In a November 20, 2009 School Board meeting, Seattle Schools Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson stated, “we all want a district where every school is an excellent school.” She went on to acknowledge that “we have to make significant changes for that to come true,” responding to the ever-present complaints from families about the struggling district. These significant changes include the district’s “New Student Assignment Plan” that the board later unanimously approved; a step in the “Excellence for All” strategic plan the board approved in 2008. The new systems are designed to overhaul public education in Seattle for years to come.

The new student assignment plan is the district’s latest attempt to streamline a convoluted enrollment process. Rather than requiring incoming students to fill out forms, rank their top school choices, and wait to find out where they are assigned, the district has created new boundaries around each school. Students will be automatically assigned to their attendance area school based on their addresses, from elementary school to middle school to high school. For example: Garfield High School’s attendance area reaches from just south of the I-90 bridge up to 520, and west until the waterfront and Denny Way/Broad Street by the Seattle Center. All incoming high school students who live within these boundaries will be assigned to Garfield. According to the school board, these boundaries are based on school capacity and travel time for students.

Although the plan is slated to begin in the 2009 – 2010 school year, there will be a necessary transition period. Students currently enrolled in a non-attendance area school, will be “grandfathered” into that school, and allowed to complete the highest grade level there. Families will also have to adjust to limited choice within the school district. According to the district website, students may apply for assignment to other schools, but will only be considered for enrollment once all of that schools assigned students have been enrolled. Students may also apply to “option schools”: The Center School, Nova, and, as of next year, Cleveland High School.

“We need a student-assignment plan that is equitable, predictable and easy for families to understand,” wrote Goodloe-Johnson in her June 2009 guest column in the Seattle Times. In the same piece, she states that the primary goal of Seattle Public Schools is to “provide an education that prepares each student to graduate from high school ready for college, careers and life.” This is a phrase that is repeated multiple times in other components of the “Excellence For All” plan; a mantra for improvement. However, many families are questioning whether or not these two goals can be achieved together.

The question everybody’s going to have is, ‘Is there quality in my neighbor-hood?’” says Garfield principal Ted Howard. “They want to know, is there a college prep program in my kid’s school?”

Parents who have lived in the Seattle area for long enough will recall the scandal that plagued the school district in the mid-1990s when it decided to send incoming high school students in Magnolia and Queen Anne to Ingraham. Though they were relieved to finally have a high school for their children, parents quickly became upset when they realized that Ingraham was not as highly ranked as Ballard or Roosevelt. Ingraham now boasts the International Baccalaureate program, but improvement in one school has not placated current Seattle parents who are still concerned over their child’s placement in a school not of their choosing.

The district has backed up its decision by promising that they will make “every school a high quality school” through their “Excellence For All” plan. However, there is some conflict over exactly what that means. Seattle Public Schools has made a commitment in the plan to raise standardized test scores and increase graduation rates, and these goals do not often coincide with the college prep they have also promised.

“I visited my son’s high school for his freshman orientation, and I was amazed by how much time the prin-cipal spent going on about the new standardized tests,” says one Ballard High School parent. “He and the other administrators spent most of the time talking about how they needed to meet the standards.” Although Ballard is widely acknowledged as one of the best schools in the district, it still has struggled with low math and science scores on the WASL in the past, and is focusing on bringing them up. Unfortunately, this isn’t the most rigorous of academic paths, though it is one many schools are taking.

“The state has set the bar really low,” says Howard. “What they’ve said to me is that there are certain standards that need to be taught, and that we need to monitor. The real question is: how are these standards going to be taught?” That, and “how is this going to affect my student’s options for college?” are what many parents are asking.

According to Dick Lilly’s October 5 article on Crosscut, the new plan sets Rainier Beach, a school that has been consistently under-enrolled for years, to have over 1000 students four years from now. Higher numbers lead to greater generation of funds, which in turn leads to more academic course and program offerings. This would alleviate some of the concerns of parents whose children will be assigned to schools like Rainier Beach, but some students have a different perspective.

When the student to teacher ratio is lower it helps the kids feel like they have more one-on-one time with the teacher,” says Rainier Beach student Lisa Montgomery. She then elaborated on the other issue that causes parents to shy away from Rainier Beach, which she considers more of a problem than under-enrollment:

“I would like to see less fights every day. Kids are constantly using violence as a form of problem solving, and coming from a different part of town, it’s shocking. I think they should focus on violence control because I don’t see teachers or staff members breaking up the fights quick enough to ensure the safety of other students.”

While increased enrollment could still benefit Rainier Beach, that’s not the case with every school. The new assignment plan has Garfield High School facing a multitude of issues, one of which is over-enrollment. The full school already has a long waiting list, and the new boundaries and rules have the potential to magnify the problem.

“From a broad standpoint, it may over-subscribe Garfield,” says Ted Howard, “and push certain programs out.” Howard has shown concern that Special Education and bilingual programs will lose their places at Garfield as the district discusses whether or not their students (many of whom do not live near Garfield) should be moved for greater cost efficiency. Meanwhile, more and more students attempt to find a way to get enrolled at the school.

“I have families literally talking about moving to be in Garfield’s attendance area,” says Howard. Meanwhile, the district has confirmed that students in the APP will still feed into Garfield, regardless of whether they attend Washington or Hamilton Middle School. With the district promising spots for APP students, attendance area students, as well as space for out of area applicants and a desire to retain special programs, Garfield will be under some serious strain over the next few years as the school attempts to accommodate everybody.

Ted Howard still has one more question for the district: “Why are you going back to something that was already in place that wasn’t working?” The district has done much to tout the benefits of reverting to the old “neighborhood schools” idea that Seattle did away with years ago, but has given few concrete details as to how it will improve the inherent problems with the change. Parents ask why their children have to go to schools with low test scores. Students wonder if they’re going to be able to get into the same colleges as their peers at other schools. Everyone wants to know what will happen to diversity in the public schools. District officials will have to answer these vital questions and more in the coming months, since their plan has left so many of them unanswered.