There's a discussion this week about education funding and how it impacts Seattle schools:

K-12 Education Funding & the Effects on Seattle Public Schools 
Join an in-depth panel discussion on the state funding ,SPS shortfalls and levy restrictions. Plus boundaries, high school science, capacity issues, Lincoln High School and other issues facing our schools and city.

When: Tuesday, Feb. 6th, 7-9pm
Where: Ballard High School Library, 1418 NW 65th St, Seattle

Forum Panelists:

• JoLynn Berge, Asst. Superintendent Business and Finance, SPS
• Eden Mack, School Board Director District 4, SPS
• Scott Pinkham, School Board Director District 1, SPS
• Mike O’Brien, Seattle City Councilmember District 6
• Heidi Bennett, Seattle Council PTSA & WA State PTA RCL

To request childcare email: Northeast@scptsa.org. All are welcome to attend.

Get more information and RSVP:
https://www.facebook.com/events/857444181101371/

Here's Janine's note on the potential strike is below. Our PTSA President started a thread about how our community can help each other on the QAE Community Discussion Facebook Group.

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This morning, Seattle Public Schools (SPS) notified all bus-riding families that the union representing First Student school bus drivers has called for a second school bus strike starting Thursday, Feb. 1st. Unlike the one-day strike in November, this strike has no pre-determined end date. Schools will operate normally during a strike, regardless of length.  SPS will use district website to share information on a regular basis. (See the Bus Service Update story online for updates and FAQ on the homepage.) 

QAE staff and our PTSA community want to help impacted families any way we can. QAE’s Bus Strike Response Plan:
​

1. For our bus-riding families, thank you in advance for trying to make alternate transportation arrangements.  (Reminder:  if students are being picked up by a family member or friend who is not already in the SPS Source Information System as an alternate contact, please send a note with your child.) 
2. If you are not a bus-riding family but would like to volunteer to help, please:
   1. Reach out to your child’s friends to arrange car-pooling or play-dates for the days ahead;
   2. QAE families can look to 'QAE Community Discussions' on Facebook to volunteer or ask for assistance.
3. If bus-riding families are unable to make alternate transportation arrangements by Thursday morning, please email Jennifer Connolly - jaconnolly@seattleschools.org.  Please include your name, your child’s name, your address and your contact info.  If you are able to make arrangements during the day on Thursday, please update Jennifer.
4. Make sure your contact information is up to date so you can be reached quickly.

If you have any questions, email me at jbroy@seattleschools.org.


Thank you to our entire community for working together to help our bus-riding families!


Janine Roy
Principal
Queen Anne Elementary

Big news! Our revised bell times have been approved for next year as we move to John Marshall School in Ravenna! This is allow more time for students to get to the school.

The SPS Board of Directors voted to establish QAE's bell times for 2018-19 as follows:

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday
- 8:50am Welcome Bell
- 8:55am Classes Begin
- 3:25pm Dismissal

Wednesday
- 8:50am Welcome Bell
- 8:55am Classes Begin
- 2:10pm Early Dismissal

Planning Transportation for 2018-2019:
QAE PTSA will work with SPS Transportation Department to begin planning bus routes for 2018-2019. All information updates will be shared here on the PTSA site as we work on this planning process together. If you have any questions, email Janine at jbroy@seattleschools.org or call QAE at 206-252-2480.

Principal Roy sent this note out to QAE families today:
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Dear QAE families:

Based on today's Seattle Times article:  https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/education/seattle-school-bus-drivers-to-strike-wednesday/, there is the possibility of a bus strike which may impact QAE's bus students starting tomorrow.  For those families who may need to drop students off before 7:35 am, additional morning supervision will be in place starting at 7 am in QAE's cafeteria and will be in place daily for the duration of this strike.  Students who need to be dropped off before 7:35 am should go to the cafeteria, and then they will be supervised on the playground as usual starting at 7:35 am.  

Please email me if you have questions, as I want to do everything possible to support our impacted QAE families.

Janine Roy, QAE Principal
jbroy@seattleschools.org  

Thanks to the more than 280 families responded to the survey about next year's bell times. During our school’s remodel in 2018-19, we will use the John Marshall Elementary School as our interim site for one year. It is located at 520 NE Ravenna Blvd. in the Green Lake area. This will require additional travel time for students. SPS is working on the transportation plan, but we do know that any student currently in the QAE bus zone will have transportation provided. We wanted to provide guidance to SPS on the preferences of our QAE families. Here's the results:

• 7:55am - 32.62% (92 responses)
• 8:55am - 67.38% (190 responses)

These results are only intended to share with the school district. Final decision will be made based on many factors.

See our Building Renovation page for more details about move.

