The recent article and subsequent comments about the bike corral on 54th and Latona got me thinking about schools. My daughter will start kindergarten in a few weeks and we live only three blocks from McDonald. We will not be attending McDonald however, because someone outside the neighborhood is willing to pay more than we are for that privilege. At the school tour, the introductory statement by McDonald leaders stated a mandatory $1,000 donation (to be fair the website states “$850 per student“). That same someone willing to pay more for public school is likely driving their kids to school which in turn creates congestion on the street at drop off. This congestion forces them to back onto Latona. This in turn, confirmed by a RackHungry.com post, creates a safety concern that forces the city to install a bike corral. The bike corral causes consternation in the neighborhood.
These dominoes starting falling because there is a bidding war on public schools. Schools’ PTA request donations. More donations leads to higher quality schools. Higher quality schools draw parents from outside the neighborhood. Attention from outside the neighborhood changes local school to lottery school. Lottery then reduces local student attendance and drives up the required level of donation from parents. Hence, a bidding war. This bidding war is a direct result of our state legislature willfully and unconstitutionally underfunding K-12 education. The 2012 McCleary decision from the state Supreme Court confirmed this legislature was unconstitutional. The repeated state budgets that continue to underfund K-12 education confirmed it was willful. The choice of those terms is not hyperbole; it is simply fact.
The legislature has many competing issues such as criminally underfunding mental health care: for children, for housing patients in hospitals, for housing patients in jails. The legislators are not bad people. They all chose to run for office with the best of intentions. There simply is not enough money to support the services the state requires. It leaves them in an awful bind.
The lack of funding of so many critical public services such as school and mental health services stems from the most regressive tax structure in the country. Our tax structure is strongly regressive because we only have a sales tax.
We now arrive at the statement in the title of the post: An income tax, not a bike corral, will fi
x 54th and Latona.
If we had an income tax, we would have sufficient income to pay for public services such as education. We would also have additional diversity in state revenue (see table at right) to better maintain funding during economic fluctuations. If we funded education, every child could walk to their local school because their local school would have the same access to quality teachers and facilities all across the state. Therefore, no one would feel compelled to pay $1,000 more per year for public schools than me, and then drive on N 54th St to drop their child off. Then we would not feel the need to get distressed about a bike corral.
The above argument is clearly simplified to fit into a blog post. However, I do believe it captures a fundamental truth that we are debating inconveniences while overlooking the larger, systemic issues. I would love to hear what the neighborhood thinks about the impact of our current tax structure on the neighborhood, both good and bad.
In particular, if the above is true, I would love to hear how we as a neighborhood can contribute to a statewide solution. Voting seems insufficient, as no one running for the state legislature is willing to address the regressive nature of our tax base.
A side note about the school bidding war and an additional benefit in the neighborhood for an income tax:
The change of McDonald from a local school to a lottery school had additional consequences for the neighborhood. Green Lake Elementary became the local school for many of the students that would have gone to McDonald, including our daughter. Green Lake had a significant spike in enrollment because of this change in status for McDonald. Green Lake was therefore forced to accommodate many more students which in turn caused crowding issues. Naturally, it also led to a funding issue that led Green Lake PTA to increase fund raising to accommodate the funding gap. Therefore, an income tax would not only address traffic flow on 54th, but it would reduce over crowding in Green Lake Elementary.
Great post, lots of thoughts.
I agree with your conclusion that a state income tax would help fund schools; however, I’m not sure if that has anything to do with McDonald and people driving their kids to school. I would posit that a great many people bought into the neighborhood just to send their kids to McDonald and probably don’t blink at the $1,000. $1,000 per year is much cheaper than pre-school. It’s probably a lot of locals driving their kids in.
There are only 4 spots per classroom allocated to “heritage” speakers which could come from outside the neighborhood although I don’t think that alone is cause for parents driving their kids.
Even if we had a state income tax, would we want to spend it on language immersion knowing that there are schools with much greater need of the funds, like say Hawthorne in South Seattle?
