teacher. Do any of those sound like wealthy occupations? Those parent work their but off so they can send their kids to private schools because they care about their kids. BTW, what does it say about our schools when the people who teach in them send their kids to private school?

    “i would rather my kid learn to deal with a larger classroom size and less supplies than trying to fit in with all the kids who feel a sense of entitlement b/c their parents can afford private school. “

    Brilliant attitude. Using your “logic” they would be even better off by being dropped on a deserted island! Just think how much they'd learn!

    “i would also have them deal with the challanges/pitfalls of pot and alcohol over the distribumtion of their moms prescription pills.”

    Or you could be a responsible parent and talk to them about drugs/alcohol. Just a thought…

  113. Theravadist is correct. The affluent use their power and money to create larger and larger wedges between them and the less fortunate.

    It's just reality. If you want to move ahead… don't work in the system. Work around it. As Theravdist says, deal with it. Figure out, by any means necessary, how to get yours. And as long as you don't get caught, you haven't done anything wrong. That's the game, plain and simple.

    The affluent get that. Magnolia/QA get that. Until people realize that metaphorical casualties need to happen, we'll just be stuck on the same ride. This is why I don't shed a tear thinking about bankrupting Seattle Public Schools, if that's what it takes. Although, of course I'd hope that we could make forward progress short of that.

  114. Bigblue, all principals are nicer when they're not yours :-)

    You do realize that the IB program at Ingraham was supposed to also be an all-city draw. So its location is not the reason why they didn't do the program there. Additionally, Cleveland is not centrally located. It is about as far South as Ballard is North.

    The reason why Cleveland became an option school was to ensure Magnolia/QA children don't go to Garfield. Because with Cleveland as a neighborhood school it would be ridiculous to argue otherwise. Magnolia/QA effectively made it an option school — and frankly it already looks like the board doesn't know what they're doing with STEM there.

    And the Cleveland technical program will only be a draw to the less affluent if it sucks. If it gets any traction, expect that it will be overrun by the affluent relatively quickly.

  115. Reality is that your idea is the basis of inbreeding and why so many odiots run things today and why we are in such a mess in this country.

  116. Sleeepynb: “Do you know how much Ballard Beaver coffee I have in my freezer?

    let's see, there's two 2lbs bags of French Roast beans, 1lbs of ground Sumatran, and whatever's left of the decaf, say 1/2lbs. S0 5 1/2 lbs.

  117. Because Seattlites dont want to pay for it and buildings do not build themselves out of air. Take a poll of your neighbors as to how much more in property taxes they would be willing to pay.

  118. “QA & Magnolia are basically separated from Ballard by the bridge”

    It's a draw bridge though so we're only neighbors when it's down. When it's up we are more neighborly with Olympic Manor et al.

  121. ” why we are in such a mess in this country.”

    I'm pretty sure not many folks up on QA and Magnolia defaulted on their liar-loans. I welcome them to BHS.

  122. If kids from Ballard start knocking up kids from Queen Anne and vice versa how can that be inbreeding? Particularly if that tramp Magnolia steals Ballard from Queen Anne right before the prom but remains “friends with benefits” with Queen Anne behind Ballard's back?

    My point is that we are three different communities and with all that mixing we'll be the opposite of inbred, like if a rainbow could be just white.

  123. Actually its worse. There's a reason why the metro scheduler doesn't give you that route… during rush hour you can't get on the bus after it leaves the transit center (not because you're not allowed, but because it's full). It gets filled up at the transit center and then you can't pick it up at that stop.

  124. Yep. They'll probably get rid of all the routes up to Ingraham… they'll need the buses to give door-to-door service for the QA kids to get to BHS.

  125. Yep. And I'll bet they get some of those candy buses, with the chocolate sprinkles. It will ride on a rainbow so as to avoid traffic.

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