The Seattle School District says its proposed new plan for student assignment has been designed to better connect schools with their local communities and coordinate curriculum between elementary, middle and high schools.

In a conversation with West Seattle's School Board Director Steve Sundquist, he explained that the greatest difference between the current plan, and the district’s proposed plan, is how the process of student assignment begins.

Under the new plan, students would initially be assigned to an elementary school according to the reference area that they live in.

Elementary schools would then filter into middle schools and later high schools, so that parents could reasonably predict which schools their children will attend in the future.

If parents are not satisfied with the school their child is assigned to, they could then apply for another school through a standard “choice process.”

If a school is not full then the student will be admitted upon request. If it is full, then siblings of students in a school get first priority for admittance and all other students are selected based on a random lottery.

Students would only be assigned to alternative schools, such as Pathfinder K-8, if they request the program through the choice process. Also, special education programs will continue to be available to all students who qualify.

District staff members have designed the new process with the hope of creating neighborhood-based schools where more students live in the school’s reference area.

“(When) families go to school close to where they live it helps build deeper roots in the community and helps to improve parent and family engagement in support of the students,” said Sundquist.

The district also hopes to better align curriculums between elementary, middle and high schools.

“It helps Seattle Public Schools put back together feeder patterns so they can predict, with pretty good odds, the flow of elementary, middle and high school,” said Sundquist. “So the student gets a much more seemless education process.”

Some parents are concerned that their children will not be able to attend the school of their choice under the new assignment plan. Some very popular programs, such as Chief Sealth’s International Baccalaureate courses, are not available at all schools and parents are concerned that students will have limited access to these.

But Sundquist said that it is the district’s goal to homogenize programs at different schools so that each school meets the needs of its students.

On Saturday, May 9, the public will have the opportunity to respond to the proposed plan during a community engagement meeting at the John Stanford Center for Educational Excellence. Sundquist said that this will be the time when parents should ask questions and communicate their concerns about the new rules and policies regarding student assignment.

This fall, parents will find out which school their children will be assigned to based on their home address. Sundquist said additional community outreach will likely occur at that time.

A new assignment plan would go into effect in the fall of 2010.

This policy revision is one of the major initiatives identified in the District's Strategic Plan, “Excellence for All”. The framework for a new Student Assignment Plan was approved by the Seattle School Board in June 2007.

More information will be available at the upcoming community engagement meeting:

Saturday, May 9
10:00 a.m. to noon
John Stanford Center, Auditorium
2445 3rd Ave. S.
Seattle, WA 98134