I too was turned off at the McDonald tour by the aggressive fundraising. I can afford the $1,000, but I wondered how I would feel sitting there if I couldn’t. There was no disclaimer made for people without the funds. If I didn’t have the money, I would feel out of place and like a deadbeat. The fact that it’s assumed I can afford it would make me embarrassed. It came across really entitled and really like it’s assumed parents wouldn’t want to make the donation. I can see why it gave you pause, and I do wonder if it self-selects the student body.
I noticed JSIS did not do this.
We are starting at B.F. Day in the next few weeks and I’m really excited. In the end, we didn’t think language immersion was for us.
WOW When did this mandatory donation come into place? Is this the same type for JSIS? Both schools have language immersion programs with the important feature of having classroom assistants in the language immersion sections in order to have children hear teacher & assistant speak the language between them as well as to have 2 adults speaking in the new language to the students. My understanding was that jSIS parents raised the money for the salaries,, benefits etc.. for the classroom assistant through donations, fairs, events etc..
If both in this small area of Seattle ‘require’ dontaions for children to be students there due to immersion program model this again brings the ? for review– in such a large, large school district why are 2 language immersion schools in the same neighborhood/ Others are Concord, Beacon Hill Intl & Rainier View- all very far apart.
BTW– JSIS has a school crossing guard & also a student patrol who raise flags to stop cars on crosswalks so students and families can cross streets safely.
The fundraising donation is not required, but encouraged in order to fund the native speaking instructional assistants and interns. The district does not fully fund these immersion programs, despite the benefits that accrue. There are no ramifications on families or students who cannot or choose not to contribute at the average suggested level.
I fully agree with Ben that the state needs to overhaul taxation in order to fully fund education, among other services, as he outlines. But even if it were to happen, that likely wouldn’t solve the problem of demand that leads to overcrowding at schools that offer special programs.
SPS (Seattle Public Schools) slotted McDonald to be an immersion school in part to relieve some of the pressure on the growing popularity of JSIS when both were neighborhood schools. When the pressure increased even more, it only made sense to make the schools that offer immersion programs option schools. Unfortunately that leaves Wallingford without a walkable neighborhood school, and creates challenges for our neighborhood kids and families–like living three blocks away from a school your child cannot attend.
Unfortunately?? That is how you sum it up? Putting many children and familes at inconvience to walk or bus or drive instead of walk to their neighborhhod school/ Also placing extra load on other schools nearby but not as close as the 3 block walk to offer what in a way is an’ elitist’ program? There are other neighborhoods with schools where an immersion program could have been located and then the students who wanted to go to immersion could have been bused or driven__ Olympic View, Olympic Hills, Bryant, Broadview-Thomson, Viewlands, Greenwood, Pinehurst, Montlake, WSE, Lawton… etc etc…
Agreed. I was sharing the history that got us to this point. When SPS slotted McDonald to be an immersion school, there were reasons that made sense TO THEM at the time. Then when they changed both JSIS and McDonald to option schools in the same year, there were reasons… Not without protest from Wallingford families who were shut out from a walkable neighborhood school.
SPS has put our neighborhood in an untenable position. We have kids who are shut out of a neighborhood elementary school because there is either not enough space for them at the option school, or immersion is just not the right fit. For the students who do learn in an immersion environment, we have the presumed benefit of strong cohort of students learning Japanese and Spanish who can move up to middle school together (they both feed into Hamilton)–but then there is not the support at that level to continue their immersion education (one class a day in the target language). In the end, it’s a weak solution all around.
Immersion programs are not by definition elitist. If designed in the right way, they can help English language learners as well as native English speakers to create literacy in a second language, which is a world citizen skill.
Sounds like you have knowledge & experience with the programs themselves or their literature. Benefit some; provide more difficult challenge for others. It might be interesting to visit immersion programs in other sites in SSD & / or other districts. There are many immersion program models and variations how a specific model is carried out.
Is a mandatory donation to attend a public school even legal?
No
The fundraising donation is not required, but encouraged in order to fund the native speaking instructional assistants and interns. The district does not fully fund these immersion programs. There are no ramifications on families or students who cannot or choose not to contribute at the average suggested level.
This is a really important point – the OP said his daughter didn’t get in because someone else was willing to pay more for the privilege. Third sentence.
