Decisions Made

Things Held In Common

Varsity Sports: Remains unchanged. Students from all Small Schools will be able to access the same selection of interscholastic sports and WIAA sanctioned events as before.

• Implication: We will need a common end time for the Small Schools in order to allow students access to practices and competition. Coaching stipends will remain as is per negotiated agreement.

School Clubs: Remains unchanged. Students from all Small Schools will be able to access the same range of clubs and activities as before. However, over time we hope to significantly improve the number of activities and clubs that we have available for students. Toward this end, the possibility exists for clubs to be offered within Small Schools.

• Implication: Over the next few years, each Small School should examine its capacity to offer increased extracurricular experiences for members of its Small School and/or the larger community. Stipends will remain as is per negotiated agreement.

ASB: Initially remains unchanged. The ASB could operate under its existing structure allowing students from any Small School to participate as class officers and/or ASB officers. The Leadership Team recommends increasing ASB participation via representation from each Small School as a means to increase student involvement.

• Implication: The ASB officers will need to examine this possibility and develop a recommendation and a governing structure on how this will work operationally (Timeline- spring of 2004).

Musicals and Plays: Remains unchanged. School wide musicals and plays would remain available for all students and serve as a way to unite students from differing smaller learning communities. Additionally, opportunities for students in drama could occur through one or more small schools.

• Implication: The funded position (paid as a stipend) would remain.

Yearbook: Remains unchanged. The yearbook would still be for Mountlake Terrace High School. The yearbook staff could do additional layouts for each small school as components of the yearbook; however, this would be a decision that the yearbook staff would make.

School colors and mascot: Remains unchanged. Since sports are a community activity, this would be another feature that all Small Schools would share.

Library Services: The librarian and the library support staff will continue to be run centrally and will service all of the smaller learning communities.

• Implication: The staffing for these positions will taken out for this purpose before the remaining FTE is distributed to the smaller learning communities.

Registrar Services: Remain unchanged. The registrar will serve all of the small schools.

• Still to be resolved: The State has developed new software that allows for flexible scheduling of small schools within a larger high school. We have seen the first iteration of this software, but the timing of the official release of this software and all of the final features of the software will have a major affect on the ability of the registrar to be able to deal with different configurations of students within MTHS. We will continue to monitor this development and analyze our needs.

Building Principal: A building principal will remain as the instructional leader and building manager for MTHS. This individual will chair the Leadership Team, oversee the coordination of the small schools, serve as the primary liaison to the District and community, monitor the progress of the Small Schools on the accountability measures, and maintain final responsibility for staffing, budget, evaluation and other responsibilities as defined by the district.

Custodians: Remain unchanged. All custodial services will be provided centrally for the smaller learning communities and will be directly responsible to the building principal.

Shared students among Small Schools: Students and their families will have the opportunity to preference their small school as a natural part of registration. Using our Educational Balancing Criteria, we will then assign students to an Small School for their 9-12 experience. During the 11th and 12th grade years, we will provide an opportunity for students to access programs in another small school that are not offered in their own school. The logistics of this will take place as cross registration on a space available basis similar to intra-district courses that are operational currently. Each Small School will be responsible for assisting its students in accessing these courses; however, it will be the responsibility of each Small School to provide printed materials that will make cross registration accessible for other students. Students in the 9th and 10th grade years will take any elective courses within their Small School.

Curriculum (general): All small schools will need to provide the prerequisite coursework to allow students to go to their next level of education, including access to a four year college. Therefore, they will still need to meet Washington State graduation requirements and Edmonds School District requirements for graduation.

Policies

Cross registration of students
The primary goal of small schools is to provide an educational program where all students will learn, achieve, and meet high standards. To meet this goal, we recommend that students take all their courses in their home school where they may receive personalized guidance and individual attention from staff members who know them well.

We require that freshmen and sophomores take all coursework, including electives, within their small school. Juniors and seniors may cross register only for requirements or for electives not offered in their home school. In these cases, we recommend juniors cross over for no more than one class per trimester and seniors cross over for no more than two. We define a junior as a student who has earned 11 credits and a senior as one who has earned 16 credits at the time of registration.

In exceptional circumstances, a student may initiate a request for an additional crossover class with his/her small school counselor. Then a decision will be made collaboratively by representatives from the small school faculty, the student, the student's parents, and the student's counselor.

Student Transfer Policy Between Small Schools

It is our expectations that our efforts to personalize our high school, will strengthen the relationships between all students and a core group of faculty members. Consequently, we would anticipate that students would have a strong affiliation with their smaller school during their four years at Mountlake Terrace High School. However, we are also aware that there may be the unusual circumstance in which a student and/or his family may desire a change of placement. Therefore, we have developed the following policy to deal with those circumstances.

Once during the course of high school, a student and/or his family who is unhappy with his/her placement in a small school will have the opportunity to receive an alternative placement. The request for alternative placement will be made in writing to the administrator/teacher leader of the Small School before May 1st of the school year. Once a year during the first two weeks of May each Small School will then conduct a placement review according to their established procedure. Their recommendation will then be taken to the building governing body that is chaired by the building principal. The governing body will consider all of the written input, the recommendation from the Small School, and will (if time and resources allow) also provide an opportunity for a personal appearance by the student and his/her family. After deliberating over this information, this group will make the final determination on placement. If the governing body recommends an alternative placement, they will work with the student and his/her family to help select another small school that is not already oversubscribed.

Student Assignment into Small Schools

Ø      All student preferences will be entered into our student information system. 

Ø      Incoming freshman preferences will be returned usually by mid February after which placement will take place. 

Ø      Instrumental music students who preferenced the Renaissance School as their first choice, will then be placed.  These students will then be removed from their second and third preferences.

Ø      Next, we will go to any small school with lower than projected enrollment, placing all students that put this school first.  After placing these students, we will then remove them from their second and third preferences.

Ø      We will then go to schools exceeding their projected enrollment with students that preferenced the school as their top priority.  We will complete a random draw.

Ø      After a school reaches maximum enrollment, we will identify students that did not get their top priority and lock them into their second priority.

Ø      We will continue enrollment in the remaining schools until all students are placed.

Ø      Using the educational balancing criteria, we will check each small school for the equitable distribution of students.  Assuming distribution of students is adequately achieved, then we will be done.  If not, we will reexamine schools that are not balanced and make random changes.  This process will continue until completion.

Ø      Upon completion, we will examine the numbers of students receiving their top two preferences for an overall evaluation of our success.  The ultimate goal is to place as many students as possible in one of their top two preferences.

Ø This same process will apply for learning support students (using our educational balancing criteria).