The Seattle School Board is working on the next revisions to the Student Assignment Plan. Details on the current proposal for 2018-2019 can be found here:
​http://www.seattleschools.org/cms/One.aspx?portalId=627&pageId=744707

There will be a series of community meetings to discuss the changes. How students are assigned to option schools, how advanced learning is managed are some of the topics. 

**Community Meetings**
The district will host open house style meetings to share proposed updates and gather community feedback. All meetings are from 6:30 to 8 p.m.

Monday, Oct. 23, 2017: Eckstein Middle School lunchroom
(3003 NE 75th St)

Thursday, Oct. 26, 2017: Ballard High School common
(1418 NW 65th St)

Monday, Oct. 30, 2017: McClure Middle School gym
(1915 1st Ave W)

Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2017: Cleveland High School lunchroom
(5511 15th Ave S)

​Thursday, Nov. 9, 2017: West Seattle High School lunchroom
(3000 California Ave SW)

​Seattle Uptown Alliance is hosting a forum for candidates for three open seats on this Fall's Seattle School Board election. Following opening comments by the 6 candidates for the three positions, the public will be invited to ask questions. It's a great chance to get to know the candidates and make your voice heard about what's important to your family and our school community.

When: Tuesday, Oct. 10th, 7-9pm
Where: St Paul’s Episcopal Church, 15 Roy Street (across from Counterbalance Park)

Forum takes place in the church's lower level. Enter through the gate on Roy Street.

For more information, see the Uptown Alliance's Facebook page

Note -- the QAE PTSA isn't affiliated with the event, we just are sharing an event that may be of interest to our community.

The QAE PTSA and other parents from our school attended the June 19th community meeting on the Magnolia School Boundaries. There was a large crowd including parents from all the schools in Queen Anne and Magnolia. Here are our notes from the meeting:

Boundaries Survey - Great Response from the QAE Community!
SPS sent out a survey at the end of May to all families who attend schools in the Queen Anne and Magnolia areas. Queen Anne Elementary had 287 responses, the second most amongst all the schools. Thanks to our community for being so involved! QAE's overwhelming choice amongst the 13 options was Scenario C with 71% of our families selecting it as one of their top three options.

Top Boundary Options from the Survey
Ashley Davies, Director of Enrollment Planning at SPS, presented the scenarios that received the most votes in the boundaries survey. She said that nothing was final, but the original 13 options were likely narrowed down to these 5 or 6 options. She did mentioned that any of them could be tweaked as needed.

• Scenario C - one of the original six options. No change to QAE or John Hay boundaries. Portions of the current west and north Coe area are re-zoned for Magnolia and Lawton. (The QAE PTSA recommended this as one of the scenarios that does the best at adding capacity for growth while minimizing disruption across schools).
• Scenario D - one of the original six options. Similar to C, but with slight change in Blaine/Magnolia boundary dividing line. (The QAE PTSA recommended this as one of the scenarios that does the best at adding capacity for growth while minimizing disruption across schools).
• Scenario H - Switch to all schools becoming attendance area schools, no option school in Queen Anne/Magnolia cluster.
• Scenario J - Magnolia becomes the option school, all other schools are attendance area schools.
• Scenario M - Blaine becomes a K-8 option school, all other schools are attendance area schools.
• Scenario K - while this wasn't one of the top options, it appeared that they were also considering this.  In this scenario both Blaine and McClure are middle schools, all other schools are elementaries. QAE remains an option school and no K-8 at Blaine.

Impacted Students by Scenario
After the meeting, SPS published details on the number of students affected by each scenario (A-M). It ranges from a low of 306 (for J) to 816 (for M).

Magnolia School Construction Costs & Potential Delay
SPS received bids on the Magnolia School construction that were approximately $5 million over budgets. The district will likely re-look at the project and see where they can cut costs and get new bids in the fall. This likely means that the opening of Magnolia may be delayed from the beginning of the 2018-19 school year to the 2019-20 school year. This change to timeline might take away some of the sense of urgency in drawing new boundaries.  There was a concern from the audience that if new boundaries are drawn this Fall, they might have to change again prior to the school opening.

Fort Lawton Development Discussion
Some members of the audience brought up the planned development of new housing on Fort Lawton by the City of Seattle. This will add more children to the Queen Anne/Magnolia area. Audience members were advocating that the school district and the city consider using some portion of the Fort Lawton area for a new STEAM (science and environment, technology, engineering, arts, math) school.

The QAE PTSA will continue to do our best to advocate for our community and share the latest developments. See our Boundaries Info page for the latest as well as SPS's page about the meeting.

Sharing information with our families in case you want to share your opinion:

On Wednesday the Seattle School Board voted in favor of the shift to two start times, but it's contingent on the City Council voting to provide the necessary transportation funding. This vote is on Monday. 

There has been some contention about this vote in Council meetings. If you believe we should switch to two bell times from the current three times, you should write to your Council members by tomorrow. See their emails below.