If this is not true, it should be stricken from the post. How misleading!
I don’t think it’s mandatory in the sense of you can’t enroll your child in the school, or your child will be expelled. It’s just what the PTA expects. They might possibly ban children from extra activities if their parents didn’t pay, but that would be a horrible PTA (which brings us back to sending your child to another school…)
I haven’t ever heard of there being consequences for not paying… If anyone could chime in that has heard of this happening….. It would be totally inappropriate.
The fundraising donation is not required, but encouraged in order to fund the native speaking instructional assistants and interns. There are no ramifications on families or students who cannot or choose not to contribute at the average suggested level.
There are some wild leaps in this article. You will be disappointed to find out that, say ‘for example’ the state fully funds education next year, it won’t effect the $1,000 per student needed to fund the teacher assistants and wouldn’t measurably decrease traffic because people still drive when they are close by shuttling multiple kids around. Maybe at McDonald they give the hard sell for $1000 and maybe go over the line, but nobody can be forced to give $1,000. At JSIS I never got the impression that it was necessary for the people who didn’t have the money to pay, but for the people that did…. if you didn’t pay you weren’t doing your part to keep the school going.
No they can’t enforce this punitively, but does it really matter when the coercion is pretty strong? I was there at the tour. They made no mention about scholarships for those who can’t afford to pay. It was stated: this is how much it costs. When you receive confirmation that you are assigned to this school you will immediately get notice from the PTA for the $1,000. From their web site below. Note that there is no mention about what to do if you can’t pay.
This vital Immersion Support (Assistants and Interns) comes at a cost of $850/student/year. This is an additional donation above the fees for Kindergarten. New McDonald Int’l families are asked to make their tax deductible donation by September 15, 2016 to help pay for the Immersion Assistants and Interns already hired for their child(ren)’s classroom. We’ll begin fundraising for next year’s Immersion Support later in the year.
I wonder if the higher ups in SSD are aware of this. There is a Dept. of International Schools in SSD. Also regional managers. There is also a District Ombudsman. All these and more supposedly want feedback & to hear concers. Again, with 2 immersion program schools close together in a neighborhood causing parents to send their children further distances to go to school because they may not view with the immersion program as being ideal for their child SSD may not have made their best decisions re program placement. ( there are many excellent and valid reasons that immersion programs are NOT ideal or beneficial for all students.)
I’m sorry, I removed the comment because I thought it was too mean to McDonald. Most parents can probably pay, so maybe this conversation is much ado about nothing. I just was turned off by the fact they made no mention of what to do if you can’t verbally or on the web site. Which is really exclusionary.
California has a state income tax (along with sales tax and property tax rates similar to what we have in Seattle.) Yet, there we were asked for “mandatory” donations to attend the language immersion program. (They were technically optional, but the one kid that didn’t contribute caused her class to miss out on a party.) The district had no school buses, and there was no “neighborhood priority” for language immersion, so traffic was bad. (Ironically, the “mandatory” donations at the language immersion school were actually less than those at some of the neighborhood schools in the district.)
As a parent of a 5th grader at McDonald, I’d like to correct some misinformation. There is not a mandatory $1000 donation per child at McDonald, and no child is banned from any activity for not donating, nor is any family earmarked in anyway for not contributing. There is a strong fund raising push, perhaps some would say too strong, but this article and these comments are misinformed. The language immersion program that children receive is not fully funded by the district and the PTA fund raises aggressively to provide native speaking assistants in the classrooms.
It’s a problem that the program is not fully funded. It’s a problem that parents are pushed to fund this gap. It’s a problem that popular school programs aren’t available to all who want them, and that neighborhood school are overcrowded. State income tax would be a good idea, but you weaken your argument by presenting misinformation.
I’m also a parent of a McDonald child. Thank you so much for clarifying that the fundraising for immersion assistants at the school is in no way mandatory. As in other Seattle public schools, children are enrolled without consideration of their ability to support the PTA’s programs, financially or otherwise. In fact, I think it reflects quite well on the McDonald parents that PTA participation (across the board, not just with the fundraising) is so high.
