20 responses so far ↓

• 1 Drew // Oct 14, 2009 at 11:01 pm

  Did anyone go to this? I'm curious about the response from Magnolia, given all the hard feelings Ballard seems to have over the boundary lines.

  Also, being new to Magnolia, can anyone fill me in on exactly why we don't have a high school to call our own? Did we ever?

• 2 kurtd // Oct 15, 2009 at 8:31 am

  We did have a school: Queen Anne High School. It's still standing on Galer Street, near the TV towers, but has been converted to condos. The school district closed it in '81 and leased it out to a developer with an option to purchase, which the developer recently exercised, so it is gone forever. This was of course a horribly short-sighted decision on the board's part, but at the time the board had departed very far from the concept of neighborhood schools, and does not seem to have thought that it was important to keep a school here. While there might be a new high school in this area some day, it won't happen any time soon.

  I did go to the meeting last night. I think it is fair to say that Magnolia parents should not be complacent; Ballard parents are angry as hell and will continue to raise a fuss. Most of their arguments are hypocritical, delusional or worse–for example, they want to “keep communities together” but want Magnolia and Queen Anne students to continue to be scattered to the winds as they are under the existing plan. They blame us for the closure and sale of Queen Anne High School, when of course it was the District, not the parents of Magnolia and Queen Anne, who closed and sold it. They want to keep short travel distances to schools, but they want our kids to have to travel well past our closest school to every distant corner of the district.

  We need to make sure that we get written input to the District. You can write to the staff at newassign@seattleschools.org, and of course send letters to the Board. We need to let them know that we support the plan to finally, after all these years of suffering and uncertainty, give Magnolia and Queen Anne a stable high school assignment.

• 3 Kiki2 // Oct 15, 2009 at 11:06 am

  It's so much more than that. We bought our house in Ballard because of the great schools–Ballard High included. Residents of Magnolia and Queen Anne bought their homes knowing their community did NOT have a community high school. You knew that when you bought your house. Yes, it's a sense of community and I understand that if the Magnolia and QA kids get “shipped” to a school further away, their ties to their communities are not as tight either. Tough luck. This is OUR community school. Harsh? Yes. I think we are all passionate when it come to our children. I don't apologize for it. And for all those people who say “Change is good” and “this will teach your children that life is not fair” probably got the results they wanted.

• 4 kurtd // Oct 15, 2009 at 12:10 pm

  Well, as I said: hypocritical and delusional. You think it's your school; it is not your school. It belongs to the District. It was paid for with my tax dollars as well as yours, and it was paid for with the revenue from multiple sources including the sale, by the District, of Queen Anne High School. You have no more right to it than do the residents of Queen Anne and Magnolia.

  Magnolia and Queen Anne residents: you see? This is what it is like. Now, please, make sure that you write to the staff and to the board and make sure that this sort of shrill and irrational reaction does not wind up guiding the board's final decision.

• 5 Kiki2 // Oct 15, 2009 at 12:24 pm

  Shrill and irrational? I prefer advocating for my children. And certainly not hypocritical or delusional. If you don't like it move from Magnolia or QA . For all of you in Magnolis and QA that are writing to the staff and the board–pictrue AT LEAST two of Ballard parents/residents doing the same.

  And kurtd–there is absolutely no need to call names.

• 6 kurtd // Oct 15, 2009 at 12:49 pm

  I have not called you names. I have pointed out that your arguments rest upon delusion and hypocrisy.

• 7 Drew // Oct 15, 2009 at 4:03 pm

  Thanks kurtd! That was a very useful summary and hopefully it'll spur some parents into action.

  And for my next question: is Ballard High School really worth all this fuss? Is it considered one of the best high schools in the city and so everyone wants their kids to go there…or is it just because it's the closest high school to here?

• 8 kurtd // Oct 15, 2009 at 4:16 pm

  I don't think it's particularly worth all the fuss apart from the fact that it's the only high school that isn't hideously inconvenient to get to from QA and Magnolia. If your kids can get into the APP program at Garfield, that's probably a better option, but it's quite selective and the neighborhood is still fairly dangerous. Otherwise Seattle high schools are pretty close to six of one, half-dozen of another. Some people like the Center School, but that's pretty much only an option if your kids are planning on a lifetime of chronic unemployment.

• 9 Name // Oct 15, 2009 at 5:09 pm

  I don't understand this argument. It's not like the people who moved to Magnolia moved near an airport then complained about the noise. The kids of this neighborhood were victims of an assignment plan that was a) unfair and b) changeable. Just because they have been under-served for many years doesn't mean that the unfairness is a permanent part of the system. It can and should be changed to be fair.

