Seattle School District officials have unveiled proposed boundary maps as part of its new Student Assignment Plan that splits district elementary, middle and high schools into “attendance area” zones, which students will be assigned to based on their address.

View the proposed boundary maps here.

The plan also includes re-opening several schools, including Viewlands Elementary School in 2011, based on projected increasing enrollment in certain areas of the city.

Viewlands was closed in 2006, amidst a highly controversial closure process, in part due to declining enrollment.

The latest on the plan was detailed to select members of the media, including the Ballard News-Tribune, at a media roundtable, hours before the School Board launched its four-hour workshop on the subject at 4 p.m. Oct. 6.

The School Board is scheduled to vote on the proposal Nov. 18 after about one month of public comment. Details of the implementation plan will not be made until the board has approved the boundary proposals, said Seattle Schools Enrollment Manager Tracy Libros.

The board approved this past June the rules to guide the new Student Assignment Plan, which is aimed at simplifying the enrollment process for families that has not been modified in decades, said Libros.

“(The current plan) has created an uncertain playing field,” Libros said.

The plan is designed, among other goals, to bring services closer to where students live, said Libros. She said that right now, there are programs in areas of the city that do not serve the immediate population.

The new plan analyzes the needs, such as bi-lingual and special education services, of students within the “attendance area,” or the students going to those schools.

Under the plan, a student would be assigned to the elementary school in his or her “attendance area,” and those elementary schools all feed into one middle school.

Students are also assigned to the high school within their “attendance area,” based, again, on their address. High schools will have 10 percent of its seats reserved for open choice, meaning that students from anywhere in the city can apply to go to that school regardless of their assignment.

The distance tiebreaker currently in place would be eliminated.

For Ballard High School, the "attendance area" boundary is drawn at Northwest 85th Street to the north and goes as far as Aurora Avenue North to the east and encompasses some of Magnolia to the south.

“We’re offering predictability to everyone that virtually no one had before,” said Libros. “But these are proposals. We anticipate a robust community involvement process.”

It will work roughly like this once the plan is finalized, which could take several years:

- Students will be assigned to an “attendance area” school (starting with kindergarten, six and nine this spring).

- Families can still apply to another school anywhere in the city if they are not happy with the assignment school.

- Students will be admitted to the school of their choice based on a series of tiebreakers.

- If a student does not get admitted to the school of their choice (not the school assigned to them) they can still attend the school initially assigned to them.

Libros said the major differences between the proposed process and the current is that now families are not initially assigned a school and tiebreakers have been greatly simplified.

The following are tiebreakers proposed under the new plan in order of priority:

Elementary and K-8: Sibling and lottery.

Middle schools: Sibling, feeder and lottery.

High schools: Sibling, lottery.

Open choice: Sibling, geographic zone and lottery.

The plan was developed analyzing demographics and building capacity, which brought about the need to re-open some school facilities, said Libros.

“The population of Seattle has shifted,” she said. “Enrollment is definitely growing in the district.”

Libros presented a chart that showed Seattle Public Schools enrollment at about 47,000 around 2000. It steadily declined, leading to the closure of more than a dozen schools in the city in 2006 and then again in 2008.

But enrollment is creeping up back to around 46,000 now, and Libros expects that number to continue to climb up into the year 2015.

The new plan, if approved by the board, would re-open the following schools:

Sand Point in 2010

Old Hay at interim site at Lincoln in 2010

Old Hay at Old Hay in 2011

Rainier View in 2011

Viewlands in 2011

McDonald at interim site at Lincoln in 2012

Though details of the implementation process are yet to be decided, it will start in phases beginning in the 2010-2011 school year with grades kindergarten, six and nine.

Libros said that students enrolled in 2009-2010 would be grandfathered into the school they are attending. Enrollment data from the past year still needs to be reviewed as well as the development of a transportation plan.

The district will be holding nine community meetings to gather public input beginning this Saturday. There will also be other opportunities for public comment at one of several upcoming School Board meetings.