[There is a wrenching debate going on around the John Stanford International School and whether it should remain a neighborhood school, providing a center of community for those families who live around it, or whether it should be an option school, making its enviable immersion program available to children throughout the city, including those who can’t afford to live nearby. Cathy Lu wrote asked that we share her opinion below. In the interest of balance, we would like to offer equal space to those on the other side of the debate.]
Last week my husband and I attended a meeting to go over the Seattle School Board’s growth boundaries proposal, which would convert John Stanford and McDonald International Schools into option schools and send almost all of Wallingford’s kids to Greenlake Elementary. As long-time residents of the Wallingford neighborhood, we strongly oppose this. For five years, we have looked forward to enrolling our daughter (who will attend kindergarten next year) in a neighborhood school that we can walk to; meeting and joining a community of families who live in, care about, and are invested in the same neighborhood as us; and supporting our local school, from fundraisers to PTA meetings.
Unfortunately, with the proposal to convert JSIS into an option school Wallingford will be left without a single attendance school–a huge oversight for such a central, well-populated, and vital neighborhood. Furthermore, with the proposal to convert McDonald as well to an option school, we are losing both of the schools closest to us, forcing us into an attendance school that is nearly two miles away from our home. It is outrageous that most Wallingford children will be attending Greenlake Elementary School when there are several more conveniently located schools that are within walking distance for most Wallingford families.
Although geozones will be created, this is not the same as a neighborhood school. It will force many families who fall slightly outside these zones out of the neighborhood, and it will create traffic and congestion as we drive our children across two crowded and slow-moving arterials into Greenlake (which we all know already has a slew of traffic problems).
Furthermore, with siblings getting priority at option schools, there is decent chance that families within the geozones won’t even make it into these option schools. It is a common misconception that geozone families are guaranteed admission to an option school. It is by lottery, and should siblings take up the majority of spots (as I have heard they are forecasted to do next year), our family is potentially looking at a situation in which our daughter will be unable to attend a school that is just four blocks from her house, and instead, will have to be driven or bused to a school that is nearly two miles away. This is not my idea of neighborhood and community.
Wallingford is a wonderful place to live, and good neighborhood schools that children can walk to have been at the heart of what makes this community so vital and attractive. By converting John Stanford (and McDonald) to option schools, Wallingford will lose its neighborhood elementary schools and a piece of what makes it so special.
If you are concerned about this proposal, please send an email to the Growth Boundaries Proposal general feedback line at [email protected]. Also, please look at the recent Wallyhood post, “Current and Future SPS Parents, It’s Time to Get Noisy” for another parent perspective on this issue.
Others to contact:
- Flip Herndon, Assistant Superintendent – Capital Facilities and Enrollment Planning, [email protected],
252-0644 - Joseph A Wolf, K-12 Planning Coordinator, [email protected], 252-0551
- Sherry Carr, School Board Member District II, [email protected]
, 252-0040 - Tracy Libros, Manager Enrollment & Planning, [email protected], 252-0511
– Cathy Lu
JSIS should have always been an option school and not a neighborhood school. Now that they are finally making things right and making this program available to everyone and not just the Wallingford elite, I see a small faction of parents who are up in arms because little Johnny ‘might’ not be able to gain entrance to an immersion program.
This school and program will not survive and thrive as it stands now. Immersion programs need diversity and native speakers to succeed. Plain and simple. Karen Kodama (who began the immersion programs with SPS and JSIS) has always been a strong supporter of JSIS being an option school with enrollment available to all. Wallingford simply does not have the diversity to support the success of this school.
The only other option I have seen booted about that could work in light of the ‘neighborhood’ school argument is relocating the language immersion program to Lincoln or Wilson-Pacific and leaving JSIS as a general education neighborhood K-5 school.
But then I guess you probably wouldn’t be clamoring so hard to gain entrance……
Wallingford can’t have their cake and eat it too!
Great post. JSIS is a great school because it is a neighborhood school. It has a great sense of community due to being a neighborhood school as well. We will loose this if if becomes an option school. I hope the school district listens to Wallingford and keeps both JSIS and McDonald as neighborhood schools.
JSIS is way over capacity. Should it remain a neighborhood school the boundaries would have to shrink again and being only 4 blocks away would not be a guarantee of enrollment if this were to happen.
If this leads to better pedestrian crossings and traffic calming on 50th, that will be a good thing.
Doug, I know this is somewhat off topic, but I’m curious about your thoughts on traffic calming on 50th. It seems like as Ballard, Fremont and other northwest parts of Seattle grow, there is a growing need for east-west roads to connect these neighborhoods to I-5. Right now, Wallingford seems to be taking the brunt of this traffic via 50th, 45th and 40th – it’s sort of like having three rivers running through the neighborhood!
