November 5

Important day Wednesday for school boundaries here – update

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Update Thursday 9 a.m.: Our news partner The Seattle Times has a report on last night’s school board meeting. It starts:

Angry parents, residents and activists unloaded a host of grievances at the Seattle School Board meeting Wednesday where the district’s official school boundaries plan was formally introduced.

There is also more discussion on the Maple Leaf Parents Facebook page. One post says that school board member “Sherry Carr will come to Sacajawea Elementary next Thursday, Nov. 14th, at 6:30 p.m., in the library. She considers Sacajawea a priority since we are in the pivot point of changes that take effect next year.”

We’ve gotten a lot of comments on our last two posts on proposed changes in Seattle Public School boundaries, focused on where  elementary and junior high kids should go to school, and whether it’s safe to send them there.

Neighbors have been leafleted. Surveys taken. A Maple Leaf Parents Facebook group, just launched a couple of weeks ago, now has 182 members and both discussions of the boundaries, which many argue split Maple Leaf into three pieces, and plans for action.

One of the plans is to attend Wednesday’s school board meeting en masse, possibly carrying signs and dressed in similar colors to stand out as a block.

To follow the discussions, go to the group’s Facebook site, or read our previous posts and comments here and here. There is definitely more than one point of view represented.

Public comment at Wednesday’s board meeting begins at 5 p.m. at 2445 3rd Ave. S. The agenda is here. (Click on Nov. 6 regular board meeting to download a PDF.)

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Sara W

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  1. I’d be interested to hear from someone who lives in Licton Springs. Do people that live there feel more of a community connection to northwest Seattle or northeast? If NW, then w0uld they rather go to Northgate, Bagley, or Viewlands, like they are currently? I think that’s the crux of Greg’s point. He’s not suggesting to exclude anyone.

  2. I watched the public testimony of the school board meeting and Greg who has been leafleting the maple leaf area west of Roosevelt and posting on Maple Leaf Parents appeared to have an anger management problem and also appeared to be elitist and wanting to exclude people in Licton Springs from attending Olympic View even though its the closest elementary to their neighborhood and they can easily get to OV via 92nd street

  3. Just to clarify, she opted for Roosevelt but not Whitman. That was SPS choice. Her brother is 3 years older and went to Eckstein and Hale. We hadn’t moved. I love activism, really. Just saying it will be ok.

  4. Maple Leaf attracted us by its strong sense of community. We believe that solid neighborhood schools support and are supported by strong communities and my exhaustive
    research before moving here indicated very good neighborhood schools. I went to middle and high school outside my community growing up (it wasnt my choice to do so…it was my parents choice) and feel I really missed out on great opportunities to know my neighbors. The poster above who suggested lowering the priority of going to school with neighbors makes a good point but her example is of a child that exercised an option to select another school. As long as my child has the option to go to school where we live I’d be fine with her making a different choice. If SPS makes our choices for us …that doesn’t sit well with me on the other hand. And I just want to note that we have found the Maple Leaf Parents FB page inclusive of varied opinions and respectful and collaborative. A new addition to the community that is an asset in our book.

  5. Here is my 2 cents as the mom of kid at Roosevelt and other in college. I think going to school with friends should be a really low priority for middle school and on. My kid went to O.V. then Whitman. There was only a handful of O.V. kids at Whitman but she made new friends. Then she elected (lottery) to go to Roosevelt with only a handful of kids from Whitman there. Sure, it would have been great for car pool purposes and other to have neighbors at school but you will survive. Teach them to embrace the new. Trust them. And above all don’t get them all wound up about not going to school with their pals. You may not mean to but kids are pretty darn perceptive. I live near the Mall on the east side BTW.

  6. Just to answer the question about Pinehurst K-8/AS#1: The physical school will be torn down at the end of the 2013-14 school year to make way for the new Jane Adams/Pinehurst K-8 (they are stealing the name, but the alternative education program model is slated to be closed) . This new building will not house the 40+year old alternative education program (AS#1/Summit/Pinehurst K-8). Sup. Banda has recommended that the alternative education program be closed for good at the end of 2014.
    While parents and community of existing Pinehurst students, including staff, students and alumni have been working diligently with Board members Peasley, and Patu, currently there is no solid plan to temporarily house the program anywhere, with the hopes of co-locating or finding a permanent location with another school in the future.
    We have reached out to Broadview-Thompson and Thornton Creek with no luck (NIMBY at its very best). Currently, the best and most feasible option is to co-locate and combine programs with the Indian Heritage program at Wilson-Pacific in 2016. There is good traction for this effort, and many in our Pinehurst Community are in support of this idea, just to attempt to keep alternative options available for Seattle Public School families. The district seems to be systematically closing all these options, at best, not fully supporting alternative education models within the district.
    We will once again speak out at the board meeting tonight, and you can read more about the issues we face at our Save Pinehurst Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/groups/448159895297434/

  7. Rebecca,
    Where do you live? If east of Roosevelt, I hope you can sympathize with those of us on the west side of Roosevelt that would like our kids to go to middle school with your kids, our neighbors in Maple Leaf only a couple blocks away.

    If you live west of Roosevelt, I’d like to hear why you prefer going to an elementary school that pulls mostly from the west side of I-5, and which makes social gatherings much more challenging than within Maple Leaf, and which also excludes many of our neighbors north of NE 100th St but includes kids from NE115th and Aurora Ave N. Our area would also send us west of I-5 for middle school, (the only pocket east of I-5 to do so) so again, our kids would be socially isolated from northeast Seattle, where we live. I-5 is a clear cut boundary, with only one connection (NE 92nd St) in this proposed school district, and even that area on the west side of I-5 is mostly North Seattle Community College, so there is basically no residential connection between the two areas.

    We live in Maple Leaf, in northeast Seattle, and hope our kids can go to school there so we can feel part of the community, and integrated into it. That’s what the Facebook group is all about.

  8. I agree with the premise that kids already at Eckstein stay there and then move into the high school designated. Phase this in, don’t transfer a kid to Jane Adams for a year. I am hoping to see continuity for the kids. I got moved too often as a kid, and I did think it was difficult.

    The neighborhood schools concept is apparently no longer a priority if a kid living across the street from Eckstein has to go to Jane Adams?

    What is going on with Pinehurst? Is it a viable K-6 or K-8? Is it being phased out? Olympic Hills is way out in left field if you live south of Northgate Way.

    The data I am looking at indicates Eckstein is ranked higher than Adams, another reason not to jerk my kid from Eckstein.

    Should be an interesting meeting.

  9. There is one very loud group of activists here, and a bunch of other folks who may not agree, and who feel the boundaries make sense given the population and growth of this area. Not all Maple Leaf Parents are in the same camp, in spite of how the Facebook page was (unfortunately) named.

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