No Whittier 4th K Classroom

Whittier Elementary NO 4th K Classroom petition

We, the undersigned, hereby request that the Seattle School Board strike the line item of “Repurpose Whittier space” to add a 4th kindergarten classroom from the 2012 – 2013 attendance plan, unless there is specific and public demographic info to support that need AND there is assurance that this is a one year only assignment. If it is not possible to strike the line item, then we hereby request the line be amended to ensure that there is active community involvement on determining how the space gets repurposed.

We request this for the following reasons:
• The district’s attendance data does not show the necessity for adding a 4th K classroom to ensure children within the Whittier school attendance area (as set by NSAP) have access to the school.
• As of the October 1, 2011 enrollment count, Whittier had 69 kindergarteners enrolled, accommodating 55 children in our attendance area, plus 14 children whose addresses are outside the attendance area. This translates to 20% of current year K students come from outside the school’s attendance area, demonstrating that there is healthy access for students within the attendance area as well as for siblings. Even with any anticipated growth in our attendance area population of six-year olds, three kindergartens seems sufficient to handle that population.
• Adding an additional classroom will increase demand for school resources, both in terms of physical space (lunchroom, playground), funds, and administrative, teaching, and supervisory assistance, thereby impacting the QUALITY of education of the current students; our PE and Music teachers give up their planning time to accommodate the bolus of children already at Whittier.
• Adding ~25 more children will impact safety on the playground
• There isn’t space in the lunchroom to accommodate ~25 more children, and lunchtime is currently run with military precision to get everyone through. Many parents have complained that the current lunchtime set-up does not adequately ensure children have enough time to eat.
• One area that is under discussion for repurposing is the Whittier Kids Preschool: The preschool serves ~50 local families, and provides a "community pathway" where 80% of the kids who graduated last year went into Whittier Kindergarten. The preschool serves as a significant community resource, and aids those children in fostering not only early education, but early connections within their age cohorts as well. Additionally, the families are relying on that preschool for their fall enrollment plans as well.
• There are medium and long term implications that will be created with this plan that the District has not addressed. With no medium or long term plan, the District is unintentionally creating a situation that could have significant repercussions for our community. Whittier presently has three first grade classrooms to accommodate students from our existing three kindergartens PLUS the influx of spectrum-qualified first graders who transfer to Whittier each year. In 2011-12, each of the three first year classrooms has 28 students enrolled (84 total). In 2010-11, our school had 83 first-graders enrolled. Whittier cannot absorb an additional kindergarten classroom in 2013-2014 without adding a fourth first grade classroom, and later a fourth second grade classroom, and so on and so on. There are not six spaces within Whittier to “repurpose”, therefore the addition of a kindergarten classroom in 2012-13 means the school would be unable to host those children in the subsequent years without a significant program change OR an extremely restrictive redrawing of the attendance boundaries, which would have the effect of breaking siblings apart. We do not support a plan that would insure major enrollment problems and the breaking apart of families in the year 2013-2014.