Student-assignment plan passed behind closed doors

The Seattle School Board passed its new student-assignment plan in a locked room Wednesday night after the board left its public meeting amid an unrelated student protest.

The board allowed the media in the room, but not the public.

A group of about 50 students protesting military recruitment marched into the meeting before Acting President Darlene Flynn could even take roll, chanting: "Yo School Board, what's up? We're here to say we've had enough."

They were so loud that Flynn said she was forced to recess the meeting.

"We couldn't hear each other, and if you can't hear each other, you can't do the public's business," she said.

The board was unable to convene until almost 7 p.m., then spent the first hour of its meeting in a separate room at district headquarters — a part of the building that was locked to the public.

District attorney Gary Ikeda pointed out a provision in the state's Open Public Meetings Act that allows governing bodies to reconvene elsewhere if it's deemed impossible to hold an orderly meeting. The law allows a governing body to then proceed with the meeting and take action on agenda items, but the media must be accommodated.

The relocation meant the board voted unanimously to pass its new student-assignment plan before hearing scheduled public comments about the plan.

The board's vote Wednesday night sets the stage for a yearlong, likely contentious debate over who gets to go to school where. The changes to the district's student-assignment plan are the first the district has made in a decade.

The district's "open-choice" system was largely left in place. Removing it would have been a deal-breaker for many of the middle-class families the district wants to keep in public schools. Parents still will be able to list their top three school choices. But the new plan will provide a default assignment: Students who don't choose a school will be guaranteed a spot in a nearby school. Under the current system, the district sends students wherever there is space if they don't choose a school.

Over the next year, the board will draw a new districtwide map that will identify school assignments for individual households.

School Board members said the changes would restore consistency and predictability to school assignments in Seattle.

The plan also puts $200,000 toward three struggling, shrinking schools in Southeast Seattle: Aki Kurose Middle School and Cleveland and Rainier Beach high schools. Among other things, the money will fund more staff and electives at those schools and outfit the science labs at Rainier Beach.

"I see this as a start ... on something that I had hoped for for a long, long time," said board member Irene Stewart.

Board members said the extra funding is a step toward ensuring that students all over the city have good schools to choose from in their neighborhoods. Since the state funds schools on a per-student basis, the fewer students a school has, the less money it gets.

Wednesday night, the board moved back into its regular meeting room at about 8 p.m. — two hours into the agenda.

At the beginning of the evening, the board had allowed the students about 10 minutes to address the meeting but filed out when students wouldn't cede the floor. Protesters used district microphones and a megaphone to speak to the meeting's attendees about their proposal: limiting military recruiters to twice-yearly recruitment fairs.

Protesters continued to run the meeting for about an hour, recording the meeting with a small video camera, allowing public testimony and holding up a sign that said, "Please remain quiet/respect."

Flynn said the board's student-learning committee is considering restricting military recruitment at schools, but the board's current proposal would not limit recruiters to recruitment fairs.

Seattle Times staff reporter Brian Alexander contributed to this story.

Emily Heffter: 206-464-8246 or eheffter@seattletimes.com