The election and housing density are the main topics of conversation around the neighborhood. Schools and education have played a part in those conversations, and it is school selection season. So we thought this topic might be serve as a bit of breather from those heated topics. As a parent of two young daughters, I am focusing primarily on the elementary school process as that is where I have the most experience. For parents of older children, we at Wallyhood encourage you to write up a similar post.
What is Elementary School Season ?
The season runs from October to March (here is one walk through of the process). This is the time for parents to apply for elementary schools both public and private. The process generally includes school visits, parent interviews, children visits, application materials, and financial aid applications. Some schools also have requirements for testing of the children for various aptitudes.
How many schools are there to choose from?
The season entails reviewing the seemingly endless number of schools in the Seattle Area. There are 98 schools in the Seattle Public School System, and 94 private schools (direct link to the Excel file) in the city of Seattle. Not all of the schools teach the full range of grades, so the numbers are slightly smaller if you are targeting a single grade. However, the biggest complexity in the process is not the sheet number of schools, it is the vast array of school types. The Seattle Schools have a website to assist in understanding the terminology.
How do parents evaluate different schools?
From personal experience, each parent has their own strategy. It is straight forward to find your current geographically assigned school (address lookup tool is located here). These geographical assignments can change year to year. Also, school construction can occasionally map you to a school that is farther away than other options. Seattle Public School District has a tremendous amount of data available at the district and individual school level (here is an example report for Green Lake Elementary ). These data are valuable to some parents, and others find the data does not address their primary concerns. Private schools have much less standardized data. There are also several different review sites, and those review sites then feed many of the real estate search engines ( here is an example for McDonald Elementary from Zillow using data from greatschools.org .) The end result is that schools are similar to so many other areas of life: there is a lot of data available but its provenance is difficult to determine and its value to your decision is unclear.)
What about Wallingford?
It is complicated. Seattle Public Schools has roughly seven schools in the Wallingford area. Seattle Schools has open enrollment so many children living in Wallingford attend schools outside the neighborhood, and many children living outside the neighborhood attend the Wallingford schools.
There are also roughly 12 private schools in Wallingford ( seven in the 98103 zip code, and five in the 98105 zip code).
What about the cost?
This is a difficult question to answer, and carries a lot of emotional weight for people. Tuition at private schools can run up to $25,000 per year for elementary school. Seattle Public Schools have no tuition. The total out of pocket cost of attending school is higher than just tuition. For example, Seattle Public Schools runs from 8 am – 2pm (here is the full detail ). Most working parents will therefore require some mix of pre/post school child care. This is roughly $500 month (Green Lake School Age Program is an example ) for parents with kids in public school.
Then there are donations. This is a very contentious topic, but it is a reality for parents at both public and private schools. This amount will vary and it dependent on ability to pay, but the pressure is real for parents to donate. BF Day is representative example of a fund drive.
These are just the largest cash outlays for attending school. The softer costs are real and feel endless (transportation costs, field trip costs, emergency preparedness kits, child care for school closures, summer camps when school is out of session, etc.), but are much harder to quantify.
If you forced me to pick a number, I would estimate out of pocket costs at roughly $7,000 – $8,000 a year for an average child to attend school in Seattle. This number can range from $0 upwards to $50,000.
Let the comments commence. What have I missed? How have other parents experienced the school selection process? If you do not have children, how do you view the schools in Wallingford? What is the impact of all this on the livability of Wallingford?
As a BF Day parent for 3 years now, I have never felt any pressure to donate. Also, you left out any information about neighborhood schools, how parents can find their assigned neighborhood school, and how attending your neighborhood school takes a lot of the stress out of the whole process.
Hi Gayle, would you be interested in writing an article to complement this article with the information you mentioned?
Good point. I will add the link for the address lookup tool. As of this morning, the tool works fine, but the link for “Before and After School Programs” loads a page that talks about putting students first. There is no mention of actual programs. So it does alleviate stress for finding the school, but it does little to facilitate finding before and after care for parents that require it.
What is most frustrating about Seattle Public Schools is the entrance policies. We continue to apply our son for a spot in JSIS after two hard years at Greenlake Elementary. Every year he is rejected. He is now 31 years old.
Can you clarify this? 31? hard years? Why not try McDonald? BF Day? bagley/ Greenwood?
Thank you for replying. He has special needs. JSIS is the best place for him because he only learned Spanish while stationed in Japan.
But you wrote he is now 31.. 31 is a mistake or sarcasm?/ McDonald also has Spanish.
He’s a very special young man. His wife and his mother are very proud of his progress. We look forward to him learning in Japanese and Spanish simultaneously.
Thank you for bravely sharing your story. Best of luck getting your son into JSIS. I think it is lovely how supportive you, his wife and his mother are being throughout this arduous process.
Great and timely post, thanks Ben! As a mom of two young boys, I know how overwhelming this process can be to find the right school for your child. I encourage parents to tour, ask tons of questions and speak with lots of families. Ask the school for families to speak with 1:1. And a plug for our St. Benedict School in Wallingford – tour coming up Fri, Dec 9th. A fabulous Preschool-8th and significantly less than the UCDS tuition quoted above, even if you are not in the parish (we are not). Good luck families! We are all fortunate to live near amazing public and private schools.
It is important to know your assigned school and if you are in the Geozone for JSIS and McDonald. Two years ago all students in the Geo zone got in and they were able to offer to 20 to 30 additional kids, but every year is different. Familes that attend JSIS know that the school has to raise an average of $1000 per child to fund the teacher assistants, but it is not an obligation to pay. Link to Geo zone map http://www.seattleschools.org/directory/option
B.F. Day has set their tour dates for new families considering the school. You can read more here (https://bfdayptsa.wordpress.com/2016/11/14/2017-2018-tour-dates-announced/), but the dates are:
December 8, 2016 at 9:00am
February 8, 2017 at 9:00am
February 16, 2017 at 5:30pm
I am on the BF Day PTSA board focused now on fundraising, and I was the board president last year. I’d be happy to talk with anyone who has questions about the school. Email me at [email protected]. We have three kids: one at Hamilton, one at Cascadia, and one at B.F. Day. I can talk from experience about all three schools! We have had a terrific experience at B.F. Day, and I’d love to talk about it.
– Steve