Yesterday’s Seattle Public Schools new assignment program public meetings

I attended the Eckstein community meeting on the new assignment program and School Board member Peter Maier’s community meeting yesterday.

There were at least 200 people at the Eckstein meeting and about 10 at Peter Maier’s meeting. The most significant things I heard relevant to Pinehurst are:

• There is some thought of moving the high school boundary so that some Pinehurst families would attend Ingraham while others would attend Nathan Hale. The reason for this is that Greenwood families want to be included in the Ballard high school area. If that boundary is moved north, it could cause the eastern boundary for Ingraham to move east into Pinehurst. Other school leaders who I spoke with doubt that the Ballard boundary could be moved north as they feel Ballard high school will already be oversubscribed and if anything, the boundary will need to move south, or some Greenlake area students will need to be assigned to Roosevelt.
• There was also significant discussion regarding whether all kids in the proposed Eckstein boundary would be able to attend. Enrollment projections for middle school assume that a few hundred Eckstein area middle-schoolers would choose Jane Addams. SPS does not have a stated back-up plan of how they will assign students next year if Eckstein is over-subscribed.

There is also a good discussion of the Eckstein meeting on the Seattle Public Schools community blog here.