Friday update: The district has shared the official Ballard High School map, which reflects our earlier reporting below. And here’s the citywide high school map.
Updated 1:45 p.m. The Seattle School Board voted last night to adopt the final boundary map to redraw the high school boundaries for the 2019-20 school year.
They were voting on the draft map Fv4.3 (pdf), but they also voted in favor of two amendments to the map — which we’ve now been able to confirm.
So take the map linked above and make these two changes:
1. The northern boundary remains at NW 85th St., but a last-minute verbal amendment makes an adjustment. Families inside the Loyal Heights Elementary boundary — north of NW 85th St. to the west of 28th Ave. NW — will be included in Ballard High School’s attendance area. Here’s the current Loyal Heights Elementary boundary:
2. The board also passed an amendment to the draft map that keeps “Reference Area B” (.pdf) inside the Ballard boundary. This is a slice of Phinney that is currently inside the Ballard boundary: 3rd Ave. to the west, 70th St. to the north, Greenwood Ave/Phinney Ave to the east, 46th St then NW Market St then NW 50th street to the south.
After you make those changes, the Fv4.3 map stands. That means a southern portion of the West Woodland neighborhood, beneath Leary Way, moves to Lincoln High School. And Magnolia remains inside the Ballard High boundaries.
Yes, this is all very confusing, and the district tells us the final map will be published “late today or tomorrow.” (It’s also in the middle of dealing with a school bus strike). We will publish the final map as soon as it’s available.
All in all, the map appears to be mostly a win for the Ballard area, especially if you compare it with some of the early drafts of the boundaries: one drew the northern line at 80th St., and another moved everyone to the southeast of BHS — even across the street — over to Lincoln.
The board also passed an amendment to move the north-end Dual Language Immersion high school pathway from Ingraham to Lincoln in 2019-20.
The boundaries were redrawn to accommodate the addition of Lincoln High School opening in Wallingford and Ingraham High School expanding in 2019.
(We’ve corrected this post to include the Loyal Heights Elementary and Reference Area B amendments. We apologize for the confusion.)
![](https://www.myballard.com/wp-content/uploads/My-Ballard-ad-1.png")
![](https://www.myballard.com/wp-content/uploads/2024-My-Ballard-Tile-Ad-Troop-100.png")
Magnolia residents have no business at BHS when North Beach, Golden Gardens and Blue Ridge is bused to Ingraham with 2 transfers on 99 for over an hour.
BHS should have finally been returned to Ballard.
They finalized a very bad plan the border should have gone up to 105 th & 8 th and Magnolia should be at Lincoln or at least 1/2 of Magnolia the South east side.
Magnolia has the buildings and the land for a High School to be built for QA and Magnoliaand The City is just sitting on it & planning to give it to non tax payers , drug addicts ? How does that makes any sense? The homeowners ( tax payers) of Seattle deserve better than this !
What a sad mess
2 transfers? The horror! Hope the little snowflakes font have to retreat to their safe places after this.
how come my tax dollars are being paid to fancy map artists that can draw fancy shapes and color them in?
@RANDALL J
I agree. Maps are bad. Let’s defund maps.
#MapsDontMatter
@MAPS DON’T MATTER
I don’t think he was complaining about maps in general, just fancy colored in maps paid for my tax dollars.
@CONCERNED BALLARD PARENT
What are you concerned about? Maps?
What Vavi said.
We made a couple significant changes to this story to include two amendments that alter the draft map. Our apologies for the confusion.
Please use compass directions. It makes the story so much easier to understand.
I agree with VAVI
The folks living in the mythical land of “North Ballard” are at it again.
I agree that VAVI has no idea what he/she is talking about regarding the city “sitting on it & planning to give it to non tax payers , drug addicts “. Sounds like someone had too much cough syrup this morning.
Even if they could put a school on the Fort Lawton property, it would take 2-3 years minimum to design and build it. For now we need to make use of the resources we have and if that means a bus transfer on Aurora (gasp!) then so be it
“Common Sense” sounds like someone who is either off of their medication, or is watching way too much Fox “News.”
He appears to be the one needing the so-called “safe space.” Strange and confused Trump voter I suspect.
I hail from the mythical land of North Ballard. I don’t want my kid on the bus for over an hour a day either. (metro planner says it will be 32 minutes one way, and 38 minutes the other way. If they were to go to ballard high school, it would be 17 minutes and 19 minutes. That’s 2 1/2 hours a week difference.
I think every parent would prefer their high school student do something more productive then sit on a public bus for 2 1/2 hours a week. Out of every single proposal to the attendance areas, this one had the greatest net addition in bus times for one area (north beach/north ballard) then any of the proposals.
It’s also reasonable to be concerned about a 14 year old girl waiting 5-15 minutes on Aurora to change buses at 6:00 at night when she participates in after-school activities.
Wait, the Loyal Heights boundaries are changing THIS fall. We are being moved from Whittier to Loyal Heights. Does that mean we’re going to Ballard now here in South Crown Hill? So confusing. I don’t really care which, but had assumed because we were north of 85th it was pretty set we were going to Ingraham. That’s a pretty confusing amendment. Ugh, I’m just tired of our neighborhood being shuffled around. It seems weird to base high school boundaries on elementary school boundaries that are about to change.