  As for it being “your school”, well did you pay for it? Nope, we all did. It belongs to the school district. We bought it as much as you did, and our kids have just as much right to a predictable nearby school as any others in the district.

• 10 Name // Oct 15, 2009 at 5:36 pm

  I get that you are passionate about advocating for your kids. Do you get that we love our kids too? And want a reasonable plan that won't leave them hanging as to what will be their school, and that will fracture our neighborhoods not into two parts with a well-understood boundary, but into many, many parts with an unpredictable pattern. That's what we've endured for many years. So your plight–a nearby school with predictability–doesn't seem that horrible to us. We've financially supported a plan that has benefitted your kids at the expense of ours for many years. This change is long overdue.

  And telling people that if they don't like it they can move is not a persuasive argument, as it applies to people in your neighborhood as well.

• 11 kurtd // Oct 15, 2009 at 9:38 pm

  Bravo! Exactly.

• 12 Emjay // Oct 16, 2009 at 5:21 pm

  Well, from what others are writing, it seems that we did have a school, but we sold it. Well, actually we didn't have a school, QA had a school … but I guess they (QA-ites?)(Queen Annians?) sold it.

  BHS is the closest HS to my house, a rational person would think that's where my kids would go.

• 13 kurtd // Oct 16, 2009 at 6:43 pm

  The District–which represents the whole city–sold it. “We,” as in “Magnolia and Queen Anne residents,” certainly did not. We didn't want to sell it, we didn't sell it, and we didn't get the benefits of the sale. The District should–and, it seems, perhaps will–allow our kids to go to the nearest remaining school.

• 14 Emjay // Oct 17, 2009 at 4:33 pm

  I know, I was just quoting other posters.

  “We didn't get the benefits of the sale” … kinda like Briarcliff ? Don't get me started on that!

• 15 kurtd // Oct 17, 2009 at 8:14 pm

  Sorry–I guess I wasn't reading very closely.

  And yes, Briarcliff…don't get me started, either. Does the School District think that it can sell every decent-sized scrap of land it's ever owned, and then somehow magically make more land someday in the future when it needs more? We need to conserve these spots against future needs. QAHS is a perfect case in point–the old high school location would be the best possible spot to put a new high school, and now the District has made that impossible by building another school on the playfield and selling the main buildings.

• 16 KKP // Oct 17, 2009 at 10:21 pm

  I think the reality is that some people do buy houses after researching the schools. I think it's more often the case that other things factored into the decision, namely- in the past 10 years, the cost of housing. We bought our house before we ever thought of having kids, some people bought before they were married. It's a little sweeping to say the parents in Ballard bought houses taking the fact that their kids would eventually end up at Ballard High School, and why didn't Mag/ QA families do the same ?

  It's a shame that this seems to be deteriorating into a Mag/QA - Ballard throw down. Esp. in blogland b/c I worry that things are said that you (the general you, not targeted at any one commenter) would never say face to face to someone else. Or at a minimum, the nuance and tone is missing.

  If you like the boundary map, email newassign@seattleschools.org. Right now. Please.

• 17 kurtd // Oct 18, 2009 at 10:40 am

  Not only is it a little silly, as you point out, to say that people in Ballard bought their homes because of the high school and that Magnolia/QA families didn't do the same–I think it's downright crazy. The fact is that a Magnolia or QA home purchase could just as well have been based upon the convenience of the neighborhood high school–Ballard High–as could a Ballard home purchase. It would have been a wholly reasonable assumption for a home buyer to make that, given that there is only one high school that is not in a horribly inconvenient location for a Magnolia resident, that would be the school to which the kids would get assigned.

  I think that the “throwdown” mentality is, unfortunately, not limited to blogland. Ballard parents at the Ballard High School meeting were openly contemptuous toward Magnolia and Queen Anne residents. The one comment at the meeting that it was good for Magnolia and Queen Anne to finally have a neighborhood high school was met with angry jeers.

  My observation, so far, has been that while Magnolia/QA residents understand very well why Ballard residents are upset, Ballard residents are frequently (not always, but disturbingly frequently) happy to tell the Magnolia/QA residents to go pound sand and stop asking to be allowed to attend “their” school. There is a sick, disturbing sense of entitlement that has developed in Ballard around the inequities of the existing assignment plan, and this entitlement can be preserved only by continuing to treat Magnolia and QA in a patently unfair manner. It has led to a willingness to endorse those inequities–over at the Ballard site people are saying things such as that Magnolia should go to Franklin or Cleveland, and other such nonsense. It does not make for friendly discourse.

