Edward Landon.Cleveland High School students and alumni will gather on Saturday, June 29, at 11 a.m. for a ceremony officially dedicating the school’s library to the late Edward Landon, who spent his entire career (1948-1973) teaching history and coaching football, basketball and baseball at Cleveland. Landon’s 4-year-old great-grandson, Dilon Hagedorn, will unveil the plaque honoring his great-grandfather, who died on January 15, 2013, aged 98. The event will take place at 11 a.m. on the second floor of the main building.
Landon, a World War II veteran and former minor-league pitcher, was known by the nickname “Mr. Cleveland” for his dedication to his students. He wrote the first Seattle Public Schools curriculum on African-American history, as part of which he invited members of Seattle’s Black Panthers to sit in on his history lectures and provide feedback.
Landon was previously honored by a scholarship fund in his name, managed by the school’s alumni association. Donations may be sent to Ed Landon Scholarship Fund, Cleveland High School Alumni Association, PO Box 94004, Seattle, WA 98124-9404.
The Seattle Peace Chorus will perform “Canto@Cleveland,” featuring the Canto General by Nobel Laureate Pablo Neruda and renowned Greek composer Mikis Teodorakis, at Cleveland High School (5511 15th Ave. S.) on Saturday, June 8, at 7:30 p.m. The event will also include a poetry reading by a Chilean Mapuche poet accompanied by an Andean pipe player.
The chorus does not normally perform at high schools, but chose Cleveland for one of their two performances of Canto General due to the school’s renovated auditorium and location in a diverse vibrant neighborhood. One hundred free tickets are available through the school for Cleveland students. Other student tickets are $5 and tickets for Cleveland parents are $10. These are available at Cleveland on the night of the concert. Advance tickets for others are $20 ($18 for students, seniors, and disabled) and can be purchased from a Seattle Peace Chorus member, online through Brown Paper Tickets, or by calling 800-838-3006. Adult tickets for $25 can be purchased at the door.
Proceeds from tickets and a free-will collection at the concert will benefit the Cleveland High School music program.
Advance tickets for either concert are $20 and $18 for seniors. They can be purchased from a Seattle Peace Chorus member or at www.brownpapertickets.com or by calling 800-838-3006. Adult tickets for $25 can be purchased at the door at either concert.
The Seattle Peace Chorus will also perform the Canto General at Town Hall (1119 8th Ave) on Saturday, June 1 at 7:30 p.m. This show will also benefit Cleveland’s music program. As with the Cleveland show, advance tickets may be purchased from a Seattle Peace Chorus member, online through Brown Paper Tickets, or by calling 800-838-3006.
Congratulations to the Cleveland High School girls’ basketball team, who won the Washington State 3A basketball championship last night by 45-43 in a nail-biting finish after losing an 18-point lead earlier in the game. Read more in the Seattle Times.
South Seattle boys also found victory in a close game last night as Rainier Beach High School won the 3A championship over Lakeside in overtime, 62-59. It was the Vikings’ second title in a row and their fifth title since 2002. Coach Mike Bethea has now won a record six state championships, putting him ahead of Phil Lumpkin (O’Dea), Al Hairston (Garfield), and Ray Ricks (NW Christian-Colbert), each of whom guided their teams to the top spot five times. More here.
The Franklin High School boys fell to Rainier Beach 59-73 in Friday night’s 3A semi-final, and ended up in fifth place after losing to Lincoln 69-77. More here.
Here on Beacon Hill we have the only STEM high school in the region: Cleveland High School, an option school open to all students in Seattle Schools. Cleveland STEM will host school tours later this month and in early March, as well as hosting an open house on February 27 for prospective students and parents.
The school tours are on Thursday, February 21 and Wednesday, February 27 from 8:15 to 10:15 a.m. The open house is Wednesday, February 27, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Space is limited, so please RSVP with your phone number and preferred dates to registrar Kelly Tagupa at katagupa@seattleschools.org or 206-252-7814.
STEM stands for “science, technology, engineering, and mathematics,” and Cleveland’s STEM program focuses on those fields through two academies, the School of Life Sciences and the School of Engineering and Design. Students in the STEM program take four years of math and science, with the opportunity to take AP courses. Find out more about the program at the website.
This video, STEM Pays, is an introduction to Cleveland’s STEM program and the careers STEM students prepare for.
The Cleveland High School Eagles PTSA is sponsoring financial classes (open to anyone in South Seattle) and parent conversation groups (open to anyone with children). All classes are free.
The next class is Tuesday, October 30, from 6-8:30 p.m. at the Cleveland High School lunchroom, 5511 15th Ave. S. The presentation, “Building Credit,” is taught by staff from Boeing Employee Credit Union, and will help attendees understand credit reports and what can and can’t be done to correct errors on a credit report.
The PTSA is also looking for volunteers to lead groups of speakers of Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, Tagalog, and Somali. Volunteers should also be reasonably fluent in English. The first classes will be in English only, but in the future, the plan is to train translaters in the course material so they can lead classes in these languages.
If you would like to volunteer, or just have questions, please contact Angela Mealing at eaglesmama@ymail.com.
Two Beacon Hill schools will benefit from investment grants recently-awarded by Washington STEM, a non-profit group dedicated to improving education in the “STEM” fields: science, technology, engineering, and math. The grants are of two types: Entrepreneur Award grants, one-year investments to support “breakthrough ideas and promising approaches in STEM education”; and Portfolio Awards for multi-year projects. The Beacon Hill grants are both Entrepreneur Awards.