The Council is voting whether to pay for a one-time funding request of $2.3 million so that SPS can reorganize buses to support the simplification of bell times.

Current three tier system:
Most elementary schools will run from 7:45 to 2:15;
Middle and high schools from 8:35 to 3:25;
K-8s and some elementary schools from 9:25 to 3:55.

Proposed two tier system:
Almost all elementary school will run from 8 to 2:30;
Middle, high schools and most K-8 schools will run from 9 to 3:50.

Email addresses of Seattle City Council members:
bruce.harrell@seattle.gov, lisa.herbold@seattle.gov, rob.johnson@seattle.gov, debora.juarez@seattle.gov, mike.obrien@seattle.gov, sally.bagshaw@seattle.gov, tim.burgess@seattle.gov, lorena.gonzalez@seattle.gov, spsdirectors@seattleschools.org

​Below is a copy of the email being sent by the PTSA to our families on May 31st, 2017. See our Boundaries Info page for more details.

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Dear QAE families,

As you know, Seattle Public Schools sent out a survey last week to all families in the Queen Anne/Magnolia area regarding scenarios for boundary changes that will happen as part of the opening of Magnolia Elementary in 2018-19.

This survey included 5 new scenarios that had not previously been shared with shared with the community. After studying the different scenarios, the QAE PTSA recommends the following:
​

• All our families and staff should take the survey. It's one of the best ways we can advocate for our community and our school. Let's make sure they hear our voice! Please make sure you complete the survey by 5pm on Friday!
• We believe that maintaining QAE as an Option School is the best outcome, not just for our school community but for all students in the larger McClure area.
• While there are no easy boundary changes, Scenarios C, D and E do the best at adding capacity for growth while minimizing disruption across schools. We suggest that our parents select C, D and E on the survey.
• In general, Scenarios A-F would be reasonable. We do not consider G - M to be options worth pursuing since they involve significant family disruption across ALL QA/Magnolia schools, mainly increase overall transportation costs to SPS, and eliminate the successful Option School offering in place for the McClure area. Most importantly, scenarios G-M scenarios do not resolve the underlying capacity issues as well as scenarios A-F.

The survey also asks about the three most important considerations about school boundary changes for your family. We encourage you to pick what's most meaningful to your family, but here are four that we believe are important and are in sync with our support of Scenarios A-F:
​

• Equitable access to option schools
• Equitable access to services and programs
• Fiscal impact (cost and savings)
• Other (a write-in): SPS honoring published policy is that once admitted to an option school, a student is entitled to attend that school until the highest grade

You can read more about the issues on our Boundaries Discussion site, which we will continue to update. We have also asked SPS to provide details on the the number of students impacted by each scenario and whether grandfathering would be part of the scenarios. We will post responses when we get them.

If you didn't receive the email from SPS, here's the direct link to the survey.

The QAE PTSA recognizes the complexity of changing school boundaries and fixing capacity issues. Fixing overcrowding requires hard choices, and will necessarily disrupt some families in our neighborhood. We will continue to do our best to work with SPS and the larger QA/Magnolia community on a solution. If you have any further questions, don't hesitate to contact us at boundaries@qaeptsa.org or via the PTSA Facebook page.

In service,

​Queen Anne Elementary PTSA
boundaries@qaeptsa.org

Dear QAE families,
 
Seattle Public Schools sent out an email survey to all families in the Queen Anne/Magnolia area regarding various scenarios for boundary changes that will happen as part of the opening of Magnolia Elementary in 2018-19.
 
The QAE PTSA believes that our status as an Option School is central to our learning culture and benefits all families by giving them an alternative to their attendance area school which also relieves overcrowding. We had planned to share the scenarios that best support our school’s mission and are least impactful all kids in the area. The survey includes 5 new boundary scenarios that had not been previously shared with the community, so our group of parents focused on this issue need some time to dig into their impact. We need some time to do this research.
 
So as a PTSA, we suggest:

• If you have not yet responded to the survey, please wait until next week to fill in your answers. The survey deadline isn’t until Friday, June 2nd.
• After the Memorial Day holiday, the PTSA will send an email with our suggestions for the boundary scenarios that our community should be advocating for.
• If you want to learn more, please refer to our Boundaries Discussion site, which we will continue to update.

 
If you’ll already responded to the survey, no problem, thanks for taking the time to advocate for our community!
 
Have a wonderful, safe holiday weekend. More from the PTSA soon!
 
In service,
 
Queen Anne Elementary PTSA
boundaries@qaeptsa.org

If you haven't yet, please complete Seattle Public School's Family Survey that is sent to the families of all district students. It's an important tool for the district to track progress and understand what needs to improve and what's working well at all our schools. 