Helen,
Before JSIS, Wallingford had a neighborhood school. It was The Latona School and was a sad, mediocre option with nowhere near the strong community it has today. A strong community is not a result of proximity but is built by leadership and building a community and program within the school. It also comes from a population who sought out and CHOSE that specific program/school and didn’t end up there by default.
I live in Wallingford, have 3 children and chose to send them to TOPS K-8 also started and lead by Karen Kodama. It is a school that had an incredibly strong, diverse community. My children have friends all over the city. They see their community as Seattle, not just Wallingford.
This is not Mayberry.
So by living in Wallingford I am an “elite”? Then how come I have to park my car in the street and weed my own garden? How come I still have a mortgage on my house? How come I can’t afford private school for my kids or expensive dinners out more than once a year or so? The line for making “elite” sure has dropped in recent years. Will it get me a discount at Costco?
The idea that Wallingford has suddenly transformed into Beverly Hills is not only erroneous and nonsensical, it completely ignores the point of the original post – which is that there is an excellent possibility that this NEIGHBORHOOD will no longer have a NEIGHBORHOOD elementary school.
Sending little children all over the city strikes me as a ridiculous chore for parents, a giant time suck for the kids, and a traffic, logistics and safety nightmare. It’s not unreasonable for parents who live in a popular residential neighborhood to want a neighborhood elementary school.
Adding two hours a day to working parents’ pick up and drop off schedules is not really a good use of anyone’s time, and nor Is increasing the inflow of traffic into an already congested and narrow set of streets.
I find it genuinely baffling that there are people clamoring for the elimination of a neighborhood school, in their own neighborhood, and using inverse-snobbery as a device to “shame” local parents.
Excuse me while I climb off this massive pile of money and have the nanny drive my daughter two miles to Greenlake so that folks can feel better about some poorly defined supercommunity of diverse snowflakes.
I would venture to add that I think strong neighborhood schools are essential for all the residential neighborhoods – and essential for the growth and wellbeing for those neighborhood kids.
This isn’t selfishness, it’s practical rationality. Walking your kids to the perfectly good school shouldn’t be considered a luxury. Creating option schools is fine, but not at the expense and total elimination of traditional neighborhood schools.
and Wally Parent – the point isn’t that we are having our cake and eating it, the point is that they are taking away our cake and our dentures.
Likewise–Creating neighborhood schools is fine, but not at the expense and total elimination of option schools.
It doesn’t matter where option schools are located. When they become successful, that’s when the neighborhood rally’s around the need for that site to be their neighborhood school and the suggestion that the option school simply move to another location. Where was Wallingford’s passion for that specific site 20 years ago? It was just as great of neighborhood then but the school at that site was not. Again, it takes a LOT more than proximity to create a great school.
Having lived 2 blocks from JSIS for over 20 years, I’ve watched the neighborhood change BECAUSE of the successful language immersion program @ JSIS. Yes, the poorer people have moved out and wealthier moved in for the school. Now that I have young children at JSIS, of course I’m happy with the great program but would send them to their neighborhood school nonetheless. I am 100% against driving or busing my kids out of our neighborhood. It’s a shame for families who have been “zoned out” but they should still NOT have priority over families who live a block from the school like us who have been part of the community for such a long time, and not just moved here for the school……
Cindy, I agree, but more option schools are being created – and our neighborhood schools (potentially) are being eliminated. So only one of the problems you’re arguing actually exists at this time.
I have sympathy for both sides, but I strongly believe that the customization and derationalization of our neigborhood schools is a step on a slippery slope towards Vouchers and privatized schooling, period. Lots of the “wealthy” parents in Wallingford will be squeezed not into Greenlake, but rather Private Schools, which will continue to have a corrosive effect on public schools. That’s the “big stake here, not immersion, which frankly IS a luxury.
It would seem to me that BF Day would be a better choice for most of Wallingford rather than squeezing into Greenlake. It’s closer,has capacity and would be walkable for a large percentage of Wallingford residents.
Yes, BF Day rocks. Don’t miss out on it if you don’t get into JSIS. We love it, and so do our Wallingford neighbors.
But it is kind of a long trek for Eastern Wallingford. What if SPS moved the language immersion program to another more central building, kept it an option school, and the John Stanford building could just be the Eastern Wallingford/U District neighborhood school? Is that on the table? Would you like it to be?
Frankie,
I guess if your focus is on simply having a neighborhood school and less on having great schools, then yeah, move JSIS out to wherever so you can have your neighborhood school. Who cares what the disruption is to JSIS, they’ll survive, or not. Who cares that the building was remodeled to fit that specific program. And especially, who cares because a general ed, cookie cutter program should take precedence over alternative ed, right?
And, once JSIS becomes a neighborhood school, all of those “wealthy” parents will elect to pull their kids from private schools and enroll in the neighborhood school essentially eliminating the threat of vouchers and privatized schooling?
