What I know so far:
- At least 30 families were waitlisted and assigned to their neighborhood reference school rather than Garfield.
- Some other number may have been just assigned to their neighborhood school.
- The official district policy on the website which has always been followed up until now:
The IBX (Accelerated International Baccalaureate) program at Ingraham High School is currently available to all students identified as HC. Eligible students who wish to exercise this option, need to complete a school choice form during Open Enrollment, but not later than May 31st. Students who apply during Open Enrollment, are guaranteed seats. They may also apply after Open Enrollment; however, in this case, assignment would depend on space availablility. If a student applies for this program and is not assigned, the student’s default assignment will still be in effect (unless they apply for and are assigned to another school)."
https://www.seattleschools.org/students/academics/ advanced_learning/open_ enrollment_information/
- Enrollment is a district function, so the people to possibly contact are:
- Enrollment
- Advanced Learning
- The district ombudsman.
- Board Members.
I've sent out a few inquiries of my own. Please add any information that you discover and if anyone is organizing any group action. In addition if you are not on the waitlist I'd like to know just to get an idea of the total # of people affected. I'm still hopeful that this will be amicably resolved since no procedure was followed to alter any of the policies.
37 comments:
Enrollment and AL are supposedly meeting today to discuss how to proceed. The Assignment Lookup Tool has been deactivated/removed. Perhaps there are broader issues with the assignment algorithms?
-patiently waiting
And now the Assignment Lookup Tool is running again...though no changes yet for assignments.
Students have supposedly been taken off the waitlist and given an Ingraham HCC assignment. Can anyone confirm their child's assignment has been corrected?
I just checked it -- my son is still waitlisted. Yes, we all need to keep up the pressure on this. There is also a discussion going on the HCC Middle School Facebook group. Many (myself included) are writing emails to the school board members, encouraging them to step in and fix this.
Have you called Enrollment? I've been waiting on hold some 40 minutes...
Yes, I called yesterday about it; talked to the manager, who took my name/number and told me they were looking into it. I've been waiting to seek how things shook out today. Please post anything you might find out.
According to the JAMS counselor, after a meeting between AL and Enrollment earlier today, HCC students were to be moved off the Ingraham HCC waitlist. Perhaps check the Assignment Lookup Tool later today, and follow up with enrollment tomorrow. Staff responding to parent inquiries may not have been informed of the changes just yet.
Anyone wonder what this means for next year? Was it just an assignment glitch, or are some other changes afoot?
Some updates have been made to student assignments, though not 100% resolved for everyone. Progress.
Wonder if Ingraham's HCC enrollment for 2016/17 is going to be higher than the projected HCC enrollment at IHS of 338?
Repeating my open thread post with an addition:
If you are contacting the board and district about getting your student into IBX, please also ask them to fully fund the IB programs so they do not continue to siphon funds from the Gen Ed programs at those schools. (IB requires a coordinator, teacher training and one extra teacher per every 150 students to teach TOK. At IHS that amounted to about $250K last year and will increase as the cohort grows.)
If you are interested in working on this issue with others at IHS, RBHS and CHIHS, please contact me at maureen@germani.org.
I don't ever remember seeing this in print, but it is online:
http://www.seattletimes.com/education-lab/seattles-ib-schools-are-national-outliers-in-lack-of-support-from-district/
"Seattle’s IB schools are national outliers in lack of support from district
Originally published April 6, 2016 at 6:06 am Updated April 5, 2016 at 6:23 pm
Across the country, thousands of schools offer the rigorous International Baccalaureate program. Seattle is the only large district in the Pacific Northwest that makes parents or individual schools pay for it."
By Claudia Rowe
Seattle Times education reporter
I understand they admitted the 29 HCC students on the waitlist, in response to the conflicting website information between enrollment & advanced learning. It seems advanced learning not enrollment had it incorrect? Can someone please clarify the policy in regards to HCC for some of us with younger kids? I am reading it that Garfield is guaranteed for HCC students (right now), but IB or IBX is a "choice" subject to a waitlist in the future.
Thanks,
LB
When enrollment initially processed the IBX applications, was it straight up lottery that resulted in the 29 HCC kids on the wait list? Was there any type of priority used?
So Ingraham IBX is officially OPTION ONLY now.
On the AL website:
There has been some confusion regarding assignment of Highly Capable Cohort (HCC) students to Garfield or Ingraham High School IBX based on student choice, not on space availability. The confusion was reinforced by language on the Advanced Learning website conflicting with that of Admissions. This impacted HCC students who, while guaranteed a seat at Garfield as their default pathway HC school, wanted to attend IBX/HC at Ingraham (which is an option only), but were told they would be waitlisted.
