October 27 Online Community Forum

Date: October 27, 2023

Forum Participants: 91

Summary

A note to the reader: This summary is intended to provide an overview of the consistent themes that came from the small group conversations at the forum. It is not exhaustive, but rather gives highlights of the feedback and responses. See below for the full set of combined notes from the meeting.

Responses to Question 1: What aspects of the middle school experience are most important to you/your student?

The participants in the online forum consistently said that class size or student to teacher ratio is important to them. Specifically, they want lower class sizes and manageable ratios for students to get support. In addition, the range of offerings for electives and extra-curricular activities was mentioned several times. Transportation or drive times were also a priority for this group. Safety and security, while mentioned less, were also a priority for the participants.

Responses to Question 2: If we were to consolidate one middle school, what priorities or factors do you think we should consider?

The number of responses to this question in the notes were too small to make generalizations. What did appear aligned with the responses to question 1, around transportation, and safety.

Responses to Question 3: What questions do you have?

Questions were wide-ranging and all can be found below in the combined notes for the meeting. A few were somewhat aligned around the student transfer data, the non-resident students and Big Picture and International School. In addition, participants wanted to know how many middle schools we are considering closing and whether there will be another opportunity to weigh in on where their students will transfer to. These questions are similar to those raised in other forums.

• Why aren’t Big Picture and International included in the demographer’s report? Will they be part of this decision making?
• How will non-resident students be considered in this decision-making? Will they be forced to leave, or will they transfer in BSD?
• How many schools are you considering consolidating?
• Will parents have an opportunity to decide where their students go to school?

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Combined Notes

A note to the reader: These are the combined raw notes from the small group discussions at this forum. These notes have not been edited except to remove names and correct spelling or grammar. They have been consolidated to share the combined responses to each question.

Question 1: What aspects of the middle school experience are most important to you/your student?

• The variety of electives available are important to me for middle school, as well as classroom size. Interested in maintaining access to electives in language, science, tech, music, art, CTE.
• Smaller classrooms, leading to better student-teacher ratio. Good facilities including after school sports and non-sports activities. Core subjects should be under 25 or under 20 students, especially math and science.
• Interest in after school activities and sports include Badminton, basketball, soccer. ideally group sports – to encourage team play.
• Other two kids were impacted by closure at Eastgate. Involved in all meetings and surveys last year. Recall this. Would value and prioritize not having too many students in the class. Know that middle school classes tend to be larger than elem. How does that work when a middle school gets consolidated, how will students be allocated. One concern last year was about friends and teachers. Kids in special programs, what happens to the teachers. AL moved out of Spiritridge. How would that happen in MS, can’t really move an entire middle school into another middle school because of size. Want students to have 1:1 help or assistance. Drive time is a concern. Having same amount of class choices for electives and extracurriculars. Already competitive now. Signups get full really quickly for Jubilee. When more students attend, how does that impact signups for students who want to participate. Think about class size and overall school size?
• Hearing students says they’re worried they won’t have assemblies because too many students. Biggest concern from students is will there be enough room?
• Concerned about student/teacher ratio. That would be priority for me. Even if rotation of assembly meetings, the ratio of student/teacher is what will provide best educational opportunities for student learning experience. Athletic offering is also a priority (does work for BSD A&A)…don’t want to see athletic offering go away or have it be encumbered. When enrollment goes down, chance for sport to go down. That won’t change; its up to size of people who sign up then random drawing. Would be nice to offer even more because of social emotional benefit of athletics.
• Appreciate opportunity to have voices heard. Class size – yes, student/teacher ratio – yes. Also want to add…we need to consider equitable access to MS. Think political needs get involved in these decisions. Have a group of students who need to get themselves to school walking, make sure that schools chosen have lots of different transportation options.
• Concern about safety…how big will middle schools get. Will there be a resource officer? Who is available at middle schools in way of officers like we’ve had in the past. Is safety a part of the conversation?
• Having activities where kids can come together and be social.
• Student to teacher ratio
• Somerset PTSA
• Utilization
  • After elementary consolidation, Somerset is now using two portables.
  • Now, we’re over 100% utilization.
• Challenge to run after-school programs.
  • Avoid this issue with middle schools.
• The district projected lower enrollment.
• 14% students went to private school last year – Consolidation.
• We live 4 minutes from Somerset, but now my daughter goes to Spiritridge. We’re happy there.
  • When we moved here, we thought we were going to be in Eastgate.

Question 2: If we were to consolidate one middle school, what priorities or factors are important that you think we should consider?

• Transportation, safety and security
• Class size, student/teacher ratio, equitable access, make sure most marginalized populations aren’t the ones who suffer the most.

Question 3: What questions do you have?

• Hard to know what questions to ask or concerns to have if we don’t know what the proposal is.
• If the chat/Q/A gets enabled, will add…last week when demographer reports were emailed to families, spent a lot of time going through each slide. From going through process last year, it was miserable. It will go a long way that there is way more transparency this time. This is much a different experience. When looked at demographer findings, wondering why for the slide that says, neither BP or Int’l numbers are being considered…wondering why.
  • Why aren’t Big Picture and International numbers included in the demographers’ reports?
  • Why aren’t the 980 non-resident students reflected in the stats?
  • Would like to see both BP and Int’l and non-resident numbers included in projections.
• When we consolidate, are those non-resident students getting kicked out of school district? If we’re worried about ratios, overcrowding, and equitable access, what happens to the 980 students? What is the thought process there?
• Of the 980 non-residents, how many are attending BP or Int’l?
• Once the recommendation is made, is there going to be an opportunity for parents on boundary line to choose? When you have a student in a group of friends, the social part of school is really important. Would be nice to have opportunity to keep that social piece together.
• Slide in demo report, “Where have students transferred?” The data on that one slide tells interesting story, In 20-21, the numbers are really high of students who moved out of BSD to another WA district — ~800ish and next year was ~700ish.
• Is there a target for utilization?
• How many middle schools are you planning to reduce? I have heard that you are considering combining the ISA with the dual language Spanish programs in middle school. Is this true? How would this affect the ISA program?
• Please quantify the 14% of private school.
• Do you know yet which schools you’re considering closing?
• What are the top three factors that will impact the decision?

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