Seattle Public Schools may trim bus service

To save at least $4 million in the upcoming school year, Seattle Public Schools is considering a reduction in bus service to its elementary schools and some of its K-8 schools, and for the second time in two years, a change in most schools' starting times.

Under the proposal, introduced at Wednesday's School Board meeting, the district would use 80 fewer buses, reduce the length of bus rides for many students, eliminate service for some elementary and K-8 students who now take yellow buses to school and require others to catch the bus farther from their homes.

In general, the proposal calls for most middle and high schools and some elementary schools to start about 10 minutes earlier. Schools that span kindergarten through eighth grade would start either earlier or later.

The district is still working on details but says it will list schools with the proposed new start times on its website next Wednesday.

Tom Bishop, transportation manager for Seattle Public Schools, said he's working to minimize the number of students who would lose transportation. The benefit, he said, is saving the equivalent of equivalent of 45 teaching jobs.

The bus-service reductions would affect elementary and K-8 students who live far from their schools. It would not apply to students attending assigned neighborhood schools, those in special programs or in so-called "option" schools — schools where all students apply to attend.

The district is planning a community meeting to discuss all the transportation changes 7-8:30 p.m., Jan. 27, at Aki Kurose Middle School, 3928 S. Graham St., Seattle.

The School Board is scheduled to vote on the proposals on Feb. 2, although board President Steve Sundquist asked whether that could be delayed a few weeks.

On Wednesday, the board also made the following changes to the district's rollout of its new plan for assigning student to schools:

• It shrank Garfield High's boundaries to ease overcrowding. In the shuffle, Rainier Beach's assignment area would grow. Franklin High's boundaries would shift somewhat, but the size of its assignment area would remain about the same. The changes would not affect students already attending Garfield. The approved changes can be found at http://seati.ms/h8a9h4 (case sensitive).

• To try to make even more room at Garfield, the board voted to make it easier for students who live in Garfield's boundaries to be assigned to other high schools.

• The district will no longer guarantee all high schools will set aside space for students from outside those schools' boundaries. This year, the district made at least 10 percent of every large high school's spots available via lottery.

On Wednesday night, district leaders also stressed once again that they're running out of space at some schools to place kindergartners at an older sibling's school if that sibling doesn't go to the family's designated neighborhood school. In the first year of the new assignment plan, the district was able to make room for nearly all those younger siblings. The district guarantees siblings won't be required to attend different schools, but to keep children together, a family's guaranteed option is to move the older child to the kindergartner's school.

In addition to the board's changes, Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson has decided to add a number of programs this year, which she can do without a board vote. They include:

• Opening a new program for the district's highest-achieving students at Ingraham High. It would be a voluntary program modeled after one at Bellevue's Interlake High, where students finish the rigorous International Baccalaureate program by the end of their junior year.

It will be open this fall to ninth-graders and, if enough sign up, 10th-graders as well.

For the first year, it will be open only to students already in the district's Accelerated Progress Program.

• Starting to build an international school at Ingraham High, designed for students coming out of Hamilton International Middle School.

• Starting a language-immersion program at McDonald Elementary in North Seattle. For money reasons, the district isn't planning to make McDonald a full-fledged international school immediately, but kindergartners and first-graders will be able to enroll in a Spanish-English program or a Japanese-English program, similar to what's offered at nearby John Stanford International School. Families living within McDonald's boundaries that don't want their children in a language-immersion program will have a guaranteed assignment to B.F. Day Elementary instead.

• Keep Alternative School No. 1 open. Goodloe-Johnson earlier talked about possibly closing that school, the oldest alternative school in the district. But a number of School Board members wanted to give the school more time to attract families.

The district is working to finalize all change to school programs, boundaries and transportation before the district's open-enrollment period starts on March 15. That's the time when families can apply to send their children to schools other than their designated neighborhood schools.

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