Welcome to School Board Director (District IV) Michael DeBell's Blog

The new Student Assignment Plan

   On June 3rd a comprehensive overhaul of Seattle's assignment plan will be introduced as a board motion. There will be a public hearing on June 10th (sign up to testify at the Board office 252-0040)  and a vote on June 17th.  This is the next step in a process that began two years ago with a framework adoption and will continue into the fall with the drawing of attendance area maps (also to be voted on by the Board).  Over the past forty years, Seattle has had mandatory desegregation busing, a phase out of busing to controlled choice and for the past twelve years, open choice- the ability to choose any school in the district.  Each of these has had their major problems and unintended consequences- books have been written about these issues so I won't elaborate.  I will observe that the goal of better serving poor students of color in meeting their academic potential seemed to get lost in the efforts to desegregate individual school populations. Transportation costs drain resources from instruction and ease of movement, decentralization and lack of accountability weakened many  high poverty schools. 

   The new plan seeks to retain some choice (with less all city transportation) while also supplying a predictable pathway for every household K-12.  This is a move toward the enrollment patterns of most school districts in the United States. Open choice and its variants are relatively rare and have been costly and complicated in districts like Boston and San Francisco.  Presently, a majority of students in Seattle do NOT attend their reference area (typically nearest) school. Open choice has lead to careful searches by many parents to find a school or program that is the best fit for their student.  This will not disappear with the new plan but it may diminish over time.  An option (alternative or non-traditional school) choice will be available for every student at the K-8 level and two options (Nova and The Center School) at HS.  Additionally, families can still apply to any school with a chance to enroll based on space availability. Sibling is the first tie breaker (after attendance area which is an assured seat rather than a tie breaker), followed by lottery.

    I believe this is a good balance between choice- a recognition of the range and variety of schools and programs at all grade levels and stability and predictability which reduce anxiety, promote neighborhood involvement, insure a nearby school for all families and may increase public school enrollment.  The biggest challenge is insuring that all schools are high quality, which goes back to the earlier point about decentralization and accountability. The new input provided to high poverty schools under open choice was money- a necessary but not sufficient factor. Under the Excellence for All strategic plan, a range of interventions and accountability measures are designed to make maximum use of the extra resources.  It has been a slow process to develop but it holds promise and has been effective in other urban districts.  A cautionary note- earned autonomy is supposed to insure the continuance of creative and high performing schools. Intervention in low performing schools should not translate into standardization at all schools. That would certainly diminish the accomplishments of the last dozen years in developing high achieving, neighborhood engaged schools across the city. 

   Public input is welcome and needed as the School Board takes the next step in this process.

 06/02/2009  |  comments (3)

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