From: Highly Capable Services Advisory Committee
Date: November 15, 2017
Re: Proposed Highly Capable High School Pathways/Student Assignment Plan for 2019-20
Dear Superintendent Nyland and Directors Blanford, Burke, Geary, Harris, Pinkham, Patu, and Peters,
In light of the recent District proposal regarding highly capable pathways for high school and the upcoming Board vote on the Student Assignment Plan, the Highly Capable Services Advisory Committee (HCS AC) would like to voice its concerns and support for aspects of the proposed increase of the number of pathway schools to five. In particular, we:
- Understand the rationale for the selection of Ballard and Roosevelt as HC pathways schools;
- Are concerned about the selection of Lincoln attendance area students being assigned to Garfield as their pathway school;
- Recommend that Garfield remain the only pathway school for the Central, Southeast and Southwest in 2019;
- Suggest that the District first build up the AP and rigorous course offerings at Franklin and West Seattle first, then revisit the idea of making those schools HC pathway sites; and
- Urge the District to grandfather current high school students and eighth graders into their current high school or pathway.
The HCS AC is comprised of teachers and parents at the elementary, middle and high school levels whose collective experience with highly capable students in our District spans several decades. We have reviewed the numbers of HC students in each of the proposed pathways (see attached) and considered the equity issues that currently and could potentially exist. Please consider our recommendations on the District proposals, rooted in the following analysis and supporting rationale.
Proposal for North End
- Support: The redirection of Northeast and Northwest area HC students to north-end high schools alone would dramatically reduce the number of HC students at Garfield, easing Garfield’s capacity issue and providing an equitable experience closer to home for north-end students. Selecting Ballard and Roosevelt as pathway schools makes sense and aligns with trends: Many HC eligible students already choose their neighborhood school over Garfield (129 at Ballard, 155 at Roosevelt). Pathway changes diverting north-end HC students from Garfield would add about 300 HC students to both Ballard and Roosevelt, creating cohorts of 400-500 HC students at each. This would allow for effective delivery of counseling, meet their social emotional needs, and provide robust AP and elective offerings beyond the already-robust selection of courses (16 and 18 respectively) at both high schools.
- Concern: We struggle with directing Lincoln-area students to Garfield for two reasons: commute challenges and prioritizing services closer to home. 1) The trip to the Central District is much more difficult than the trip to Ballard, particularly taking public transportation (Metro) in our city’s geography. In fact, this drives many families from Wallingford, Magnolia and Queen Anne to choose Ballard or Roosevelt over Garfield. 2) Lincoln-area families should have a north-end HC option. Under the current plan, if area HC students choose not to attend Garfield, they would be limited to a neighborhood school (Lincoln) which lacks access to the higher-level HC math and science classes they need, because Lincoln is a roll-up school with limited grades and associated classes in its first years of operation.
Proposal for Central, Southeast and Southwest
- Concern: We strongly stand by our recommendation that Garfield remain the single HC pathway school for students in the Central, South and Southwest areas and not split for several reasons: resulting disparity in number of students, as well as impacts to course offerings, cohort size, and finances.
- The splits would create a significant imbalance between the north and the south. Garfield has 428 HC students total, very similar to the potential number of HC students at Ballard or Roosevelt. Here is the current breakdown: 184 students from the Garfield area, 95 from Franklin, 41 from Rainier Beach, 32 from Chief Sealth, and 76 from West Seattle, totaling 428 students. The proposed splits would distribute HC students as such: Garfield, 184, Franklin, 146, and West Seattle, 145. This creates significantly smaller HC cohorts at these three high schools than at the two high schools in the north end, where Garfield, Franklin and West Seattle would have HC populations of 15% or less, compared to north-end HC populations of 30%.
- No guarantee of course offering parity at Franklin and West Seattle. Currently, Franklin offers 10 AP classes and West Seattle offers 12. These schools would need to significantly increase their offerings before 2019 to align with Garfield, Ballard and Roosevelt. Despite District assurances--and we do support increased advanced learning options at all high schools--limited District resources and fewer Advanced Learners at Franklin and West Seattle would not be sufficient to drive a master schedule for these courses. West Seattle parents have voiced these concerns, and Franklin faces problematic programming of repetitious Physical Science and Biology courses in 9th grade when HC students would already have taken those classes in 7th and 8th grades. This raises many questions about whether the District could guarantee that HC students at Franklin and West Seattle have the same (or similar) offerings as students at Ballard, Roosevelt and at Garfield now, as well as what the process would be to address the scenario if parity did not come to fruition:
- Would honors LA and SS options be offered in 9th grade as now at Garfield? Would Franklin require HC students to repeat Science as at Nathan Hale? Would Franklin adopt a new model, and would it be desired? What would the reduced number of HC students at Garfield mean for their ability to sustain current advanced learning offerings?
- West Seattle parents have expressed a variety of opinions about a local high school pathway. Some support a HC pathway closer to home, while others are concerned that the smaller cohort size would make it challenging to expand the number of AP offerings at West Seattle High School.
- Significant demographic changes could affect financing of Garfield activities. Currently 42% of Garfield are HC students and 38% of the school are Free-Reduced Lunch (FRL); this proposal would reduce the Garfield HC population to about 10%. For better or worse, the number of affluent students would drop significantly, thus affecting PTSA fundraising and music, drama and science fundraising that happens at Garfield. Whether the Garfield community regards these as positive changes is something that should be factored into the equation as well.
Another important consideration is the issue of underrepresentation in the Highly Capable Cohort. For decades, the District and this Committee have wrestled with the highly problematic fact that the Highly Capable Cohort does not reflect the demographic makeup of our district either racially or socio-economically. We believe that the place to address these problems is with testing and identification and with talent development for those students who show potential but do not yet have the achievement piece. Finding solutions at the pre-K and elementary levels is expected to bring results over time. It is important that we serve the needs of every child, including the highly capable cohort. Splintering current HC south-end students into three high schools would not solve the disproportionality problem.
For these reasons, we strongly urge the District to pause with the idea of splitting the HC students up among five high schools. The two schools in the North--Ballard and Roosevelt--already offer an array of AP courses along with robust arts programs, and the addition of more HC students at these schools would have negative impacts only if there is not capacity to accommodate them. Conversely, splitting HC students in the south across three high schools raises many questions and concerns about implementation and equity while only creating a fraction more capacity at Garfield (244 seats).
We strongly support the increase in AP offerings at Franklin and West Seattle. The District should commit the resources and work with those schools to create those opportunities first, then, in two more years (2019) look at whether the split of SE and SW HC students to those schools in 2020 makes sense. Changes of this magnitude to the HC model should be part of a larger plan for these students. We should not be looking at High School separately from the program as a whole.
Finally, we would like to reiterate our request for grandfathering of HC students at any of their current schools. Changes at the high-school level have significant implications for college entrance and any student or family who has committed to a particular high school should be allowed to continue down that road until graduation.
Thank you for your consideration.
Respectfully,
Highly Capable Services Advisory Committee
