Seattle School Board won't guarantee siblings can attend same school

The Seattle School Board decided Wednesday it will not guarantee that all students entering kindergarten this fall will be able to attend the same elementary school as their older brothers and sisters, although it has pledged to find space for as many of them as possible.

In a 6-1 vote, the board approved a transition plan that covers the first year of the district's new neighborhood-based system for assigning students to schools, and guaranteeing entering students a spot at their siblings' schools was not a part of it.

Betty Patu, who proposed an unsuccessful amendment that would have provided that guarantee, was the opposing vote.

The new assignment plan, which takes effect this fall for students entering kindergarten, middle school and high school, includes newly drawn boundaries for each school and guarantees students living inside those boundaries a seat at that school.

Students in other grades will stay where they are because the district decided against a wholesale reshuffling to conform to its new boundaries.

Under the district's old rules, siblings were virtually guaranteed a spot at an older brother or sister's school and siblings also will be guaranteed a spot once the new assignment plan is fully in place in 2015.

The problem is the five years of transition between the old plan and the new one, when the district is not guaranteeing younger siblings a spot at an older sibling's school if the family lives outside the school's boundaries.

It is unclear how many families may end up unhappy, but in the months leading up to the board's vote, the sibling issue emerged as one of the most contentious pieces of the transition plan.

School-board members have said they would like to guarantee all incoming kindergartners a seat at their older siblings' schools, but some of them say doing so risks significant overcrowding in some buildings.

They have pledged to make space for younger students in a number of ways, including placing portable classrooms on the grounds of some schools. The district said it also would allow families that want to keep their children together to move an older student to the younger child's assigned school.

But many families wanted a guarantee, and some urged the board one more time on Wednesday to grandfather in siblings, even as they knew there might not be enough votes in their favor.

Parent Audrey Richards said that many parents who had spoken at past board meetings stayed home Wednesday "because there seems to us there's not much more we can do. We have not been heard."

"This is extremely painful for us," said parent Jocelyn Plass, whose older child attends Lafayette Elementary in West Seattle, but whose younger son would be assigned to Schmitz Park Elementary. She also said that if the district can guarantee a seat for students who move into Lafayette's boundaries in October, which it has said it will do, then it can find a place for her son, too.

One other issue was how many years the district would continue to provide bus transportation for students who now attend school far from their homes and, under the new plan, would stay at those schools until they graduate or move to the next grade level.

The board approved a staff proposal, made just about a week ago, to limit transportation for those students to two years of the transition period, instead of the full five years. But several board members also expressed a desire to revisit the issue next year.

The new assignment plan is a big change for Seattle schools, which moved away from a neighborhood-based assignment system several decades ago. The new plan still offers families a choice of schools, but won't offer as much transportation to faraway schools.

It also will allow students who move to Seattle in the middle of a school year to be assigned to a school close to home. Under the old plan, newcomers in some neighborhoods often found themselves placed in schools many miles from home.

The district switched 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.

As part of the transition plan, the board also approved the following for the 2010-11 school year:

• Students who live near TOPS K-8 in the Eastlake neighborhood still will have priority for 20 percent of the open kindergarten seats there.

• Fifth-graders who attend Thornton Creek Elementary, an alternative school, can enroll as sixth-graders at Salmon Bay K-8, also an alternative school. Transportation will not be provided.

• Fifth-graders at John Stanford International School will be assigned to Hamilton International Middle School if they list Hamilton as their first choice, even if they live outside Hamilton's new boundaries.

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