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On Oct. 17, PPS released three scenarios for dividing up students who currently choose between attending Jefferson High School or Grant, McDaniel or Roosevelt high schools. The district’s goal: By the 2030–31 school year, all four schools will enroll at least 1,100 students each. District officials say that’s the baseline number the buildings need to function as comprehensive high schools.
The district is assigning specific elementary schools and K-8s to Jefferson, Grant and Roosevelt. Here’s what that change could look like:
THE STATUS QUO
Currently, dual assignment zones are broken down as follows. Students at four feeder elementary schools to Harriet Tubman Middle School—Boise-Eliot/Humboldt, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Irvington, and Sabin—choose between Jefferson and Grant. Students at feeder elementary schools to Ockley Green Middle School—Beach, Chief Joseph, Peninsula, and Woodlawn—choose between Jefferson and Roosevelt. Vernon K-8 and Faubion PK-8 families have their pick of either Jefferson or McDaniel. The district determines elementary school boundaries by home address.
SCENARIO A
Scenario A would zone the dual immersion Spanish program at Beach Elementary to Roosevelt, while Vernon K-8, Faubion PK-8, and all other elementary schools that feed into Ockley Green and Harriet Tubman middle schools would be zoned for Jefferson. This option has fallen out of favor because it would tank enrollment at Roosevelt—down to 1,020 kids by the 2030–31 school year.
SCENARIO B
Scenario B would zone the dual immersion Spanish program at Beach and students at Peninsula Elementary School to Roosevelt, while Vernon K-8, Faubion PK-8, and all other elementary schools that feed into Ockley Green and Harriet Tubman middle schools would be zoned for Jefferson. In recent weeks, a group of parents across Jefferson’s boundaries have made a coordinated effort to encourage the district to choose this option because it would keep Tubman students together and send the most students to Jefferson without compromising the enrollment of the other three high schools. “Option B is my favorite,” says Kristen Jessie-Uyanik, who has a daughter in eighth grade at Tubman and twins in fourth grade at Sabin, “in the spirit of equity and building Jefferson up to full enrollment and beyond that, in the quickest amount of time possible.”
SCENARIO C
Scenario C would zone the dual immersion Spanish program at Beach and students at Peninsula Elementary School to Roosevelt, while Vernon K-8, Faubion PK-8, and all other elementary schools that feed into Ockley Green would be zoned to Jefferson. At Harriet Tubman, three of the school’s four feeder elementaries—Boise-Eliot/Humboldt, King and Sabin—would feed into Jefferson, while Irvington Elementary would feed to Grant. Superintendent Dr. Kimberlee Armstrong recommended this option on Dec. 4, noting its popularity among community members surveyed. Plus, almost all students who live within 1 mile of a high school would attend their closest school. Scenario C has garnered some support from the Irvington neighborhood, where many families are opposed to sending their children to Jefferson.
But even those parents aren’t entirely on board with Scenario C—some of them have presented what they’ve termed “Scenario F” to the School Board, which would zone both Irvington and Sabin, another historic Grant feeder, back into Grant. “I felt a mix of relief and sadness when I first read the recommendation,” says Laura Westwood, an Irvington parent who was part of developing Scenario F. “Scenario C, of the three scenarios, is the most balanced, but I still maintain that the community-driven Scenario F is a better solution.”