From http://www.mcdonaldpta.org/donate: “Immersion Support Fund: How much do I need to donate? A: The cost of providing this level of support to our children is $850 per student per year ($1,700 for Kindergarteners since we have to fundraise a year in advance for the IS Fund). This is a large amount of money for any family. Our goal is that EVERY family gives WHAT THEY CAN. 100% participation is the most important goal to the PTA!” Again: The donation is NOT mandatory.
This was a very interesting and enlightening post. Thank you! It is a great shame that the question of funding education in the States is politicized, particularly when one considers the vast funds we allocate to our military complex, to fear rather than to hope. We have been attending McDonald since it became an international school. I know that the additional fundraising is largely about providing for the specialized needs of an international school, in particular the international assistants that are hired to enrich the experience and education. It is not mandatory, is purely fundraising, and again and again we are presented with the option to donate for others who might need scholarship (even in each field trip permission slip). It is a wonderful school! I would love to see a day in which this and other types of rich educational experiences are prioritized in budgets and fully funded. If income tax is that path, then I say we do it. There is no better investment than in our children and the future of our country.
I know the McDonald parents are upset by this conversation, but surely you can also understand that the message that the donation is not mandatory has not been delivered as well as you are saying it has. I just looked at their web site this morning and it didn’t say pay what you can. I think it has been changed. I went to the tour and they never said that. Perhaps this can be a great learning opportunity for the PTA.
There is so much misinformation in this article that it’s quite harmful. McDonald is a public school. No one is required to give a penny if their child attends this school. I agree that McDonald and JSIS should be neighborhood schools, but as the tiebreakers are set up, they remain primarily neighborhood schools. The preference is siblings, native speakers, geozone (neighborhood around the school), and if there is still space, kids from other areas of the city can get in. A huge problem for incoming kindergartners this year is the new law limiting the class size to 22 students down from the mid to upper 20’s.
Why is it a problem tohave fewer children in a kindergarten class? Have you ever taught kindergarten?
It is a problem for the sustainability of immersion programs. There is attrition in all schools of course, but in immersion schools new students cannot join the school after 1st grade without passing a language test. Typically, this means that the empty spots from 2nd grade onward will remain unfilled. For example, my son at JSIS started with 27 kids in his K class. He is going into 4th grade with 20. SPS funds schools based on # of students. If a school falls below the desired enrollment number, they don’t receive necessary funding. It’s a catch 22 currently. Immersion programs would like to take a few more kids over the 22 K number for program sustainability, but we are not allowed to or we will lose other funding. So, the 12-15 kids that JSIS can’t take have to be assigned to one of the neighborhood schools, some of which are having to add portables to address the crowding
aahh, thank you. I forgot about that. I know how the grades are configured but I forgot about the attrition rate. At Beacon Holl new students oft come from a Spaanish speaking country. Also because math is taught in the immersion language it is not so simple to create a G 2/3 or 3/4 because the math instruction needs to be grade level and with the new curriculum it is not possible to teach 2 grades onf math in one section as was slightly possible in other curriculums in other years.
That graph about state tax revenue is amazing! I’m stealing it.
I think the Alaska model looks pretty good. But I know our economy is so different from theirs. Still, tax those corporations!
The problem with Alaska is that giant gray bar on the chart: more than half of the state budget comes from oil revenue. They are looking at massive budget cuts as a result of the recent decreases in oil price.
I’m all for taxing the hell out of the fossil fuel industry, but it’s a pretty volatile market to be so dependent on.
Wow, for someone who “collects, analyzes, and leverages data to change culture and improve outcomes”, you sure got a lot wrong in the first five sentences of your post and make a lot of assumptions thereafter. To make McDonald the scapegoat of a failed financial strategy for education in the State because your daughter did not get in or because you had the wrong impression that ANY donation would be required in a public school is neither changing a culture OR improving outcomes. How much data did you collect about the families who are, and have been, a part of the McDonald community and have never given a penny? How much data did you collect on families who have never had to pay for a field trip, school supplies, or any other expenditure related to attending McDonald? How much data was collected about how many care packages of coats, clothing, and food are provided to McDonald families? A donation is a donation. A School policy about enrollment is a school policy about enrollment. State funding is State funding. And not getting into the school of your choice is something that happens far too often unfortunately. But to oversimplify all of those as being connected and blaming an elementary school to grab a headline is negligent and mean.
