OK, it finally snowed
All posts by Wendi Dunlap
No comprehensive high schools to close this year
Seattle Schools Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson stated at a school board meeting last night that closure of Seattle’s comprehensive high schools is now off the table for this year, as are mergers such as the previously suggested options to merge Aki Kurose Middle School and the Center School with Rainier Beach High School.
The even earlier proposal to merge Cleveland High School with Rainier Beach had already been rejected.
Goodloe-Johnson did say that closure of one of the traditional high schools might need to happen sometime in the next few years, given the budget woes of the District.
Some high-school-aged students still face closure or relocation of their programs, however; Summit K-12 is currently on the superintendent’s “preferred” list for closure, while NOVA and SBOC are on the list for relocation.
The superintendent’s final recommendations will be announced January 6, and on January 7 there will be a school board meeting at which a motion to close/move schools is planned to be introduced. The District posts news about this process at their Capacity Management website, http://www.seattleschools.org/area/capacity/index.dxml.
Did you hear that?
Just before 5:40 am today we had two of the loudest possible thunderclaps imaginable. I was actually looking through my camera viewfinder, to take a picture of the falling snow, when there was a flash, then only a split-second later, a bomb-like boom that shook the house back and forth and caused car alarms to go off on our street. Then a couple of minutes later, it happened again. Did you hear them? Did they wake you up? Tell us about it in the comments to this post.
Seattle Public Schools are closed today
Snow is finally falling, and so it’s another snow day for your Seattle Public Schools students. Enjoy it while you can, kids!
Light rail station on schedule; blue wall coming down soon
As we mentioned earlier, there was an information meeting scheduled last night about Sound Transit’s request to extend the technical noise variance for construction of the Beacon Hill station and light rail tunnels.
I attended the meeting. I was the only person to attend, other than the Sound Transit representatives. Though the weather was probably a factor in the low attendance, it seems that there isn’t a big fuss about this variance extension.
The friendly Sound Transit folks answered a few questions for me. There will be no additional noise beyond what is happening currently (if you do have a noise complaint, however, the 24-hour construction hotline number is 888-298-2395). The station is currently still on schedule to open in July 2009, but they don’t yet have an exact date. And the blue wall around the construction site is expected to come down in February or March, so we should start seeing more of the station site soon. It has been a very long time that we’ve lived with that blue wall around a big chunk of our “downtown.”
Community Safety Fair at Cleveland High School, January 10
Steve Louie at the Department of Neighborhoods writes,
The Department of Neighborhoods, Seattle Police Department, Seattle Public Schools, and the Greater Duwamish District Council are hosting a Community Safety Fair for the Beacon Hill community on Saturday, January 10, 2009 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. at Cleveland High School (5511 15th Ave S, Seattle, WA 98108). This event is free to the public.
The Community Safety Fair will provide community members with tools to affect positive change in their communities. This is not a forum for people to vent and take no action.
The “Community Safety Fair†will offer break-out sessions on three topics: the 911 system; emergency preparedness & home security; and, finally, dealing with neighborhood nuisance concerns (property laws and problem-solving).
City Departments will also have staffed resource booths for community information.
For more information, please call Steve Louie, Greater Duwamish Neighborhood District Coordinator (Department Of Neighborhoods) at 206-233-2044 or 206-396-0200 (C) or e-mail steve.louie@seattle.gov.
Attached is the flyer for the event in translated languages. If you know of someone who is non-English speaking and know would be interested in attending the event, please pass this along. Interpretation services will be available. Please let me know at least 5 days in advance what language is needed. Thanks, Steve
Beacon Bits: graffiti, crime prevention, and school closures (again)
- JvA wants to make it easier to report local graffiti problems, so along with posting a link to the city’s graffiti-report website, she’s collecting addresses of commercial sites with graffiti — Mid Beacon Hill
- “Don’t carry a bunch of cash around that you wouldn’t want to lose and definitely don’t go flashing it around like a pimp in the IHOP”: one of several straight-talking holiday crime prevention tips in the Rainier Valley Post
- KUOW FM recently ran a report on the school closure horse trading involving Arbor Heights, Cooper, and Rainier Beach High School, as reported by Sable Verity and also discussed in the Rainier Valley Post. KUOW’s transcript is here.
- And speaking of KUOW and school closures, they mentioned in our comments the other day that Weekday is featuring the school closure debate today from 9:00-10:00 am with Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson and School Board member Michael DeBell among the panelists. KUOW is at 94.9 FM. You can call the show at (800) 289-KUOW or email weekday@kuow.org.
Seattle Schools will start late today
According to the Seattle School District website, school will start two hours late today, and buses will be on snow routes. No Head Start, preschool, half-day kindergarten, morning breakfast service, or door-to-door service. Full day kindergarten will have a two-hour delay.
Seattle Schools opening on time two hours late
Most of the schools in the area are on a delayed schedule today, but as of 1:00 am, Seattle School District has not announced any schedule changes. Check http://www.schoolreport.org/ to see if that has changed by later this morning; closure/delay reports should always be posted there.
Update: As of morning, Seattle schools are running two hours late.
Snow, seen through your neighbors’ eyes
I know we’ve been a little photo-heavy today, but it’s not every day — or even every year — that we get snow. Here are a few pictures by your neighbors, as posted to the Beacon Hill Blog photo pool on Flickr. (If you have any interesting photos, please add them!)
Thanks everyone for sharing your photos!