IT’S LIKE SEATTLE Public Schools ran into the Seattle housing market at a support group for struggling-but-putting-on-a-brave-face institutions and said, “You know what you need? More drama.”
After more than 10 years of managing an open-choice program that couldn’t promise your child a spot in your preferred school even if you lived across the street, SPS announced a new plan last November that seemed—at least on paper—to simplify the selection process: All incoming kindergartners and sixth and ninth graders for the 2010–11 year and beyond will be guaranteed a desk at their neighborhood school, as long as they live within its attendance-area boundaries.
And for parents of preschool-age kids who happen to be shopping for a home, the revision was certainly an improvement. With two tykes, one of whom will enter kindergarten in 2011, Susan Ward and her husband were ready to start hunting for a bigger abode a couple years ago but didn’t get serious until the new student assignment plan was released. “It made it really clear where to look for a home,” she says. “It made some neighborhoods more attractive than they were before, and it made some neighborhoods less attractive.”
“I have clients who wanted a certain school, moved there, the lines were redrawn, and now they’re very upset.”
But the plan had one other significant change, and it’s causing some families to sour on the home they previously loved. Attendance-area boundaries existed under the open-choice system (they were called reference-area boundaries back then), but living within them was just one factor used to determine whether a child would be admitted to a given school. Now, not only are they the main factor, they’ve shifted—and kicked some future students out of desirable attendance areas in the process. “I have clients who wanted a certain school, moved there, the lines were redrawn, and now they’re very upset,” says Windermere agent Anita Hearl. “Whether they would take a loss on their house and move because of it, though, I don’t know.”
Petra Buzkova is one peeved property owner who is prepared to pick up and move, even though she and her husband bought their Meadowbrook home at the height of the market and have sunk nearly $80,000 into renovating it. Despite living in the John Rogers Elementary reference area, they managed to snag a spot for their son at View Ridge Elementary last year. But under the new rules, their daughter, who will start kindergarten in 2011, could end up at John Rogers. “So not only will she be going to a school that we don’t like, but I’m logistically not able to drop them off and pick them up at two different schools,” she says. “I’m not a taxi driver.”
At press time, SPS had accommodated 73 percent of families in the Buzkovas’ position. But that leaves more than 25 percent—plus plenty of displaced families with just one child—who may be about to pack up and launch the Great Neighborhood Swap of 2010.
Published: July 2010
This issue is only part of a larger one of wholesale chaos within the Seattle Public School District….
A group of parents, educators and community members calling itself the Seattle Shadow School Board, is encouraged to see that 12 school staffs have now passed resolutions of “no confidence” in Seattle Public School Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson.
The 12 are: Ballard, Franklin and West Seattle High Schools, Schmitz Park, Sanislo, Laurelhurst, Maple, Green Lake, Adams and John Rogers (signature #340 on the Community Declaration of No Confidence) Elementaries, Orca K-8, and Ida B Wells.
These brave school staffs join the 376 individual Seattle citizens who have signed the Community Declaration of No Confidence in the Superintendent here: http://www.petitiononline.com/S3B62010/petition.html
Dr Goodloe Johnson is currently undergoing a performance evaluation, with the School Board also having to decide whether to award her a salary increase, bonuses and an extension of her contract until 2013.
The majority of community comments include calls for the sacking of the Superintendent and point to her many failures, from the $48M school closure/re-opening fiasco (which for Capitol Hill families included the closing of two schools – TT Minor Elementary and Meany Middle School – despite the District’s own reports that the neighborhood would see an increase of school-aged children of anywhere between 31-100% between 2008-2012), to the bungled redrawing of boundaries leading to the splitting of families and neighborhood communities, to her continuing conflicts of interest to degradation in services provided to Special Ed children and to the mismanagement of funding for the Native American program, threatening its continuity.
These votes parallel the concerns of many parents and community members, as also shown by opinion surveys conducted over the past three months (link here to one of them: http://www.cppsofseattle.org/News/May10/supt-surveyMay2010.pdf), and by a straw poll currently being run by the Queen Anne & Magnolia News Online, where 79% of voters think Dr Goodloe Johnson is doing poorly, with 11% saying she’s performing adequately and 11% saying she’s doing a fantastic job: http://www.queenannenews.com/
The Seattle Shadow School Board is asking the School Board not to renew Dr Goodloe-Johnson’s contract and to consider terminating her employment due to her ineffective leadership, poor decision making and management of Seattle schools on so many fronts.
If you also feel strongly that the School Board should not (at the least) renew her contract, let the Board know that by signing the Community Declaration and spreading the word.
The online Declaration will close on July 7th and will be presented to the School Board at its meeting that evening.
For further information, contact:
Sahila ChangeBringer
metamind_universal@yahoo.com
My first thought after reading this story was “waah, waah, waah”. I feel for Mrs. Buzkova’s situation. I’m in a similar one. My son goes to one school but our preschooler may have to go to a different school. I’m a very proud parent of a John Rogers student. We live outside the reference area but choiced in to Rogers because we loved it. I’m curious what she didn’t like about Rogers, or if she even walked through the doors to talk to the staff and see how the students were doing.
I’m sorry she made a choice and it didn’t work out as she wanted. I think that’s how life works sometimes. And if you do end up in the unfortunate situation of having your children at two different schools they are only a few minutes apart I’m sure your kids are worth the extra time and effort.
D. Jennings