Reading some of the comments about various high school pathway options I sometimes feel a disconnect between what commenters are most vocally concerned about and what I see is the critical issue of the moment. I also think there is a larger conversation to be had about the nature of the high school program but that is not the place we find ourselves today. In the last board meeting there was a vote where a majority of the board voted to
dissolve the high school pathway completely. Most of the board members are on record and will vote that way again despite the current round of planning. The chance of anything remaining is dependent on convincing four directors that they are still important. Ultimately, its crucial that in analyzing pro/cons of the alternatives we don't lose sight of the larger stakes and that folks are consistent in stressing this part of the message. This may mean rallying around a plan that is imperfect rather than suffering a much greater loss and I realize that's a hard pill to swallow given various individual circumstances.
To that end I want to make the case that indeed this is true and its crucial to emphasize that HC students still need a pathway.
Critical Mass:
In order to create classes that meet advanced learners needs and continue the sequence of study that has already occurred in Middle School there needs to be a sufficient number of advanced learners at any site. At lower grades two classrooms worth of kids is assumed to be enough. The complexity of High School scheduling makes it critical that they are there in large enough numbers to allow flexibility. For example, if the single Band class half of the kids are in is at the only period AP US history is offered there is a problem. Based on the number of classes at some but not all of our High Schools even adding in the neighborhood HC students does not reach this minimum bar. This is most clearly evident in the Math/Science pathways where classes like Calculus BC are not offered at many high schools due to insufficient demand. Given the tight budget and classroom space constraints the district operates under its simply not realistic to assume classes of non-viable number of students will be offered. But in small ways across every class experience with large numbers of outliers can inform better teaching, curriculum, and focuses for a school in a way that doesn't happen when you don't see as many students.
Oversight and Advocacy:
The second advantage of the pathways is they provide leverage for families. Once spread out its not very easy to advocate for student's needs. 60 kids in a sea of 1500 are ignorable. The cohorts also enable families to reach out to to each other and advocate en masse for the system to change. The converse side of this situation, is the more sites that exist, the harder any systematic oversight becomes. Over and over again we see various initiatives in the district fail to be consistently carried out across buildings due to site based management. Advanced Learning is even more subject to this variance in implementation given its political nature.
What about everyone else?
One of the the most common complaints I've read is along the lines "I have a Spectrum student who will have to go X. Its not fair there are limited opportunities at X." I'm sympathetic to this line of argument. My main educational philosophy is meet kids where they are at and provide the classes they need. I think there are two answers to this issue. First, many of the class/grade combinations that we're talking about are unique. The HCC students need a 9th grade Chemistry class that doesn't conflict with the rest of their 9th grade schedule for instance. At most of our high schools a student on a regular non-accelerated track does have reasonable access to core AP classes and most families are satisfied. Like above, having sufficient numbers of students at the same grade requiring the same general classes make this possible. There are also some schools which where more families end up having to access Running Start by the senior year due to missing classes. In some cases, the demand is already there and the principals need to be pushed to meet it. In others, we really need to consider letting kids move buildings to access unique needs (I don't think this is an issue for a huge number of students) .
Capacity:
Finally, from a purely pragmatic point of view, HC students play an important part in overall capacity management. This is a body of students who will move voluntarily to a different site if there is compelling programming. Given the space constraints of Seattle Public we should be taking advantage of this phenomena and not exacerbating the space issue by funneling students towards already overcrowded sites. The neighborhood school plan has the most domino effects and disrupts the most students in general because of the misalignment between buildings and student populations.
