It's taken awhile for me to be able to put my thoughts down on paper.  The
policies of the Seattle School Board have dramatically affected my family. 
Here's the story -

We have always lived in the northend. I graduated from Shorecrest, I have an
adult son that graduated from Inglemoor and my daughters had attended
Arrowhead Elementary through 1997.  In August 1997 I was transferred, for
work, to Southern California, Irvine.  We sold our house in Bothell and moved.  Less than one year later, August of 1998, the Bank gave me the opportunity to move back to the Northwest.  We decided to accept the opportunity to move home.  After looking at the school policies and programs and after having lengthy discussions with the Seattle School District, we decided we would move to the city. I worked downtown and a 20 minute commute seemed like a good thing for our family.

We bought a house in Magnolia, after confirming with the school district, that Magnolia was in the community for Ballard.  At the time I had a 5th grader and a 7th grader.  Fall of 1999 it's time to enroll for private schools for high school.  It never dawned on me that I should do that. No one told me my daughter might not get into Ballard. 

We followed all of the rules.  Met all the deadlines.  Put down only 3 choices of schools.  1) Ballard, 2) Garfield & 3) Roosevelt.  We were really worried she would get Roosevelt, because the commute would have been difficult, however, there was still no doubt in our minds  - we were sure she would get into Ballard and that all this "choice" stuff was just procedure.

We received the assignment, first to West Seattle and then to Ingraham.

I am a bank executive.  I travel out of the city almost every week.  I am the sole support of my daughters and now a single mom.  My oldest daughter is also a challenge - like most 14 year olds.  She is on the edge and testing all the time. She considers herself a punk rocker and, if she could, hang with some pretty unsavory people.  She is a risk taker and not afraid of consequences.  In other words, I have my hands full with her and need to be aware of her activities constantly.  We filed a protest and were denied.

In June, when the appeal was denied, I realized that now I had the 20 minute
door to door commute, but my daughter had a 1 hour or more commute, 2 buses, really early and really late.  These conditions were absolutely unacceptable to me
and to her.

On July 11 we listed our house in Magnolia for sale (we had spent 2 years
gutting and remodeling), bought a new house in the Northshore School District
and moved to Kenmore.  We are now 3 blocks away from where we had lived
before we moved to California. This has so far turned out to be a great move. Even though we didn't want to move. Moving was a big expense and a drastic step to take, but I had to have the children settled into a school before school began in September.

I gave up, moved out of the city.  I now have the 1 hour commute and my daughter has the 10 minute commute to school.  Which is how it should be. The Seattle School District's policies made it impossible for us to live in a city we loved. My youngest misses Blaine and her friends there. I miss the community and proximity to work. I couldn't handle the day to day uncertainties of Seattle Schools.

Thank you - good luck