More option schools are being created? Really? I just checked the directory and there’s absolutely no evidence of that. The fact is, the existing successful option schools are constantly having to fend off the idea that their site should be a neighborhood, general ed school. It is a problem.
Cindy,
If you don’t care that it is or is not a neighborhood school, with the geographical specificity that infers, then presumably you would have no objection to it being moved to an equally arbitrary geographical location – let’s just say Greenlake, for example – I am talking about the existing situation – which is an excellent neighborhood school with a desirable program.
That situation is being changed by external pressure. It is being enabled by parents from other neigbourhoods, or by parents who are already satisfied with the status quo because they are IN already, or because they will be able to take advantage of the sibling rule (which I support for the exact same reasons I support neighborhood schools – logic and logistics).
I don’t see why this is either troubling or surprising or even mildly controversial.
Someone once suggested the following hypothetical: Why not have Lorig (the company which owns and manages Wallingford Center) sell the building BACK to SPS to make it a neighborhood elementary school again? It’s not doing so hot as a retail destination, why not turn it back into an elementary school?
I was Chair of the Site Council when Latona was converted into JSIS. We parents fought very hard to keep JSIS a neighborhood school for all the reasons stated above. And our then-School Board Member supported us and worked with the rest of the Board to keep it designated as a neighborhood school. I am happy to see that JSIS has been very successful and support the development of other international schools throughout the city. It is not elitist to want the neighborhood to have a school located within it. We actually had the choice of sending our child to TOPS, but chose to remain at Latona so that we could develop relationships with others in the community. Even though our son is now 22 years old, we still have many of those relationships. I think it would do a disservice to Wallingford to have JSIS become a completely option school. Is it possible to designate a portion of the seats for students outside its boundaries?
For a school district that was trying to reduce bussing, & increase feeder patterns to neighborhood schools, this is a travesty. B.F. Day was remodeled for 700 capacity. It should be getting W. Woodland students near it that are filling portables @ WWES. Others could go to Greenlake. But Wallingford students should go to either JSIS or W. Woodland!. Students should be able to walk or bike to their neighborhood school to reduce related healthcare costs of obesity, etc. Time to stand up to SPS.
B.F. Day has capacity, if not JSIS. But with 2 international elementary schools within Wallingford service area, they should both be at least 1/2 neighborhood schools. When my son attended Escuela Latona in the mid-90’s, the alternative half was a district draw while 1/2 the students drew from the attendance area! This should at least be the case for both JSIS & Macdonald International schools! Half the students should come from the attendance area!! And B.F. Day should be the back up for JSIS & Macdonald! http://www.fremocentrist.com/commentary/?p=4522
Sorry, correction to the above!! I meant:
Wallingford students should attend either JSIS or B.F. Day (not W. Woodland!
I think folks are forgetting that just because we’d be assigned to Green Lake doesn’t mean a family COULDN’T send their kid to BF Day. With so much capacity, I highly doubt anyone would be waitlisted.
Look, BF Day is getting a lot of positive rep on these threads, and that’s great, but improving a school takes time.
By switching to the Green Lake district, a) Wallingford property values immediately increase, which is good for everyone; and b) Those folks who feel passionately about BF Day can write it in as their preferred school. With so much capacity, I doubt anyone would be waitlisted, especially with most kids automatically feeding into Green Lake.
In short, putting Wallingford in the Green Lake district works for everyone.
Greenlake ES doesn’t work for everyone & just because B.F. Day has capacity, does not mean people can send their kids there, if the district is redirecting them to Greenlake ES. People are being told even with a current sibling @ B.F Day, the District will not guarantee subsequent siblings there, because they are artificially capping B.F. Day!
Little kids benefit from being part of a warm community. My child was bused from Latona & NE 47th to Madrona Elementary School. She adjusted to the hour ride, but since I worked, it was very hard to meet other parents. I think the isolation really took its toll. I hope that Wallingford parents, if forced to, make the best of attending Green Lake Elementary. It is a good school and at least you will all be going there together. If there had been a good neighborhood school, which Latona Elementary wasn’t at the time, I would never have sent her across town to Madrona. As it was, all the kids on our block went to different schools, which didn’t foster community. Sense of community at Madrona was zero because it was a bifurcated hodgepodge of neighborhood kids and kids like mine in APP. This was during the 80’s and 90’s. I know some parents have their hearts set on JSIS or MCDonald, but if the crazy Seattle School District gives you Green Lake Elementary, take it! 6
Our oldest went to Latona Elementary before it was John Stanford. It was a great school and we loved going to school with our neighbors. Our next two children went to John Stanford (one is still going). We love the language immersion but it has been the feeling of being part of the neighborhood community that has been the special part for our family. Why does it have to be elitist to want your kids to go to a great school in your neighborhood? I would much rather have John Stanford stop being an immersion school than lose the neighborhood experience.