Every year that my children have been at McDonald (and my younger also did not get in right away which was frustrating), the PTA has gone out of their way to communicate clearly that PARTICIPATION was the goal, not a minimum dollar amount. The PTA has also repeatedly stated that they do not believe that they should have to fundraise to provide the minimum staffing to provide a language immersion program, but have seen no other solution present itself. The North end has has the largest growth of school age children in the city in history. Prior to that, during the recession, the district was closing schools. No matter what laws are changed in the next two years, schools will remain overcrowded for the foreseeable future. The only way to change that is to build more classrooms – I did not see your suggestions for that problem in your commentary.
Don’t pin system problems on local players. The legislature is where the attention should be focused on your misdiagnosed problem.
“… schools will remain overcrowded for the foreseeable future.” I heard some numbers on this, verbally so of course I’ve forgotten every detail, but I had the impression they are soon due to get much, much worse, beyond conceivable remedy. Where would these extra classrooms be built, even if we had the money for them?
There are important benefits from children attending school with their neighbors instead of being driven away from the neighborhood to go to school. Neighborhood schoolmates can attend activities and play with each other after school. Their parents can get to know each other. These interactions result in neighborhood networks that spread local information, create friendly social communities and can even mean safer neighborhoods for families.
Ben,
No offense intended, but your if-then statements not only represent several logical errors, but the idea that people throughout the state would vote for an income tax based on such statements as these, is pure lunacy. Better to get your facts and your logic straight before you post next time. Otherwise, the misrepresentation just wastes others’ time and creates more misunderstanding that the people with the facts have to deal with.
To Ben Robinson. Thank you for initiating this conversation. It is a basis for me to champion a state income tax. With discredit to the many who voted it down the past two or three times, shame on you. Our children are our future. If for no other reason, it is critical to have a good education system so we have good citizens, and I hope they learn to think critically when making decisions. We are one of the few (I think 7) states that do not have one. The funding for schools in this state is abysmal. McCleary was/is a wake up call, but a good/bad thing also.
I know that “that was then, and this is now…” but I had an amazing education in Iowa City, Iowa in the public schools. Plus art, drama, music (instruments furnished by the school) for the first few years. What in the heck has happened to education? Fortunately, my kids (all in their 50’s now) had the same great public education I had, minus all the arts and music. But they are sending their kids to private schools….cause they can. I wish they weren’t.
We need to fund our schools. With state income taxes. There is nothing more important than providing a good public education for every single kid…says this 81 year old!
The single damned stupidest thing about the tech boom has nothing to do with zoning or housing but rather the fact that we don’t have a high threshold income tax and capital gains tax. Set the limits just a bit lower than CA and MA. WA would be awash in money for education (which IMO ought to be its highest priority). What are tech people going to do (I say as a tech person) – up and move to San Francisco or Boston? Nope. It’s money that doesn’t cost 9X% of the population a dime and could give us the best schools in the country.
Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and again. You’re right on this.
Every state that currently has a state income tax is in the red finacially. Some states are reversing their views on this type of tax and will eliminate the state income tax. We pay enough taxes right now. Property tax, sales tax, gasoline tax, luxury tax. For heavens sake do not advocate a state income tax.
Indeed, the two states at the top of the chart (i.e., as far from Washington on the chart as possible, although obviously not geographically), Oregon and Alaska, are both facing huge fiscal crises and are underfunding their schools at least as badly as we are.
Feel free to oppose a state income tax, but let’s not spread misinformation. There are plenty of states with income taxes that have budgets in the black. And of the 7 with no state income tax, at least two of them (Wyoming and Alaska) are expected to have signficant budget shortfalls this year.
What you state is not correct.
I have never heard of a mandatory donation or a donation of any kind to send children to public schools. I would think that would be against the law!