Each parent should have received an email with a unique link to take the survey. They ask that only one parent per household fills in the survey. If you have questions or didn't receive the email, see the Family Survey site.

SPS Explanation of the Family Survey
The Family Survey is administered each spring to families of K-12 students. The survey provides an important opportunity to reflect on your child's school and the district as a whole. All Family Survey responses are confidential. Surveys are also administered each year to all school staff and students in grades 3 through 12. Results from these surveys are used to guide improvements at the school and district level. 

Below are notes from the May 1st meeting at McClure regarding the proposed boundary changes to schools in the Queen Anne/Magnolia area. For more context and other details, see our Boundaries & Option School information page.

Timeline/ Next Steps:

• June – next community meeting with revised scenarios. 
• September – final scenarios shared with limited time after for comment
• October – final plan introduced to school board
• November – school board votes on final boundary plan associated with opening Magnolia School

What can YOU do!

• Read the recap of the meeting below.
• If you haven't perused yet, see the SPS materials presented at the meeting.
• WRITE to growthboundaries@seattleschools.org, enrollmentplanning@seattleschools.org, and to schoolboard@seattleschools.org, expressing your strong support of QAE remaining an Option School. We have example letters to help you get started.
• With the next meeting in June, SPS is looking for as much feedback as possible on all of the scenarios (A-H) as well as any other comments regarding boundary changes. 
• A team of QAE parents is forming to help craft our plan and message on why QAE remaining an Option School is important to the entire QA/Magnolia reference area.  If you have ideas or would like to join the effort, please email president@qaeptsa.org.
• Attend the June meeting and be prepared to share your story as to why QAE should remain an Option School. 
• Keep an eye out for emails from the QAE PTSA and on the PTSA's Facebook page for updates.

Meeting Recap
The meeting had three sections: Opening Remarks, Break Out Sessions, and Comment Period.

Opening Remarks:
Ashley Davies – Enrollment Planning for SPS

• Opened with introductions of SPS staff and SPS Board Members
• Introduced parent leaders from all 5 schools who recently met to uncover common ground and solutions to capacity issues for QA/Magnolia  (Heath Dixon, Ian Stewart, and Karrie Sanderson are the QAE parent reps on this group)
• Ashley walked through the presentation, highlighting the new material.  The new materials included:
  • QA/Mag Middle School student density
  • Walk zones for all schools in QA/Mag
  • Neighborhood counts vs. capacity for all of QA/Magnolia
  • Proximity Polygons  for all schools in QA/Mag that show the closest school for each polygon.
  • Two new Scenarios assuming that QAE becomes a neighborhood school – Scenarios G and H
  • Starting point "Pro / Con " list of  each of the scenarios presented 

Break out session:
Posters of the currently proposed 8 boundary scenarios (A-F) in the attachment were on the walls around the room.  Attendees were encouraged to view each scenario and write comments on a comment sheet about what they saw as the pros and cons for each scenario.

A bit more info on Scenarios G and H:

• Scenario G -  This scenario redraws ALL boundaries for every school in QA/Mag cluster so each school is under their 'right sized" capacity.  However, this scenarios shows the similar section of the current Coe area STILL assigned to Lawton as in scenarios A-F.   Scenario G, the attempt draw boundaries that keep all schools at or below capacity, results in a significant increase in students who are disrupted from their current schools and there are STILL kids from QA that have to get bused to Magnolia.
• Scenario H – This scenario is an attempt to keep all kids who live on QA (east of 15th Ave) in QA schools (Coe, Hay, or QAE).   However, both Coe and Hay remain OVER their capacity in this scenario.  Basically, if you want all QA kids to go to QA schools, both Hay and Coe will be over capacity.  And the necessary boundaries are drawn in such a gerrymandered way that students 2 blocks from Coe would have to go to QAE.​

Open Comments from Attendees:

• Using a lottery system, attendees were invited up to speak and share their thoughts on the current set of scenarios
• Most speakers were focused on scenarios G and H since they were new vs. the previous meeting
• Many speakers were from the current Coe community and they spoke passionately about NOT having to bus their children from QA to Magnolia, so they were advocating for Scenarios G and H which turn QAE into a neighborhood school.
• Several non-QAE speakers discussed an idea to make QAE a neighborhood school and then creating an Option School “cohort” within QAE with any extra seats going to neighborhood students assigned to QAE.   QAE parent leadership at the meeting expressed that there is NOT support for this idea (nor do we have full details of what the idea entails)
• QAE speakers spoke about:
  • The important role QAE already plays toward relieving capacity for Coe, Hay, and other schools. 
  • The importance of having an Option School that meets the learning needs of students who might not thrive at a more traditional school. 
  • The large increase in number of students that would be disrupted in Scenarios G and H, compared to A - F for little to no real gain in capacity relief for the schools that are requesting QAE become a neighborhood school.