I’m a plus one on Paul’s comment. Our first one is in kindygarden this year at JSIS and while the language immersion is great, I’d give it up to keep being able to walk to it and know that most of our neighbors’ children go there.
But you know while this debate is interesting and helpful, when the Seattle School District proposes something their efforts to seek public input are strictly pro forma. A box they check because someone said they had to. Moreover, don’t waste time with your school board rep and for the love of God don’t bother with school board meetings. During the public input portion of the meeting most of the reps are texting or making plans for after the meeting. The staff runs that circus and answers to, well, no one as far as I can tell. I’d bet your nickel against my $20 that JSIS will be an option school next year no matter what we say or do.
No just email the whole schools board early & often! They respond to deluge: School Board Email: [email protected]
I believe it distributes to all board members & superintendent. {:-)
Spectrum was dispersed across schools. Can the same happen for immersion? It’s clearly pipular; why not offer a scaled back version in all schools by taking some JSIS and Mcdonald teachers and sending them to different schools?
Until JSIS and Mcdonald stop being special this problem will just drag on year after year. Option sounds like the worst solution- a return to bussing kids all over and confusing tie breakers and all the rest.
I think that the biggest failing of the Green Lake plan is how are they going to fit all those kids in those boundaries and how long will it take for them to fill now that they have essentially tripled their service area? Perhaps McDonald families can weigh in, but JSIS is full to capacity and it is going to be a challenge to get in all of the geozone kids next year let alone anyone from outside of the geozone. This means a sizable proportion of families who have a new kindergartner next year will be assigned to Green Lake.
In the big picture, I suspect that this means another boundary change in our future. And for those of you who are new to the boundary change process, just be aware that the SPS have a policy that they cannot accommodate siblings when they change boundaries. Why not just draw realistic boundaries now and let families build relationships with a school that they can keep instead of continually changing the playing field?
Wow..many interesting comments. JSIS as it is should be an OPTION school. It has become elitist and has been for years. Parents-yes responsible adults LIE and CHEAT to get into JSIS! (You all know who you are and now the same thing is happening in the McDonald neighborhood.) Sorry Green Lake is so FAR away from your neighborhood!
Wow! While there has been plenty of civil discussion on this topic, there have also been a fair number of snarky, sarcastic and mean comments. They aren’t productive. Please keep them to yourselves. This situation has been thrust upon us, it is not of our making. JSIS was made an immersion school in 2000. It was done by the school district, not the neighborhood and yes, it is a fantastic program and we feel lucky that is in Wallingford. There are immersion schools in other areas of the city – Beacon Hill & Concord. They aren’t being recommended as option schools in the SPS growth plan. I think all language schools should either be option schools or they should not be. I don’t think it’s fair to split the category and leave Wallingford without a neighborhood school. The option to move the program to a larger facility to accommodate more students in the North end could definitely be explored. Adding buses and taking away the option to walk to school is exactly the opposite of why SPS changed to the neighborhood school plan only a handful of years back. It feels like a desperate measure and one that affects not only JSIS and McDonald, but B. F. Day and Green Lake Elementaries. That’s a lot of families to disrupt. As it is, the boundaries and admission rules have changed every year for the last 5 years. What would be great to have from SPS, is predictability going forward.
I think this all is good discussion here. Good thoughts. My concern… I think many here are missing the bigger topic. McDonald was a brand new neighborhood school at one point. The community got together and after much debate (and a survey) Immersion was what many wanted. Together with the district. McDonald opened as Immersion. (Sadly if the the neighborhood wanted the school to remain a neighborhood school with strategic foresight they should have made McDonald a traditional Model) Because IMMERSION is what plurality of people here seem to want. The bigger question is why not make them all Immersion or make BF Day and Green lake have an IMMERSION track within a traditional school. And don’t say money, the district and parents can find the money. And for the that matter we need a STEM school here why not make Green lake STEM or BF day. Do that and then in three years the district will make them OPTION schools and we will have no neighborhood schools. Keep neighborhood school just make them great. If a school need less students at One school reduce the boundary. On the flip side and I am sure this is an unpopular opinion. Parents need to let go of Sibling placement passion. I have had three kids never in the same school. It is nice I’m sure in some ways but most the time it not even best for the kids. (Often good to be separate) Again the question is not why can’t kids from all over the city goto JSIS, but rather why can’t kids go to IMMERSION at their neighborhood school.