I like North ballard cause it’s part of Real American family life and South ballard is gone to another planet with snow flakes and dream fairies and people that can not socialize or drive a car or a bike , bums rules the area and the folks there must love it ! Thumbs up to Old ballard and you newbies get back to that other planet !
LBD –
No, you’re still Ingraham. It’s only grandfathered LHE boundaries that go to BHS (i.e. not your shuffled section). Yes, you have the right to be upset. It’s cray cray.
Cray cray is right, just think about what happened here :
1. Populations have shifted slightly causing too many kids at some schools and too few at others.
2. School Board redrew lines to address this.
Outrage!
I also wish your pissant kid would do something more productive than sit on a public bus but I don’t see that happening.
On the one hand, it is cray cray that QA and Magnolia don’t have an HS in, say Interbay. On the other hand, the District is dealing with large and unpredictable demographic changes with decades of underfunding by the state legislature (for which they’re being held in contempt). The Republicans (who generally represent rural and suburban districts) don’t want to raise anyone’s taxes, even the very rich folks who now populate Ballard, QA, and Magnolia, to fund our schools properly.
Woof! Woof!
What’s wrong with Fox News? They actually give the whole story unlike most biased news sources. Trump could literally cure all disease and the media would still complain.
Pretty funny to log in randomly & see someone I know. Hi, Vavi.
The map looks pretty reasonable to me. The area north of 85th Street is already in the zone for Ingraham, it’s not as though your home will be changing to a farther away high school as a result of Lincoln’s reopening.
And the idea that the city should build an additional high school instead of low-income housing so that your kids might have a slightly shorter trip to school…I’m really not sure how to respond to such an absurd suggestion.
Magnolia students already commute over an hour per day to BHS.
Were they sent to Lincoln, for many, the commute would be over an hour EACH WAY.
Under the new map, which maintains Magnolia students at BHS, not everyone will get their “best case scenario” and this helps ensure everyone has a generally reasonable scenario.
In a public school district, when there’s an “unpleasant” sandwich, everybody has to take a bite.
@ERIC
Magnolia families are generally happy with their students attending BHS. But given upzoning and population density, that isn’t a viable long-term solution. A closer school would really be in lieu of an onerous commute to somewhere like Lincoln in Wallingford and not in lieu of the comparatively long but still reasonable commute to BHS.
We are for low-income housing and many are for it in our neighborhood if it makes sense (for example closer to Interbay). The main issue is Ft. Lawton is very isolated, the nearest grocery store is very expensive, Magnolia does not have “frequent transit service” (it is not an “Urban Village”) and there are not a lot of services nearby that would help either a homeless or low-income population better their situation.
So it seems more logical to put the high school in or near the neighborhood, where these constraints aren’t an issue and put the low-income housing more proximate to broader retail and service offerings.
Magnolia is often referred to as an “island” given the limited ingress/egress and the Ft. Lawton area is even more remote. I can’t imagine anyone would argue it’s a good spot for homeless or low-income housing based on its characteristics in the abstract. The only real arguments seem to be reverse-NIMBYism and middle-class guilt, which in the absence of reasonable underlying characteristics won’t actually help the population it’s intended to.
Yeah, I think I’m just annoyed by the one account I found of the meeting that said they added the Loyal Heights areas so those kids could “go to high school with their classmates.” So my kids over here aren’t your classmates? They’re going to be for the foreseeable future, starting THIS fall. We’re already ridiculously isolated from the rest of the Loyal Heights attendance area. I’d have liked a larger population of kids at Loyal Heights eventually going to high school with my kids. It just seemed self-serving and short-sighted. Ugh, I’m thinking of opting into a different school that’s closer, that will feed into Ingraham. Luckily I have another year to figure it out.
@LBD,
I was at the board meeting, it was a Hail Mary by students and teary-eyed moms and a firefighter dad who did a very good job tugging at heartstrings on behalf of a small handful of students.
The least experienced member of the board who doesn’t specifically respresent the Loyal Heights area put up a “from the dias” amendment to address it on the spot.
It wasn’t against your students. Just for a small group that showed up, stood up, and spoke up.
There’s a lesson in this about politics and advocacy I’m sure.
We are in that tiny corner north of 85th, and East of 28th that is assigned to Ingraham. Ballard is a 20 minute walk, and Ingraham is a 45 minute bus ride. Wish it weren’t so, but given the buildings we have, some kids are going to have to go far. We actually got into Nathan Hale instead of Ingraham when we had high school kids. It’s about a half mile further, but a very easy bus. I’m pretty sure this is all the homeless people’s fault as they shoot up while riding their stolen bikes that are on fire, but I haven’t quite figured out how to blame them.
Solution: rename BHS to “Malcolm X High School” and watch all the snowflake parents flee.
“a firefighter dad”
I guess it wasn’t the firefighter who lives near me that constantly burns garbage. Why do well-paid city employees merit any extra attention? Are we still milking the September 11th attacks 17 years ago?
That’s kind of sad that’s how it went down but no surprise.
@seasherm– you’ve got a great attitude– kudos!