Once this discrepancy was brought to our attention, the 29 students who submitted Choice Forms to attend Ingraham during the Open Enrollment period, ending March 1, have been moved from the waitlist and enrolled. The Advanced Learning website has been updated to mirror the language in Superintendent’s Procedures 3130SP (Student Assignment).
Leave it to the district to "fix" it. Thankfully common sense prevailed this year and they honored the information posted online. Ingraham IBX has been an option from the beginning - it's just been decided on a year-to-year basis whether they will honor the choice for all HCC students. It's not just current HCC students who can choose Ingraham HCC. It is supposed to be a choice for those testing into HCC as 8th graders (from public and private schools). I'm curious what percentage of this year's class chose Ingraham HCC over Garfield. Why would they want to start limiting Ingraham enrollment when Garfield is beyond full?
I'm thinking IBX must be a cost issue for the district. See Maureen's post above. Garfield has no additional costs associated with the AP offerings and can cram as many students into the building as necessary, not ideal, but it won't cost them anything. The letter of the law is upheld. At Ingraham, costs go up as the cohort grows -
IB requires a coordinator, teacher training and one extra teacher per every 150 students to teach TOK. At IHS that amounted to about $250K last year and will increase as the cohort grows.
It's times like this that I feel the need to read Kafka.
The confusion was reinforced by language on the Advanced Learning website conflicting with that of Admissions.
Don't they mean the confusion was CAUSED BY the language on their website? Nice way to blame the community for your own screw-up.
I suppose this is an example of the sort of thing they just referred to in their slide show, where they indicated one of the threats to the department was the "time and resources used to address, often repeatedly, misinformation disseminated throughout the community." Perhaps they were referring to internal threats?
Hmm. Here's a link to Superintendent’s Procedures 3130SP. I seem to be missing the part where it says the Ingraham assignment is on a space available basis, yet the AL office says they updated their website to mirror the language in the procedures. What am I missing?
AL website, new language:
"Highly capable eighth grade students enrolled at any school may apply (assignment subject to seat availability) for the Accelerated IB program at Ingraham (IBX)."
3130 SP:
"Students assigned to HCC in 8th grade are automatically continued into Garfield HCC for 9th grade (and then subsequently grades 10-12) as a Choice assignment and may choose the new program at Ingraham, but neither school is their alternate designated school."
By mirror, do they mean one of those funhouse mirrors that makes things all distorted?
MirrorMirror
And just for fun, here's the language in Superintendent Procedure 2190SP (Highly Capable Services and Advanced Learning Programs):
"For grades 9-12, HCC students may choose to attend an accelerated AP pathway at Garfield or an accelerated IB pathway at Ingraham."
MirrorMirror
I have to say that I feel your pain and am so suspicious and do not have faith in SPS! I have posted on other threads that I am trying to decide whether to send my child, who tested into APP (now HCC) in Kindergarten and is now in 5th grade, to Eckstein or HCC at JAMS. I am very clear that I do not want to send my child to Garfield. So it sounds like by the time my child is high school age, Ingraham IB or IBX may be very difficult to get into and clearly not guaranteed. Does anyone have any insight on the potential pathway from JAMS HCC to Roosevelt? Is it just a bad idea, even if my child excels more in the language arts and drama? I want my child to be challenged but I am wary of what is to come if we choose HCC now. I would appreciate any feedback.
Someone had posted a document about district HCC enrollment and if memory serves me, it showed 30 or so HCC students enrolled in last year's 9th grade class at Roosevelt. By the time your child is in high school, Lincoln will be opening as a high school, and Roosevelt's boundaries will be different. It is unlikely the guaranteed assignment to Garfield will still be in place at that time. Who knows what the options will look like in 3 years.
IB does not cost the District any more than gen ed or AP because they don't pay for it. Enrollment at IHS benefits SPS by taking pressure off of GHS and crowded north end schools. IBX has never been guaranteed. Has always been subject to limits, I suppose because the closed cohort 9 th grade classes made it advisable to accept students in class size chunks when the cohort was smaller.