Cindy
Not sure when you are talking about Latona as not a stong community school. It was a fabulous school in the early to mid-90’s when it was Escuela Latona/Latona Neighborhood school. My 26-year-old is a graduate. The teachers were outstanding & the program was amazingly coherent & progressive. The Intermediate team–four blended 4th-5th classrooms–were just tops. We were not all uniformly excited about the JSIS transition which was imposed from without by the school district, on a program that already had Spanish as part of its core values, as well as environmental education. The intermediate team went to Camp Orkila every fall. I’m one of the parents that fund-raised to put in the play structure in the SW corner. Had a great PTSA & a strong parent community. Latona neighbors have loved their neighborhood school for at least 2 decades & more. I’m here to testify & many a Wallingford parent would be glad to do the same. I’m sure it’s nearly as good as when it was Escuela Latona. But it should not be solely an options school. In the Escuela Latona days, it was half options, half neighborhood…and all inclusive. It rocked. The bottom line is kids should be able to walk or ride bikes to their neighborhood school at the elementary level whenever possible.
I agree that it was very short-sighted to make McDonald an immersion school too. What were you thinking, Wallingford? The rest of the district thinks we’re just a bunch of language-immersion crybabies. And now we’re on the verge of losing BOTH buildings. It’s right out of Aesop or something.
Marceline
“Language Immersion crybabies”. Education is changing Marceline. The optimal way to educate may not be the same experience we had. Perhaps you are correct the unthinking parents of the McDonald community 2007 should have strived for something they did want and thought less optimal for their kids. They should have known the district would want to change to option just few years later.
ARGH!!! Busing=disaster!!!
McDonald did not open as an immersion school. it was certainly debated and a majority of the surrounding community desired an immersion program, but it opened as a traditional neighborhood school. I don’t recall if it was an official designation by the district, or a parent driven effort, but McDonald was to have an emphasis on STEM.
After its first year of operation McDonald was converted to an immersion program, my understanding was that was to help alleviate issues w/ space at JSIS and create a larger international “feeder” group for Hamilton MS.
I would like to add something that was a concern when the debate was going on regarding the immersion program at McDonald that hasn’t been brought up in this thread. An immersion program is not appropriate for all kids, and typically cannot accommodate kids who move into the neighborhood past first grade. Since SPS does not offer a traditional educational track at these schools there are families, more than just a few, who are now excluded from their “neighborhood” school. We live within a stone’s throw of McDonald and our youngest son attends W. Woodland b/c his speech and language disabilities just don’t work in an immersion program. Plenty of families at Green Lake, BF Day, and other nearby schools are there because the immersion programs at the “neighborhood” school don’t work for their kids.
The district’s first priority should be to provide equitable access to a neighborhood school to all learners, not just a majority of them. I do support the conversion of immersion programs to option schools. Give kids for whom they are appropriate an equitable opportunity for that experience, and don’t penalize children and families for whom the program isn’t a good fit.
It is unfortunate that the current proposal leaves Wallingford and “south” Green Lake without a walkable neighborhood school, but I do feel it is a step in the right direction in terms of equity for other students.
Nah, on second thought I was too hasty blaming the McDonald families and I apologize for that. They wanted something, they asked for it, they stepped up and tried to make it happen. It’s not their fault for not knowing the big picture.
BUT…the district should have had the foresight and the leadership to say “no.” SPS was talking about making language immersion schools into option schools even back then. The district should have kept McDonald a neighborhood school and maybe disappointed a few people but avoided the kind of major uprooting that’s going to happen now. What a cluster.
And TR, sorry if the “crybabies” remark was harsh, but we ARE kind of a laughingstock around the district for this language immersion situation. Wallingford folks showing up at district-wide meetings literally teary-eyed because they can’t access a walkable language immersion program. I was there for two such meetings and it’s just embarrassing.
Oh…and the “education is changing” thing? Yep, it sure is. And it’s called Common Core. Love it, hate it, or never heard of it, that’s what SPS is all about these days. Brace yourselves.
I have to say that the judgmental statements flying back and forth are disheartening.
Jeanette (my colleague from UW?), I am impressed but not surprised that you were chair of the site council back at the start of JSIS. I am now the ptsa pres of JSIS and let me simply say that its a different day. Anyone who is willing to reasonably engage the demographics and discourse will find that we have little neighborhood-school to salvage at this point. If it stays as is, the neighborhood will be diminished in 4 years, given current density, to little more than 4-6 blocks in any direction- which is ultimately what the geozone is likely to be.
We are not just wealthy people buying homes at over-asking prices, but also moderate income families who moved into denser housing. Some were convinced by the district that they should put there children in JSIS on the promise that the school was their neighborhood school, only to have the neighborhood redefined a year or so later, and send their younger child to another school 2 miles away from the first.
There are stories to detail how this shifting of boundaries has hurt our hood. The families did not make this mess, its the result of poorly managed planning that continues in BEX 4 as far as I can see. I am sure there is wisdom to how the zones are drawn. But the greater wisdom I would argue for is consistency and less transition, which is still apparently lost.
As for the elitist arguments, I wont touch that. Some people gotta hate.