The Cleveland High School grant of $10,000 is for a project, “Who Has the Right to Clean Water?”:
“Through the lens of social justice, science, and social studies, teachers will design an engaging unit of study in which students will investigate the essential question ‘who has the right to clean water?’ Bolstering the global nature of this question, Cleveland students will use internet technology to partner with students in Taita, a poor, rural area of Kenya. Students on both continents will conduct similar investigations and share data for comparison and analysis. In science, students will test water chemistry, explore their personal water footprint, and investigate engineering designs for water purification. Concurrently, in social studies students will explore social, geographical, and historical causes of unequal access to clean water and the impact that our daily decisions have on our environment. Students will ultimately create a call to action, sharing their findings in a daylong water symposium.”
The second Beacon Hill grant of $20,000 went to the local non-profit group Powerful Schools, for their project, “Building a STEM Community” at Beacon Hill International School:
“Seattle-based nonprofit Powerful Schools is empowering traditionally underserved students to start a community-wide conversation around the power of STEM at Beacon Hill International School, a diverse public elementary school located in south Seattle. In this ‘Curiosity Club,’ fourth and fifth grade student leaders will launch a STEM campaign including development of a mobile ‘lab’ to share hands-on STEM experiments school-wide. Powerful Schools will also commission a local artist to work with students to create materials that summarize their findings and encourage non-English speaking families to discover STEM at home.”
A full list of Washington STEM investments may be found at their website.
Do you agree? What do you think is the best building on Beacon Hill? What makes a “best building” anyway? Tell us in the comments.
*Mudede’s post says “Cleveland High School, which was designed by Mahlum Architects, won one of the AIA’s 2008 Honor Awards for Washington Architecture.” As far as we can tell, this is an error; the award they won in 2010 is for projects which were previously nominated for Honor Awards but did not win. The website design at the 2008 awards website is ambiguous so the error is understandable.
Tai chi practitioners in a Wisconsin park. On Saturday, local folks will do tai chi and qigong at Jefferson Park as part of World Tai Chi and Qigong Day. Photo by OnTask via Creative Commons/Flickr.
There are lots of activities on the Hill this weekend to keep you busy, from soccer and tai chi to urban redevelopment and high school fundraising. Here goes:
Today (Friday) from 1-2 p.m. is the unveiling ceremony for the new community tile mosaic mural at Beacon Hill International School. Details are here.
Saturday is a busy day, starting at 9 a.m. at Jefferson Park where neighbors are meeting for a pick-up soccer game. “Bring friends and play some soccer with a great view,” they say. Details are on Facebook.
Also on Saturday from 10-noon, El Centro de la Raza is hosting a community open house to present the finalist design teams for the redevelopment of El Centro’s south lot. The south lot currently contains a parking lot, but is planned to contain a mixed-use transit-oriented project with housing. Details are here.
Then on Saturday night, head over to the South Seattle Community College campus in West Seattle for the Cleveland High School Red and White Night Soaring Eagles Auction from 5:30-9 p.m. and help the high school on the Hill raise $10,000. Information is here.
Aerial photo of Cleveland High School in 2001, courtesy of Seattle Municipal Archives.
The Cleveland High School PTSA invites everyone to help raise $10,000 by participating in the Cleveland High School Red and White Night Soaring Eagles Auction, Saturday, April 28, from 5:30-9 p.m. at Brockey Center on the South Seattle Community College Campus (6000 16th Ave. S.W.).
You can be part of this fundraising event in several ways: by buying a ticket to attend, by donating an item for the silent or live auction, or by donating cash directly. To buy tickets or donate, go to this website and follow the steps there.
Volunteers are also welcome. To volunteer, contact Heather Graves (hmchavez4@gmail.com).
Aerial photo of Cleveland High School in 2001, courtesy of Seattle Municipal Archives.Cleveland High School on Beacon Hill is one of the schools that showed strong academic growth during the 2010-2011 school year, according to a report by Seattle Public Schools Interim Superintendent Dr. Susan Enfield.
Seattle schools are ranked according to absolute performance scores and yearâ€toâ€year growth scores on a 1-5 scale, with Level 1 being low and Level 5 being the highest level. Cleveland, which began a new Science Technology Engineering Mathematics (STEM) academy program last year, moved up from Level 2 to Level 3, and achieved a 218 percent increase in students meeting the math standard. Additionally, the school showed a small increase in enrollment in Fall 2010.
Here are further details in the report sent out by the school district:
At Cleveland High School, which moved up from Level 2 to Level 3, students have shown impressive academic growth after their first year of participation in both the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) program and the federal School Improvement Grant (SIG) program.
Their success is illustrated by their performance on the statewide reading and math exams taken by students in grades 9 and 10: In reading, the percentage of students meeting standard increased by 6 percent from spring 2010 to 2011, rising from 63 percent to 69 percent; and in math, the school saw a 218 percent increase, as the number of students meeting standard increased from 17 percent to 54 percent.
Since the state changed some parts of the state’s high school math test, it is impossible to fully compare Spring 2010 and Spring 2011 math results until Spring 2012, when the students will have taken the same test for a second year in a row. Even so, Cleveland students have made significant progress in just one year. Cleveland principal Princess Shareef said that faculty are working to increase the level of challenge in the coursework, as well as providing extra math instruction to students who are not yet meeting standards.
Two other measures of successful high schools are enrollment counts and graduation rates. Cleveland’s enrollment had been declining for years, so one of the school’s goals has been to attract more students. Those efforts are paying off: in Fall 2009, Cleveland had 738 students enrolled; by Fall 2010, enrollment had increased to 795 students.
Cleveland’s graduation rates are also showing progress: The school’s overall graduation rate jumped from 55 percent in Spring 2010 to 68% in Spring 2011. Shareef notes that staff focused on closing the gap in graduation rates between Angloâ€American students and students of color.
