Category Archives: Education

Beacon Hill International School wins $20,000 award

Beacon Hill International School has been awarded the 2008 Symetra Heroes in the Classroom “MVP Award.” Chief Sealth High School in West Seattle was also honored. Each of the schools will receive $20,000 to be used for a particular program. In Beacon Hill’s case, it is a community literacy program, “tailored to the unique multicultural needs of the school’s students and families.” Funds will be used to buy language materials, and events such as Family Literacy Nights are planned to help empower parents to take part in their children’s development of literacy and their academic growth and success.

School changes ultimately useless?

A commenter at the Seattle Public Schools community blog provided a link to a very interesting presentation that suggests that the Superintendent’s proposed closures and program relocations don’t make any meaningful change to existing capacity imbalances, and the costs will be unacceptably high.

The presentation is based on the plan as it was a few days ago, and does not reflect some of the changes made in today’s announcements, but much of it still applies. Dick Lilly had an editorial yesterday on Crosscut that made many of the same points.

An interesting note: over 20% of Southeast cluster students would be forced to move, and the costs of these changes would make changes to this cluster a net loss for the District.

It would be nice to see an updated version of these stats to reflect the status quo after today’s announcements.

Final school closure/relocation recommendations posted

The Seattle School superintendent’s final recommendations for school closure and relocation have just been posted at the District’s website. There have been some slight modifications, but the effects on Southeast Seattle are fairly similar to what’s been proposed all along.

Here are current recommendations for this part of the city (the South and Southeast clusters of the Seattle Public School system, plus Thurgood Marshall which is just north of I-90):

Building closures:

  • Van Asselt

Relocated programs:

  • Half of Lowell APP to Thurgood Marshall (Half of the Lowell APP program will remain at Lowell)
  • Thurgood Marshall EBOC to Dunlap and Hawthorne
  • Van Asselt to African-American Academy

Discontinued Programs:

  • African-American Academy (K-5 students will be reassigned to Van Asselt, and 6-8 students will be reassigned based on where they live.)

NOVA and SBOC will be moving to Meany, and Summit K-12 is still recommended for closure.

A motion on these recommendations will be introduced to the school board at their meeting tomorrow, January 7. The board will then vote on the plan on January 29. In the meantime, there are two public hearings planned, one at Lowell, 1058 E. Mercer Street, at 6:30–8:30 pm on January 20, and one at the school district headquarters in Sodo, the John Stanford Center for Educational Excellence, 2445 3rd Avenue South, at 6:30–8:30 pm on January 22. To testify, you must be added to the list in advance. Email hearing@seattleschools.org or call 206-252-0042 to do this.

You can also express your opinion by emailing comments to capacity@seattleschools.org or schoolboard@seattleschools.org, calling the School Board at 206-252-0040, or mailing comments to School Board, PO Box 34165, MS 11-010, Seattle, WA, 98124-1165.

(Edited to add: the District has posted a FAQ about the proposals, as well.)

Educators, Students and Parents group posts online petition against school closures

A new group, Educators, Students and Parents For a Better Vision of Seattle Schools (ESP) has posted a “Save Seattle Schools” online petition against the current closure/relocation proposal. Group representative Nora Wheat tells us that they are “hoping to raise awareness of the challenges faced by the district while generating support and solutions that will not negatively impact families and communities to the degree that the district’s current proposal does.”

An excerpt from the petition:

“The proposal is rushed and ill-conceived. It lacks clear explanations of its choices and hard data to justify them. In many places, it contradicts the district’s goals, guiding principles, and codified policies. It will further erode trust in our schools and drive even more of our families out of the district or to private schools… The proposal also lacks critical information from the district’s Functional Capacity Analysis (which will not be released until Jan. 13, 2009), and the new school assignment plan (which will not be completed until 2010).”

While we are quite skeptical (to say the least) about the value of online petitions, we don’t mind spreading the word so you can make your own decision whether to sign. Over 1,000 people have signed so far.

Seattle Schools superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson will announce the final school closure and relocation plan this afternoon.

High-poverty schools “sacrificial lambs” in school closures?

Sable Verity has a post up alleging some fairly unsavory behavior involving a School Board member and Arbor Heights PTSA members in West Seattle, in which they are working to target high-poverty schools in order to save the more affluent Arbor Heights. She quotes an AHPTSA co-president, in an email to the group, as saying: “…If we want to keep Arbor Heights open, we need to give them a sacrificial lamb…” This is relevant to Southeast Seattle because one of the schools targeted was allegedly Rainier Beach High School, which was targeted specifically because its closure would apparently free up enough money for the District to save Arbor Heights. I’m not sure what to make of all of this cloak-and-dagger, but I am certain that no child and no school in Seattle Schools should have to be someone’s “sacrificial lamb.”

On a related topic, Dick Lilly at Crosscut has another in a series of editorials about the current school closure fiasco that touches on some of the very things that have bothered me most about the current process. Here are some examples:

“School performance should not be a criterion for closure, because the success of a program is the responsibility of the superintendent who appoints the principal and district policies on how much is spent on what…

“Building condition should not be a criterion because, again, the order in which schools receive funding from the Building Excellence and other capital levies for major maintenance, renovation, or complete reconstruction is a decision made by the superintendent and board.”

Some schools and programs are being selected for closure because of perceived failure, when that “failure” often seems to be a direct result of District choices to neglect a particular building or program. Unfortunately, children and families are having to bear the brunt of this neglect. (Though, not in North Seattle, unless they go to an alternative school.)

African-American Academy community meeting among several tonight

Among all the school closure craziness going on, we missed that there is a community meeting scheduled tonight (“to hear questions and concerns from our school community”) at the African-American Academy, 8311 Beacon Avenue South, 5:30 – 7:30 pm. Tonight there are also meetings for Madrona K-8 (4:30 – 5:30 pm), Summit K-12 @ Jane Addams (6:00 – 8:00 pm), and Thurgood Marshall Elementary (6:00 – 7:00 pm).

Keep tabs on this school district page to see if any new meetings or hearings are scheduled. Things seem to be changing rapidly in this process.