I just refuse to buy the idea that its dichotomous outcomes in this situation. One way or another doesnt ruin or herald our neighborhood. They are not mutually exclusive.
I have noticed that some posts in this thread use the terms “walkable schools” and “neighborhood schools” interchangeably. I don’t see them as being the same at all.
I have had children take the bus to school before and we very much considered the school to be a “neighborhood school.” What made the school a neighborhood institution wasn’t whether the kids walked to school or not – but rather whether the school served all of the kids in the neighborhood and whether it was perceived as a focal point of the families in the neighborhood.
Presently, I am on a street in Wallingford where all of the kids walk to school, but there is no “neighborhood school.” We live on a street which has bounced from BF Day to JSIS to BF Day and now to Green Lake – in just a period of four years! As a result, there are five kids on our corner attending two different schools – next year add Green Lake. On the one hand, it is great to have a vibrant school age population, but they are not going to a neighborhood school.
What is destroying the concept of neighborhood schools is not whether the school is walkable, but the pendulum swings of the school line boundaries and the complete fragmentation of our school-age children between a variety of schools.
At this point, the most important issue to our family is not whether our child is bus’ed or not (not bus’ed in my mind is different than bussing.) I am far more concerned that this pattern of pendulum swings will continue over the coming years. I think Green Lake is a great school, and would be pleased to send my kids there. However, I have little confidence (based on past experience and my review of the boundary plan), that the John Stanford Center staff have made accurate calculations about Green Lake’s ability to absorb all of the students from the JSIS and McDonald geo-zones who will be bumped out of those schools due to the prioritization of siblings (and heritage speakers).
@ Ted B —Yes, I was worried as well about the immersion program for my kids and wish I had the choice for my “neighborhood” school (which is “walkable”).
Thank you, Ted B. This is an important point that often gets lost in this whole crazy debate.
Our family is completely dedicated to public education that teaches children about the diverse cultures of our world, and I love the fact that children in an immersion classroom have the opportunity to struggle with language in ways that mirror experiences of new immigrants in our country. I think this helps build strength and (more importantly) empathy. I also know that children learn new languages by immersion in many European countries — it’s not just some silly American fad.
HOWEVER, the immersion style of learning does not work well for many kids. No one knows the actual proportion of kids who will not “do well” in an immersion classroom, but I’m guessing that it is significant. We live within a couple blocks of McDonald, and our son is now struggling to adapt to an immersion style of learning. He is very bright, especially in math and science, but often does not listen well because he is lost in thought and cannot easily shift his attention. (Me: Please get your shoes on. Him (staring out the window for several minutes): I’m confused about the fact that blood changes colors when it collects oxygen because oxygen is actually a colorless gas. How does oxygen make blood turn red?) He doesn’t listen great in English, and the problem is hugely exacerbated in a foreign language classroom. He isn’t failing out of kindergarten and his attention issues don’t seem to warrant a formal “diagnosis” at this point, but in my heart I know he would be loving his math and science classes better if they were taught in English.
Anyway, I just wanted to say that I think Ted B has an excellent point. In an ideal world, any 5 year old could walk into an international school classroom and rise up to the challenge of a half day of language immersion, becoming multi-lingual and appreciative of diverse cultures, and I absolutely believe that our community would be a better place for it. In reality, though, not all children will benefit from foreign language immersion and it doesn’t make sense to make this the “default” curriculum for all families within a geographic region.
“Walkable” is also defined by how much time a family has to give to that activity. If you have a stay at home parent, great. If you are a single parent or have two working parents, the bus may be a better option, or you are driving and dropping off. So “walkable”, to me, is a nice-to-have that shouldn’t drive bigger decisions.
“Neighborhood” means different things to different people. I love the Wallingford neighborhood, and love that my kids see their friends at the park, play on the same sports teams, etc. But I wouldn’t have come to Wallingford without the promise (that word is used very loosely in hindsight) of language immersion. I would have happily enjoyed my previous neighborhood and local school. And from my experience, the great majority of parents I speak with also moved to the area to pursue language immersion. SPS has stated that they were looking to close Latona before deciding to make it an international school, due to low enrollment, which I think is very telling about which came first, in this chicken/egg argument, the draw of the international program or the draw of the neighborhood.
“Attendance area” is really the term that should be used. It simply means if you live within a defined area (or lie about being in said area) you are guaranteed a spot, regardless of the capacity or program at the school. As noted above, it seems many are arguing for a “neighborhood” zone that isn’t true to reality. I’m sure the folks on Bagley south of 45th would say their neighborhood school is JSIS, but it isn’t their attendance area. And considering the overcapacity issues at both international schools, those attendance areas were due to shrink again.
I fully respect the call to contact SPS and speak against the plan. I also ask those who to support to be equally vocal and follow the same links and contact information provided above to show your support.
