District plan for siblings upsets parents

A top goal of Seattle Public Schools' new plan for assigning students to schools is predictability, but for a group of families caught in the transition between the old rules and the new, the change will mean more of the old uncertainty.

The affected families are those with children already in elementary school and younger ones still at home. They want their younger children to be able to attend the same school as their older siblings — something that was virtually guaranteed under the old rules and will be guaranteed again once the new assignment plan is fully in place in 2015.

But despite an intense and often emotional campaign by many of those families — which included rallies, petitions and months of e-mails — it looks like a vote tonight by the Seattle School Board may not go their way.

"It looks like the sibling grandfathering movement is dead with the district," Stephanie Pickett, a leader in a parent group called Keep Our Kids Together, wrote after members of the group spoke with several School Board members over the weekend.

It's unclear how many families may be affected; district staff won't provide estimates, saying too many variables are in play.

School Board members and staff say they want to accommodate as many siblings as possible during the five-year transition.

District administrators are even considering adding portable classrooms at some of its roughly five dozen elementary and K-8 schools, where the sibling issue is most pressing.

But they also say they don't think they'll have enough room at some schools to guarantee all siblings can be placed with older brothers and sisters.

"Philosophically and emotionally, I would prefer to offer a simple guarantee," said School Board President Michael DeBell. "But I guess having been around for a while, I realize there's a lot of complexity in this situation and potentially some pretty significant trade-offs if we take that step."

One big trade-off, he said, would be schools so crowded that all students are hurt by it.

Assignment plan

The new assignment plan will start this fall for students entering kindergarten, middle school and high school, with the district deciding against a districtwide shuffle all at once.

The new plan includes a new set of boundaries for each school and guarantees students living inside those boundaries a seat at that school.

It's a big change for a district that's had a variety of assignment policies over the past few decades — from forced busing in the late 1970s that was intended to racially integrate schools to the plan that's currently in place, which allows students to apply to any school but doesn't guarantee them a spot at any particular one.

Another issue with the current system is that families that moved to Seattle after the school sign-up each year have often found themselves assigned to a school across town.

The district is switching to the new assignment plan to save money and to fulfill what it says are the wishes of many parents for a more neighborhood-based system. It says it is working to ensure high-quality instruction at every school — perhaps the biggest key to the new plan's success.

The School Board, at its meeting tonight, is also scheduled to vote on other transition issues, including whether to continue school-bus transportation for students attending schools far from their home or phase it out after two years. It's also unclear how many students that issue may affect.

As for the sibling issue, district administrators say they have no way of knowing whether certain schools will have space for the kindergartners who live within each school's new boundaries and for the kindergarten-age siblings of existing students whose homes now fall outside those lines.

School Board members have pushed staff to provide some indication of how many schools might have a problem when it comes to siblings. Over the weekend, district staff put together a list of elementary schools that would or might — and it was a long one.

Along with putting up portables, staff have said they'll take a number of other steps to make room for siblings, such as using day-care space for some instructional activities during the school day. They've even discussed moving the school's office staff into trailers.

They also stress that they won't force families to split up. At most, families that don't want their children in different schools could choose to move their older children to the school where their younger child is assigned.

Predictability sought

Parents have hoped for more.

"We would like that same stability and predictability that will be afforded those people coming into the system," said Stephanie Jewett, who has twins who attend Laurelhurst Elementary and a younger child who would be assigned to Bryant Elementary.

"The only people who have certainty are the people who don't have kids in the system" yet, said Pickett.

School Board member Kay Smith-Blum says she wants the district, at a minimum, to work one on one with each affected family to find a good solution.

But some families say they'll move with the boundaries of the school they want to be guaranteed a seat.

Flo Beaumon says that's what she'll do to ensure that her 3-year-old, adopted from China, can attend the Mandarin-language program at Beacon Hill Elementary with his older brother.

"It makes no sense to yank our older child from a school he'll have attended for four years, to a school that does not offer the same kind of education," she said.

Linda Shaw: 206-464-2359 or lshaw@seattletimes.com