Parents will get fewer chances to see students in actionAttention: Parents do not have to accept whatever school they’re given under the Seattle Public Schools’ new assignment plan. This bears emphasizing because a lot of parents don’t know this–and the district would clearly like to keep it this way. That’s undoubtedly why the district is scaling back its school tours that normally start around now as the enrollment process begins for the next academic year. In fact, under the new district terminology, there is no longer such thing as a school “tour,” a term that might give parents the impression that they are shopping around. The district is instead rolling out the homey term school “visits” –and these won’t begin until the end of February, after preliminary assignments have been made.What’s more, the district is not being upfront about the change. When SW first contacted Seattle Public Schools spokesperson Teresa Wippel last week, she said that parents would be offered the same opportunity as always to visit schools during class time, but that the district would additionally be holding open houses in the evenings and on weekends.But schools have been telling parents something different. Hamilton International Middle School Principal Christopher Carter, for instance, recently e-mailed a parent that the school would only be holding one open house and one school tour (using the common vernacular). Normally, schools offer at least four or five tours over a two-month period, giving parents ample opportunity to see all the schools on their list. But Carter wrote that the new assignment plan means that “students living within the neighborhood boundaries will be assigned to Hamilton. Thus, the need to host schools is minimized.””I understand the desire and anticipation to want to see the school in action but tours are extremely time consuming and can be quite disruptive,” Carter continued. When told about principals’ remarks like Carter’s, the district conceded that it was moving toward a system with less school tours. “We believe that as the new assignment plan is implemented, the need that families feel to visit multiple schools will probably decrease,” said spokesperson Patti Spencer-Watkins.Not necessarily. Under the plan, students will receive a preliminary assignment at the end of February. But families can then ask for a different school, which they may or may not get depending on space availability. So many families will still want to see more than one school. But even parents who accept their kids’ assignments will now have fewer opportunities to check out those schools in a meaningful way (that is, during the school day; after-hours open houses don’t cut it). The district is thus missing out on the chance to make parents feel good about their assignments. Instead, the district is giving parents the message that they’re stuck with what they get, like it or not.