Ben,
While I support the sentiment of what you’re writing, I think there’s some factual errors:
1. The McDonald PTA website doesn’t say anything about “mandatory” donations (that sounds kind of contradictory actually). I thought maybe they changed the verbiage after you wrote this, but the Wayback Machine doesn’t think so:
https://web.archive.org/web/20160201042213/http://mcdonaldpta.org/IA/info
2. While there might have been consternation about losing parking/drop-off spots to the bike corral, it was installed adjacent to a crosswalk. SDOT confirmed that spot was illegal to park in. No parking was lost. Tempest in a teapot, in other words.
I definitely support a steep, progressive state income to support education and other needs like transit and housing affordability, but I think getting facts straight first is important.
The Supreme Court ruled that the State was not fulfilling its constitutional duty to fully fund K-12 education. I don’t read that as being unconstitutional. The state legislature needs to follow the constitution, fully fund the schools and spread the rest of the finances to the other programs that do not require full funding by constitution. Lottery proceeds also fund the schools, besides the levies, and other taxes.
It sounds like you are frustrated by many things including traffic congestion around McDonald Int’l, PTA donation requests, and the inadequacy of State funding for education. Taken separately these are all valid issues, however, in your post, you marry them in ways that I find problematic.
1. You claim that having McDonald Int’l as an option school is causing over-crowding at Greenlake Elem. This statement does not make sense for a few reasons.
A. Because of priority for enrollment for families living within the geozone, every year all of the people who apply to McDonald Int’l and live within the geozone of the school seem to get in. This helps alleviate the burden of students who may have otherwise attended Greenlake.
B. McDonald International is a relatively new school. It was re-opened only six or seven years ago. If it wasn’t re-opened, Greenlake would be even more crowded.
C. McDonald Int’l is also over-crowded as is JSIS. The real culprit of the over-crowding at all of these schools probably has more to do with the growth of the number of young families in the
neighborhood as Seattle’s population swells than the “Option” school designation. The Seattle Public School enrollment system can be complex, but please try to understand it a bit before you post.
2. In your post you assert that those willing to donate to the school live farther away and are thus causing traffic congestion.
A. This does not make sense if you look at the demographics of the different areas within the geozone of the school. The majority of the students attending McDonald live within either its current geozone, or a geozone deisgnated from a few years ago (the boundary lines have changed in the last five years). The geozone of McDonald spans across I-5 to NE 15th St. The average home within walking distance of the school on the West side of I-5 costs more than one on the East side of I-5, thus we can assume that the people who live within easy walking distance of McDonald Int’l probably have more income at their disposal to donate to the school and may not be the ones driving. I thus do not see an obvious correlation between the families who drive and cause congestion being the ones who can donate generously to the school.
B. Families who are considered “local” i.e. were admitted to the school because they lived within the geozone, may be driving for a variety of reasons. You could live in the geozone and be almost in Ravenna. Try walking a five year old to school from there every morning and getting them to school on time. People might also be driving because of: weather, illness, having to rush off to work after drop-off, taking older or younger kids to other schools, or just because they are lazy. Please don’t put all of the blame for traffic congestion on a PTA donation request.
Now, can we please focus on the real threat: under-funded public schools. Schools in this District are not guaranteed music and art class, for example, or a full time librarian or school counselor or school
nurse. This is the issue we need to put our energy into (and Washington’s Paramount Duty is doing a great job of this).
Please do not stir up a public witch-hunt for well-intentioned volunteer parents trying to support their kids’ school in an atmosphere where schools are not being fully-funded.
You can have an issue with the way PTAs fundraise. Some public schools in the District, for example, hold auctions where parents are expected to:
1. Buy expensive tickets
2. Get a babysitter for the night
3. Procure at least one auction item
4. Bid generously at the auction (plied with alcohol) in front of their peers
5. Make additional donations through the night for things like an “annual fund” and a “dessert dash”
6. Join the auction committee where you donate countless hours on the decorations, invitations, etc.
Personally, I much prefer receiving an envelope once a year in which I submit an anonymous donation in
the amount of my choice. This has been my experience of the fundraising at McDonald International. Participation of turning in the envelopes – even if they are empty – has been the message I have heard from the PTA. It sounds like this was not conveyed clearly at the school tour you attended. Did you have a chance to follow up with questions and talk with any of the current parents about this issue before writing your post or deciding not to enroll your daughter at the school?
