Seattle Public Schools | APP Capacity Issue at Lowell

Update on Capacity Issues Associated with the APP Program at Lowell

A meeting was held this morning, June 15, 2005, at Lowell Elementary with the past and present Co-Chair of the APP Task Force, the President of Lowell's PTSA, the Director of Student Services, the Manager of Advanced Learning, and Lowell's building principal present.The purpose of the meeting was to review APP elementary enrollment numbers and capacity at the Lowell site. The attachments present the data shared at the meeting.

Nominations and APP Eligibility (Tested students grades K-7)
APP Enrollment by School
APP Elementary Enrollment by Grade

NO decision will be made concerning the APP elementary program (e.g., whether the program will remain in a single location at the Lowell site or the program will be distributed to two sites) at this time.The timeline for decision-making will flow as the Superintendent's Committee is formed to address budget issues. This Committee will need to meet and dialogue, make recommendations to the Superintendent, who then will make final decisions.This means that a decision concerning the housing of the elementary APP program could occur for the 06-07 school year, at the earliest. The discussion focused on the setting of priorities, asking:
What is more important?

1) To keep the students together in a cohort, with the understanding that class sizes may have to expand because of the fixed number of classrooms at Lowell, which could potentially diminish the teachers' ability to differentiate and meet the needs of all learners in these larger groups and means that the playground, lunchroom, and assembly safety/crowding/scheduling issues need to be resolved
OR2) To keep class size down to support differentiation and teacher workload and to reduce pressures related to the crowded playground, lunchroom, assemblies by housing the elementary program at two buildings?

The suggestion was made that this discussion begins with the staff at Lowell.