Nothing brings a community together more than their neighborhood schools. While local trick-or-treaters go to various shopping districts instead of their next-door neighbors’ to get their Halloween treats, families with children have gathered en masse to push Seattle Public Schools (SPS) to reevaluate its latest incarnation of proposed boundary changes.
About 900 people total attended SPS’ five public meetings on the proposed boundary changes. And from May to Oct. 11, when the second version of its plan was released, SPS received 2,235 comments on the subject.
This obviously is an issue that SPS and its families take very seriously.
SPS continues to fine-tune its plan before it goes before the School Board on Nov. 20. While the plan gets closer to what parents want — namely, for their children to go to their neighborhood schools — it won’t be ideal for anyone.
SPS knows it has a lot at stake with its boundary changes — an unhappy student population could ultimately result in lower enrollment numbers, test scores and graduation rates. So it’s commendable that SPS is taking this as a lesson to learn from. Each new version of the plan shows that SPS officials listened to the feedback they received and have modified the plan accordingly.
For example, instead of dividing the students living in the High Point and Yesler Terrace mixed-income housing communities among elementary schools farther away, as originally planned, they will continue to attend school together as a group and benefit from the local organizations and agencies that provide the services they need.
SPS enrollment manager Tracy Libros explained to The Seattle Times, “By splitting up that community, we created more diversity, but we destroyed the benefit of a lot of that work.”
SPS is facing similar moves with its Accelerated Progress Program (APP), whose families don’t want to see the support system for their children dismantled.
Our students have enough to contend with these days, from the everyday challenges of growing up and cyberbullying to changing family dynamics and homelessness. Let’s make sure we do right by them and make it easier for them to just learn.
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