And since the split-sibling topic keeps coming up, why not make a plug that the district should commit to not splitting siblings due to their own boundary changes? If a family moves, that is one thing. But if a boundary is changed, the district should have to incorporate in their plans the fair treatment of siblings. Then the discussion of option vs. attendance area can be held without losing focus.
We too moved under the prospect of language immersion. I find deeply offensive and ignorant the comments on ‘rich elitists’
I am also totally baffled on why anyone would consider it wrong or even strange to choose a neighborhood based on the quality of the school. I know plenty people who move so their kids could attend Bryant, or go to Eckstein or get a better chance at getting into Thorton Creek. lf all this animosity is inspired by jealousy then by all means advocate for more Language Immersion Programs
I also disgree with those comments that LI is only suitable for some kids. Teaching in 2 languages is the norm in many countries and kids, all kids, do just fine.
“I also disgree with those comments that LI is only suitable for some kids. Teaching in 2 languages is the norm in many countries and kids, all kids, do just fine.”
Wally mom, can you back up your statement that “…kids, ALL kids” do just fine in LI? I am pretty sure that it wouldn’t take me very long to find several people (including two on this thread) with personal experience to the contrary. This one-size-fits-all mentality seems closed-minded.
Also, your argument that criticism of LI stems from jealousy doesn’t hold water. Plenty of parents choose non-LI schools even when immersion is an option, as described above by another commenter in great detail. Please listen before reacting.
Move Hamilton to Lincoln and install an all-season field on the north lot to make it a real middle school with athletics and performing arts space. Keep Latona as a neighborhood school and turn the Hamilton site into an immersion feeder school for Hamilton. McDonald could remain a neighborhood school because the capacity of the immersion program at the reprogrammed Hamilton site is equivalent to Latona and McDonald combined.
Otherwise, provide 20% of seats at Latona and McDonald for neighborhood while the remaining seats are all-city draw.
I really encourage us all to flood the School Board with email. This is a good place to rehears the issues but…We know from experience the respond to parent push-back. I think we need to ensure that we have at least a closer school option for neighborhood kids in B.F. Day, since it has such capacity, was remodeled awhile back & has a Spectrum program, so addresses the needs of many students. It is much closer than Greenlake School for most Wallingford families below 50th. Above 50th may be fine for Wallingford/Greenlake families north of 50th. I think we need to address reasonable boundaries for the schools that have capacity. It only makes sense. {:-) We don’t just want to talk to ourselves…
[email protected]
I like Marley’s Ghost’s ideas. Lincoln is such an underused space right now.
to BBB, how long does a family need to live in the community to be considered part of the community and not just an interloper? as a family who moved recently to attend the school (YES, to attend the school!!!) I’d like to feel like a part of the community and BE part of the community of the school my child goes to. we when first moved and explained to people that we were new in the neighborhood they would inevitably ask “oh, to go to the school?” and when i answered yes i was almost always met with a groan and “oh…..” .
i feel like THAT right there is where the “elite” comes from. the “my kids deserve to go here more than any other kid based on the length of time we’ve lived here”
not to mention how hard it is to find a place to live around here that isn’t a million dollars in rent.
anyway, seems like JSIS could have an english track for the kids in the geo location and have the LI for all city draw. that should calm most people down, right?
Ct, when I talked about animosity I was referring to all the ‘elite’ comments . Not to the fact that some parents would prefer non-LI to LI.
At the growth boundary meetings I was told twice (by People who didn’t know I lived here) that Wallingford residents are rich entitled people who somehow should be punished by taking away the immersion schools.This is also a recurrent comment at a popular Seattle schools blog. Sad to see this attitude from people who actually live in the neighborhood (see comment 1).
From the SPS website : http://www.seattleschools.org/modules/cms/pages.phtml?pageid=294923
Recommendations to the Board Coming Soon
The information from the September 17 draft is now obsolete. Recommendations to the Seattle School Board, dated October 16, will be available after they are posted with the Board agenda at 5:00 p.m. on Friday, October 11. Many of the recommendations are different from the earlier draft due to community input.
We’ll know more tomorrow after 5PM.
Nothing yet! Though I’m probably over eager… 🙂
http://www.seattleschools.org/modules/groups/homepagefiles/cms/1583136/File/Departmental%20Content/school%20board/13-14%20agendas/101613agenda/20131016_GrowthBoundaries_AttachmentA.pdf
It’s out! Looks like the split the difference and put half of Walingford from south of 36th and west of Woodland back in BF Day. JS still planned to be an option school.
It is up now. They made some changes to put the southwest corner of wallingford into BF Day. They also provided the geozone, which interestingly is larger than the boundaries – they have the geozone going up to 50th street, ending at Bagley with a very strange little strip of 45th & 46th to Stone Way included – wonder what that was all about.
