On Nov. 18, the Seattle School Board voted unanimously to approve the New Student Assignment Plan boundary maps. The New Student Assignment Plan and recently approved boundary maps will be phased in beginning in the 2010-2011 school year for students at entry-grade levels—usually kindergarten, sixth and ninth grades.

The final maps will reflect the changes included in an omnibus amendment submitted by the School Board Executive Committee that outlines adjustments for the Whittier and Loyal Heights attendance areas.

Staff will incorporate the approved amendments to the boundaries into a final set of maps. Those maps, and an updated address look-up tool, will be available on the district’s Web site next week.

In what was one of the more controversial aspects of the new attendance areas, the northern boundary for Ballard High School will remain Northwest 85th Street.

“The approval of the student assignment boundary maps and capacity management policy represent a sea change for Seattle Public Schools,” Superintendent Maria L. Goodloe-Johnson said in a press release. “We now have a long-needed new student assignment plan that supports our goal of an excellent education for every student."

The next step is for a transition plan to be developed. The transition plan will consider, among other factors, sibling grandfathering, transportation and developing educational programs for buildings that will open in 2010, 2011 and 2012.

The plan should be developed in January.

The heart of the new plan is to serve students closer to home. Students will receive an initial assignment to an attendance area – elementary, middle or high school. This assignment will be based on their address.

Students may also apply to an option school associated with their attendance area.

A student can choose to apply to a school outside their attendance area; that assignment will be based on a series of tiebreakers. The tiebreakers are greatly simplified compared with the existing system.

At the high school level, the proposal is to designate approximately 10 percent of the school capacity for open choice seats for students from outside the attendance area, which will provide more equitable access to specialized programs.

If a student is currently enrolled at a school outside their attendance area, they can stay at that school through its highest grade under a process called grandfathering as long as the services the student needs are available at that school.

The new approved attendance area boundaries replace a set of school reference areas that haven’t been updated in decades, no longer reflect city demographics and do not accurately reflect the capacity of the District’s facilities.

Seattle Public Schools needs to balance availability of facilities with where students live now and where enrollment changes are projected for the future.

In some areas of the city, buildings currently in use cannot accommodate projected enrollment, so the proposal is to open buildings to align available capacity to meet the needs of current and projected students.

Viewlands Elementary will re-open as attendance area schools. Its proposed re-opening is scheduled for 2011.

The funds required to prepare buildings for students and staff have been included in the Buildings, Technology and Academics III (BTA III) levy proposal, which was unanimously approved by the School Board Nov. 18. The BTA III levy, together with an Operations Levy, will be placed on the Feb. 9 ballot.