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Two Seattle School Districts? Education Committee Sends Proposal To Full House

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Garfield High School in Seattle's Central District neighborhood.

A bill dividing Seattle Public Schools into two separate districts took another step forward in Olympia Thursday after House Education Committee members sent the proposal to the full chamber by a 16-to-5 vote.

Though it doesn't mention Seattle by name, the bill would bar any Washington school district from enrolling more than 35,000 students at the opening of the 2018-2019 school year. Only Seattle Public Schools currently fits that description.

The measure, authored by Seattle Democrats Sharon Tomiko Santos and Eric Pettigrew, would require the state's Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction to convene a workgroup to hash out the particulars of splitting up a district.

With 52,000 students enrolled in Seattle Public Schools, proponents of the measure argue the district has simply grown too big for a single administration to govern it effectively.

North of Madison Street, 63 percent of Seattle Public Schools students are white. South of Madison, around 27 percent of students are white.

Rep. Chad Magendanz, the committee's ranking Republican, served on the school board in Issaquah before being elected to the state House. Even in the smaller school district of 18,000 students, Magendanz said he found it difficult to reach out to "anything but a fraction" of the district's parents.

"I really can't fathom the ability of school board members in Seattle to have that level of community engagement, given the size of their school. It's just impractical," Magendanz said during the hearing Thursday. "Being a big believer of grassroots democracy, I want to see more representation closer to the constituents."

'Segregation'? Or A Bid To Solve Inequities?

The city's geography likely means, for pure logistical reasons, Seattle Public Schools would have to be divided between north and south. District officials say this would likely "further segregate the city of Seattle."

"The city is already challenged by the economic inequities between north and south Seattle," district spokesperson Stacy Howard wrote in a statement after the bill first surfaced last month. "This proposal would further polarize the city and increase the disparity between geographic regions."

The divisions are already apparent in Seattle schools located north and south of Madison Street., which runs from Elliott Bay to Lake Washington and cuts the city roughly in half. North of Madison, more than 63 percent of Seattle Public Schools students are white. South of Madison, around 27 percent of students are white.

But Santos and Pettigrew see their idea as a means of fixing "inequality" in educational outcomes in the district.

"Far too many students in Seattle schools are not given equitable opportunities to learn," Santos and Pettigrew said in a joint statement last month. "Although as individual legislators we haven’t always seen eye-to-eye on education policy, we are in complete agreement on this point: something has to change for the students in south Seattle schools."

Seattle Reps Split On Idea

Santos, a south Seattle resident, chairs the House Education Committee and voted in favor of the proposal.

Rep. Gerry Pollet, a Democrat representing northeast Seattle, voted against sending the proposal out of committee.

"What problem, amongst the many that the district has, is this one designed to solve?" Pollet asked during the committee's hearing Thursday.

Rep. Reuven Carlyle, a Democrat from Seattle's Queen Anne neighborhood, also expressed his "strenuous" disagreement with the proposal in a tweet.

Kyle Stokes covers the issues facing kids and the policies impacting Washington's schools for KPLU.