To Wedgwood Mom - I agree with Anonymous that it's hard to know what your options will be by the time your child enters 9th grade, and it's also hard to know what Roosevelt will look like in terms of its HCC cohort or offerings. Right now, I would say the path from an HCC middle school to Roosevelt is not exactly smooth, although kids do it. Your child would leave HCC middle school having already taken Biology (a class that is taken by 11th graders at RHS), so he/she will be off-track in science. He can probably enroll in Chemistry as a 9th grader, but he may be in that Chemistry class with mostly 11th graders. Similarly, he will probably leave HCC middle school ready for Algebra II, but again, that is a class taken mostly by 10th and 11th graders at RHS (10th graders if they were Spectrum students; 11th graders if they were Gen Ed). So again, your child will be off-track. I think the concern is mainly with science and math, in terms of being off track. (Whether your child is adequately challenged is another question -- HCC-qualified kids may not feel challenged in RHS's 9th grade LA class, which is a mix of all freshman regardless of whether they come in from Gen Ed, Spectrum, or HCC.
This is what I've gathered based on my own information-seeking but would be interested to hear more from a parent whose child went from HCC middle to RHS (or another neighborhood HS). Please correct me if I'm wrong about any of this.
-HCC middle parent
I have an HCC middle schooler (6th grade; JAMS), and although RHS would be my local school—and in many ways I like it—I don't think it would be a suitable or appropriate fit. Although I would like to see RHS brought into the fold as an HCC school, I don't see this happening.
Although my child attends GHS, not RHS, I can speak to one of the difficulties with being off-track. Specifically, scheduling becomes especially challenging because the master schedule is built keeping in mind the placement needs of what staff expects students to take. So, classes for a particular grade won't conflict with each other because that's what they expect to need. But, if your kid ends up needing classes that are a mix of the grades expected to take them, then there's a good chance the master schedule can't accommodate the need as some of them will be offered during the same period.
--unexpected issue
Although I would like to see RHS brought into the fold as an HCC school, I don't see this happening.
Yes and no, I think. I agree that RHS is unlikely to become an official HCC school, but unfortunately that's because it's likely that the district will decide we don't need HCC high schools--that any high school can serve HCC students well. I think they are way off base in that thinking and it will create a lot of inequity, but it seems to be where they are heading.
US News and World Report WA State high school rankings:
Roosevelt #6
Garfield #7
Ingraham #9
http://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/washington/rankings?int=9ba908
Roosevelt requires all students take an AP humanities class in both 9th and 11th. For another comparison, you can also look at the numbers of NMSF in 2015, 2014, and 2013, respectively:
Roosevelt - 1, 6, 7
Garfield - 7, 11, 19
Ingraham - 6, 10, 0
Ballard - 0, 3, 1
If an HCC student is in the Ingraham AA, then they couldn't be waitlisted for Ingraham HCC, could they? They should be able to take honors classes and try for the IB diploma, yes? How, exactly, does waitlisting happen for Ingraham? Are non attendance area students put in a lottery with HCC students? Will total enrollment for Ingraham be capped, or just HCC? Do out of area non-HCC students have an equal chance of attending as out of area HCC students?
Thank you for comments helping me figure out the middle school option for my child. I wonder with all the changes that seem to always be looming for HCC, is Advanced Learning (the old Spectrum) really such a bad choice for a child who needs to be challenged? Wondering what the point of extra advancement is if it leads to more problems down the road. And from my experience, high school is difficult anyway.
Spectrum classes have been dissolved in pretty much every school. HCC is now the only option for advanced learning that doesn't depend entirely on in-class differentiation.
Thank you for your feedback. Eckstein still has Advanced Learning Language Arts and Social Studies. My understanding is that this is not expected to change any time soon. I have heard varying reports on which is more challenging, AL LA at Eckstein or LA in HCC at JAMS.
I've had children in Spectrum at Eckstein and HCC at JAMS. Our experience was that LA and SS was more challenging at Eckstein. 7th grade LA wasn't challenging at either school though.
Thank you! This is the information I've been looking for. I am also concerned about the social climate for girls at Eckstein Vs JAMS. Do you have any insight into this?
Rainier Beach's IB Program will be funded by SPS and the Alliance for Education for the next three years. Here is a post on Save Seattle Schools.
Families and staff at all three schools will continue to advocate for sustainable funding for all of the programs. We attended all of the Director meetings this weekend and will be testifying at the Board Meeting this week.
Did your child take the 2016 IB biology or physics exam and feel a disconnect between material taught and material tested? They are not alone.
https://www.change.org/p/international-bacc-ib-biology-sl-examination-2016
From a student in Redmond, WA: Keep tests fair. Keep scoring fair. I'm all for challenge, but don't leave deserving students in tears. We're not your lab rats for new curricula.
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