Last week’s Stevens Carnival (Image: CHS)
Following a shift to creating more walkable, community-focused “neighborhood schools” with a new set of student assignment plans across the city in 2009, Seattle Public Schools is again preparing for what could be a significant realignment of school borders in the city and on Capitol Hill.
CHS and our sister site Central District News have been alerted to one area session to begin gathering feedback on early plans for the changes:
Do you live in the Stevens Elementary enrollment boundary and have a preschool student you are planning to enroll in the next couple of years? The Stevens Capacity Task Force is hosting a community meeting on June 5th, at 7:00PM in the Stevens Library to share information regarding the planned enrollment boundary change for the 2014-15 school year. We are looking for your input in response to the information we have collected. The Task Force will use the input gathered from the community to make a recommendation regarding the Stevens boundary change to the district. Hope to see you there!
The borders from a 2009 proposal
Stevens earlier this year faced enough of a potential overcrowding situation that the school considered adding a portable classroom for the first time to its 18th and Galer campus. No such drastic measures ended up being taken but sorting out exactly how far south the elementary school’s border should extend has been an issue in the past.
Seattle Public Schools, meanwhile, is planning to take the feedback gathered in the local sessions into a series of community meetings planned for the fall:
Seattle Public Schools will host five community meetings in fall 2013 to present information and seek public comments about changes to elementary and middle school boundaries for the 2014-15 school year and beyond. (Boundaries will not change for the 2013-14 school year).
In the coming weeks, expect one more important public school issue in the area to be the subject of increased attention. With the approval of February’s school levy, it’s full steam ahead on creating a new middle school on the 19th Ave Meany campus.
“Stevens …. school considered adding a portable classroom for the first time to its 18th and Galer campus.”
Not true: 20+ years ago there were 3(?) portables in the SE corner of the Stevens campus, right on 19th.
I recall my then 1st grade son and his classmates parading into a School Board meeting bearing models of the Stevens portables. Seward School parents were suggesting that, rather than closing Seward, the School Board move TOPS (then at Stevens) to Seward. The Board politely explained why this was impossible, closed Seward, waited about a year, and then announced THEIR great plan to re-open Seward as a new home for TOPS! Little changes.
Actually, there were at least 8, maybe 9, portables there when I attended “GAOP” (Garfield Area Option Program) — which later became TOPS — at Stevens, circa 1976-1981. The option program resided in 6 connected portables, 3 each in two rows connected by a deck/walkway in between. There was also a music portable and the SPICE (senior citizens’ volunteer program) portable and possibly one other between those two. Stevens couldn’t go back to that now though, because they’ve built new structures (lunchroom/auditorium/gym, covered play area, and before/after care and preschool building) where the portables used to reside. They also made part of the playground into a parking lot. Hard to see much room for a portable now, except the already-encroached-upon playground.
I’ve been schooled!
I was a big fan of public school until my kids entered the Seattle public school system. What a corrupt mess.
I wondered with all that growth on the hill, those who have children, might have children who will attend a grade school of some sort, public or private; how and where are those boundaries which determine what child and family has a primary school, a public school which is their neighborhood school?
Lowell, that one is easy; like it’s other namesake, in San Francisco which has a claim to being the oldest high school in the American West, this Lowell on the hill has been there a while. But not as old as the building which one sent students off to nearby Seattle High School (Broadway H.S.–the Edison Tech and then, S.C.C.C.) the former Summit Elementary which has been rebadged to the Northwest School, part of an expanding campus which will include that large new building being erected at Bellevue Avenue and Pike Streets. The face of education is changing, more options, frequently expensive whether private or public and all, so frustrating and infuriating for so many parents.
[…] latest process to adjust Seattle Public Schools’ borders kicked into high gear over summer and continues this with meetings and a formal SPS survey to finalize feedback on the next […]