If you have a child entering the Seattle Public Schools district this fall, and you’ve enrolled your child in a school other than your attendance area school, and have been put on a waiting list, here’s a handy tool to look up the enrollment status, called the Student Assignment Status/Waiting List Status. You will need to enter your child’s Student ID number and birth date. The SPS Waiting List is updated every Friday afternoon.
This link will take you to the most current Waitlist information, broken down by school. As of June 9, here are the current waitlists for the schools that serve the Wallingford neighborhood:
B.F. Day:
One for 2nd grade General Ed
One for 2nd grade Spectrum
One for 3rd grade General Ed
One for 3rd grade Spectrum
Hamilton International Middle School:
26 for 6th grade General Ed
14 for 6th grade Spectrum
5 for 7th grade General Ed
3 for 7th grade APP
19 for 7th grade Spectrum
1 for 8th grade General Ed
4 for 8th grade Spectrum
John Stanford International School (All General Ed. and note “General Ed” is immersion):
45 for Kindergarten
9 for 1st grade
4 for 2nd grade
4 for 3rd grade
3 for 4th grade
1 for 5th grade
McDonald Elementary (All General Ed. and note “General Ed” is immersion):
13 for Kindergarten
8 for 1st grade
Roosevelt High School (All General Ed. except where noted):
76 for 9th grade
12 for 10th grade
1 for 11th grade
1 for grades 9-12 SM4
Salmon Bay K-8 (All General Education):
23 for Kindergarten
4 for 1st grade
15 for 2nd grade
12 for 3rd grade
10 for 4th grade
6 for 5th grade
7 for 6th grade
7 for 7th grade
Wow. 76 for Roosevelt 9th? Where do those kids go if they cannot get in?
Thanks for this tool. I had no idea it existed. But had it existed back when we started in SPS, I probably would have wasted most of my summer hitting refresh.
You know, I was thinking about the Roosevelt waiting list too, last night, and I wondered the same thing. This is pure speculation on my part, but I’m thinking that those waiting list numbers for the north end are going to increase every year. If that’s the case, wouldn’t it make sense to re-open Lincoln High School to alleviate the overcrowding and eliminate the waiting lists? Just a thought…
The waitlist is an artificial creation generated by the change in District policy away from school choice at the high school level. Anyone trying to get into a high school NOT from the home area for that school is placed on a waitlist. It is my understanding that all the “home area” students are placed first.
It seems this gets even more complicated if, for example, someone from the Ballard home area wants to go to Roosevelt and someone from the Roosevelt area wants to go to Ballard. Both are on the waitlist trying to get into each other’s spot, so they both appear on the waitlist. Who knows how the gridlock is broken.
By doing away with school choice, the District lost the distance tie-breaker to limit overcrowding. Now, because of the guarantee of enrollment, the District is at the mercy of its own demographic projections and where they happen to set the “home area” boundary. We all know how accurate projections are, especially if families start moving around to try to get into a particular school.
Some families are still debating private school and may not have informed the District that they are releasing their spot at their “home area” school. The waitlist often will not move until fall because folks are still deciding.
Further, some schools that are under-enrolled do not even show up on the list, and those students may be trying to get placed in a school outside their home area, so they show up on the waitlist, too.
Many felt it would have been far better to keep school choice at the high school level and instead simply eliminate guaranteed transportation beyond a certain distance.