  We in Magnolia and QA–at least, the people I know–understand that, on the face of it, it seems wrong not to get to attend your nearest school. We get that. We get that because we have lived it for years. What we also get is that if people who want to attend Ballard High from northern Ballard or from neighborhoods north of 85th are closed out of Ballard, that is the logical result of poor facility planning on the part of the school District that has led to the QA/Magnolia/Ballard cluster having only one high school when it needs two. We have been asking for a high school to fix this problem, but in the meantime, the only equitable solution is to finally let our kids into Ballard High. If that closes some people in the north out who expected to go to Ballard High, that is unfortunate, and in my opinion it's a situation that should be fixed by better facilities planning in the future–but at present, the hardship being caused by sending Magnolia/QA kids all over the place, or that would be caused by sending them to any other school, would be much worse than the inconvenience caused by sending north Ballard and north-of-85th kids to Ingraham.

• 18 comag // Oct 18, 2009 at 12:31 pm

  Unfortunately, the BHS controversy is going to go on and on until QA & Magnolia get a new High School. Why not concentrate our efforts in that direction. There are several pieces of property in the Magnolia-Interbay-QA neighborhoods perfect for a new school. ex: Fort Lawton BRAC, Interbay Jail Site on Amory Way, Briarcliff housing development (we all know those homes are not going to sell, so I'm sure the district will be able to buy the land back for a pennies on the dollar). Ok, maybe the Briarcliff idea is a bit far-fetched, but if the city is considering new jails to help with over-crowding then why are they not looking at our school problem?!?!?!? Both are real problems, but lets focus on the future.

• 19 kurtd // Oct 18, 2009 at 12:40 pm

  Not only is it a little silly, as you point out, to say that people in Ballard bought their homes because of the high school and that Magnolia/QA families didn't do the same–I think it's downright crazy. The fact is that a Magnolia or QA home purchase could just as well have been based upon the convenience of the neighborhood high school–Ballard High–as could a Ballard home purchase. It would have been a wholly reasonable assumption for a home buyer to make that, given that there is only one high school that is not in a horribly inconvenient location for a Magnolia resident, that would be the school to which the kids would get assigned.

  I think that the “throwdown” mentality is, unfortunately, not limited to blogland. Ballard parents at the Ballard High School meeting were openly contemptuous toward Magnolia and Queen Anne residents. The one comment at the meeting that it was good for Magnolia and Queen Anne to finally have a neighborhood high school was met with angry jeers.

  My observation, so far, has been that while Magnolia/QA residents understand very well why Ballard residents are upset, Ballard residents are frequently (not always, but disturbingly frequently) happy to tell the Magnolia/QA residents to go pound sand and stop asking to be allowed to attend “their” school. There is a sick, disturbing sense of entitlement that has developed in Ballard around the inequities of the existing assignment plan, and this entitlement can be preserved only by continuing to treat Magnolia and QA in a patently unfair manner. It has led to a willingness to endorse those inequities–over at the Ballard site people are saying things such as that Magnolia should go to Franklin or Cleveland, and other such nonsense. It does not make for friendly discourse.

  We in Magnolia and QA–at least, the people I know–understand that, on the face of it, it seems wrong not to get to attend your nearest school. We get that. We get that because we have lived it for years. What we also get is that if people who want to attend Ballard High from northern Ballard or from neighborhoods north of 85th are closed out of Ballard, that is the logical result of poor facility planning on the part of the school District that has led to the QA/Magnolia/Ballard cluster having only one high school when it needs two. We have been asking for a high school to fix this problem, but in the meantime, the only equitable solution is to finally let our kids into Ballard High. If that closes some people in the north out who expected to go to Ballard High, that is unfortunate, and in my opinion it's a situation that should be fixed by better facilities planning in the future–but at present, the hardship being caused by sending Magnolia/QA kids all over the place, or that would be caused by sending them to any other school, would be much worse than the inconvenience caused by sending north Ballard and north-of-85th kids to Ingraham.

• 20 comag // Oct 18, 2009 at 2:31 pm

  Unfortunately, the BHS controversy is going to go on and on until QA & Magnolia get a new High School. Why not concentrate our efforts in that direction. There are several pieces of property in the Magnolia-Interbay-QA neighborhoods perfect for a new school. ex: Fort Lawton BRAC, Interbay Jail Site on Amory Way, Briarcliff housing development (we all know those homes are not going to sell, so I'm sure the district will be able to buy the land back for a pennies on the dollar). Ok, maybe the Briarcliff idea is a bit far-fetched, but if the city is considering new jails to help with over-crowding then why are they not looking at our school problem?!?!?!? Both are real problems, but lets focus on the future.

Leave a Comment (read our comment rules)