People can buy their way into McDonald??? This city is absurd. If you want to go to my elementary school (class of ’65), move into the neighborhood (where I’ve lived since ’64)! Back in the day, I walked 2 whole blocks. No need for a parent to drive me. And there were basketball hoops that the portables have pushed aside (or the neighbors have cried about the “noise” – and Hamilton Middle School has fallen to the portable problem) …. This is the problem with the city now with King Murray and the “high density city counsel”. What a mess. Discuss……
DensmoreDave?
I’d like to see us either ban PTA donations to schools entirely. That’s the only way to get white (and richer) parents pissed enough that we force the state to deal with this mess.
I wondered when you’d pull the SJW, angle, Paul. So, it’s not enough to argue that people don’t “deserve” any increased equity in their homes. Now you’re making the case that they shouldn’t be allowed to support their kid’s school, either?
But, I agree that the state really should obey the McCleary decision and properly fund our public schools especially to keep up with all that coming density your so excited for. Therefore, we shouldn’t fork over $54 BILLION for ST3 until we get our schools squared away first. Kids over choo choo trains, I say.
It sounds like you are frustrated by many things including traffic congestion
around McDonald Int’l, PTA donation requests, and the inadequacy of State
funding for education. Taken separately these are all valid issues, however, in
your post, you marry them in ways that I find problematic.
1.
You claim that having McDonald Int’l as an option school is causing
over-crowding at Greenlake Elem. This statement does not make sense for a few
reasons.
A.
Because of priority for enrollment for families living within the geozone,
every year all of the people who apply to McDonald Int’l and live within the
geozone of the school seem to get in. This helps alleviate the burden of
students who may have otherwise attended Greenlake.
B.
McDonald International is a relatively new school. It was re-opened only six or
seven years ago. If it wasn’t re-opened, Greenlake would be even more crowded.
C.
McDonald Int’l is also over-crowded as is JSIS. The real culprit of the
over-crowding at all of these schools probably has more to do with the growth
of the number of young families in the
neighborhood as Seattle’s population swells than the “Option” school
designation. The Seattle Public School enrollment system can be complex, but
please try to understand it a bit before you post.
There is absolutely no mandatory donation at McDonald. This is a public school. Donations are also anonymous (with the exception of the PTA treasurer who has to deposit the checks).
Many parents pay more, some pay less, some don’t contribute. The COST averages $850 per student because that is the cost of having either an intern or an immersion assistant in each (overflowing) classroom most days. As an international school – immersion assistants are highly recommended if you want it to work.
I agree that this shouldn’t be the case. But SPS won’t pay for it even thought they know that in order for an international school to run well, they need these immersion assistants in the classes. They don’t have the money. So parents got together and raised money for it.
And I’m with you. State income tax. Stop the levies and this ridiculous need for PTA funds. In fact, let’s be real about this in the first place. Kids like mine, and the majority of kids who go to McDonald, are not the kids we should be concerned about. We need to fully fund schools in other areas of Seattle that are severely underfunded, and don’t have PTA $ as a lifeline.
This is why my husband and I have decided to match our annual donation to McDonald this year, giving the same amount to an underfunded school in Seattle. I hope others will join us. No, it’s not the solution. But it is better than nothing. And arguing for income tax this session won’t help kids in schools this year.
The state is supposed to come up with a real plan next week to address McCleary and fully fund our schools. We shouldn’t hold our breath. 🙂
Again, agreed that the fact this $850/child amount is needed at all — is ridiculous in any case. Obviously ability to pay would not reflect whether or not your child gets enrolled. Just want to clarify donations to the PTA, to fund these school staffers, are not a requirement for any family, ever. I will add, I am well aware of how fortunate my kids are to attend McDonald. We love the teachers and the program. Though I do wish we had more heritage speakers apply. Hopefully that component will continue to grow.
My business partners wanted FR ASIS-1 yesterday and used a document management site that has a huge forms library . If people are looking for FR ASIS-1 too , here’s
https://goo.gl/MsH03B