Oh, and it looks like they are drawing Greenwood and Bagley into Wilson-Pacific instead of Hamilton and they created a North Central APP program that will go to Hamilton (after Wilson Pacific Elementary).
Remind me how you determine where you are going if your street is on the red line.
I dont understand why they have to change the boundaries every year. How hard can this be? Why it so beyond these peoples capabilities to draw boundaries that will work more than 12 months into the future? They have demographic information, they have maps, they can make estimates. They are suppossed to be professionals. Instead they seem to just draw lines based on the wishes of whoever shouted the loudest at them the most recently. They need to do less listening and more planning.
@impliedobserver #56:
Traditionally, the boundary is in the center of the street, with the side of the street closest to the school being in that school’s boundary.
So, If your house is on Interwood Ave (the East/West divide between Green Lake and BF Day), and is on the east side of the side of the street, it’s in Green Lake. West side of the street, BF Day.
Please confirm independently if this is the case for this boundary.
If the GeoZone’s for McDonald and JSIS are this larger, then they are probably of littler or lower impact to those living in the Geozone. In JSIS is is larger then the current Boundary so basically the Geozone has no point.
Re TR
Not sure what you mean by the geozone having little impact?
Do you mean because it islare people will have lower probability of getting a slot?
From another perspective this assures it will remain a Neighborhood school, no one will get in from outside the geozone. Except the 15 percent native speakers
It is not possible to draw boundaries that will ever last long. Some families will always game the system by moving to live within the boundary of a popular school. No offense intended, just fact. This why it was crazy for SSD to ever go down this path. With the old CHOICE system, at least they could tell a family, “Sorry, the school is full”. No longer. If the reason to abandon CHOICE was to save on transportation dollars, it would have been far simpler and a heckuva lot cheaper to make parents responsible for transport if they live outside a certain boundary.
I recommend that everyone write the Growth Boundary gropu + School Board & say: 1) Adjacency, 2) capacity, & 3) constancy, should be the central factors in determining boundaries. Boundaries do not have to keep changing. We know the capacity of each school building–that’s not a mystery. Portables are not a good solution when there is capacity in adjacent neighborhoods. (And it doesn’t hurt to throw in, that School Choice was a great system that seemed to work well for the majority.) Parents need to know that the boundaries are not going to bait & switch. Building school-family relationships is an SPS core value. To support that, they can’t keep changing boundaries. They need to lead with logic & fiscal responsibility! Bussing kids out of their area is NO fiscally responsible. Email:
[email protected]
[email protected]
Nina, all true, plus the District has now promised that if you live within such-and-such border, you have a guaranteed spot at the school. The capacity of the school may be a constant, but the incentive for families to move into a boundary means the population of the boundary will keep changing. Families are highly motivated to move to get the school that they want under the current District policy.
Marley, The proposal changes John Stanford and McDonald to Option Schools. This means they will not have boundary, i.e. here is not area which will guarantee a child attendance. They will have a geo zone, living in the geo zone is one of the tiebreakers the district will use to determine which children get in and which don’t if the school is over subscribed.
Does anyone know what the proposed list of tiebreakers is?
Wally Mom
I mean with such a large Geo Zone (almost equal to the current attendance area) Many in the Geo Zone will not get into the school. Irony Kids living just across the street from the school may not get it. That is wrong. The GeoZone should match the walking zone, so at least the kids who want to walk can.
This discussion here explains the large Geozone situation well.
sorry
http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=28765366&postID=7469759414325365038
TR,
Sure, they could make the geozone smaller, but that would be unfair to the rest of the neighborhood.
Also, they won’t. They need to fill up McDonald and Jsis with Wallingford/GL kids because there just aren’t enough seats in BfDay (which has several special programs) and GL elementary. Where else would they go?
You could advocate for a distance tiebreaker above the geozone.
Current proposed tiebreakes are
Siblings
Geozone
Lottery
Plus 15 percent set aside of K class for heritage speakers
Also, kids outside of the Hamilton MI Area d o not get transportation
Thanks Wally mom. Where did you see the proposed tiebreakers?
Ben
Look at the end of this document, there is a link to Appendix B. Proposed tiebreakers are there
http://www.seattleschools.org/modules/groups/homepagefiles/cms/1583136/File/Departmental%20Content/school%20board/13-14%20agendas/101613agenda/20131016_Action_Report_GrowthBoundaries.pdf?sessionid=4ecb3371068caf4dda8f2574e27109f1
I think we can all agree that it is advantageous for any neighborhood to have families with school age kids or younger, moving in. Houses come available for sale in all communities. This is not a new phenomenon, having families move to neighborhoods based on the schools there & other amenities, like walkability factor, proximity to work. This is nothing new & it’s a good problem to have. It means we have good schools & an attractive neighborhood. Transgenerational neighborhoods are healthy neighborhoods.