End of school update
I said I'd write here monthly about how we're doing with the transition from Summit K-12 to wherever we'll be next year. I think I'm behind.
It's hitting me this week that this is the last week of our school. We're dissolving the Parent Group, supporting our children and the staff as best as we can, and grieving all at the same time as we're trying to plan for the coming year.
The District has already painted over the name on our school...before the moving up ceremonies for our kids. They've also placed a muck board out front and had people with blueprints roaming the halls determining what will change before we're even out of the building. The overwhelming opinion I've heard so far is that the social Neanderthals downtown never did care about our school, and they wish they'd shut the only K-12 public school in Washington down years ago.
I still haven't received an answer to the question of how my kids are getting to school half of the time next year - they're eligible for bussing from my house, but their dad lives at the other end of Seattle, and so there's no transportation from his house...where they live half the time. Are they just not going to school half the year? While I think they could manage with that, I don't think that solution will fly with the District and their attendance policies.
Bittersweet, this last week is. I hope all of the affected families at all of the affected schools can find peace through this chaos.
Sabia
It's hitting me this week that this is the last week of our school. We're dissolving the Parent Group, supporting our children and the staff as best as we can, and grieving all at the same time as we're trying to plan for the coming year.
The District has already painted over the name on our school...before the moving up ceremonies for our kids. They've also placed a muck board out front and had people with blueprints roaming the halls determining what will change before we're even out of the building. The overwhelming opinion I've heard so far is that the social Neanderthals downtown never did care about our school, and they wish they'd shut the only K-12 public school in Washington down years ago.
I still haven't received an answer to the question of how my kids are getting to school half of the time next year - they're eligible for bussing from my house, but their dad lives at the other end of Seattle, and so there's no transportation from his house...where they live half the time. Are they just not going to school half the year? While I think they could manage with that, I don't think that solution will fly with the District and their attendance policies.
Bittersweet, this last week is. I hope all of the affected families at all of the affected schools can find peace through this chaos.
Sabia
Comments
Behold the dandelion, that most common of garden weeds. It is scorned and shunned. Its unwelcome arrival in the uniform, green lawn is greeted with poison and pulling. All too often, when the gardener is successful, the result is an inhospitable circle of brown earth. The grass, tenacious in its own right, seems unwilling to occupy the space once held by such a formidable foe. This battle is not fought for safety. Rather, it is about evenness, uniformity and control.
But let us look carefully at this much maligned plant. Physicians of old believed it had healing powers and used it to control fever and clean sores. The leaves are edible, the flowers are used to make wine, and the root, when dried and crushed, is used to make tea. It is exceedingly hardy, growing almost anywhere, even in the cracks in the sidewalk. Once it takes root, there is almost nothing that can kill it.
So here you are, the last students of Summit K-12. You have been treated like dandelions. Your school does not fit the uniform, green lawn of education. You sprout up, bright flowers standing out against a sea of conformity. Those who think they have control have yanked you out of the ground and blown your seeds away on the winds. What I ask of you now, is to be dandelions.
Be tenacious. Sink your roots deep and don’t give up easily. Be a force for healing. Use the knowledge you have gained in hardship to help others. Be useful. Follow your passions and strive to make the world a better place.
Behold the dandelion, that most wondrous of garden weeds.
Kevin Cain
Summit Parent Group co-Treasurer
...
I'm trying to come up with a legitimate reason why that had to happen and I just cannot.
Best wishes for wonderful new adventures for all the Summit families.
Hard to reconcile MGJ "the super" and MGJ "the mom", cause no parent in charge of children's education would allow them to be treated this way!
You should let every director know this happened. It is very disrespectful to parents and hurtful to kids. There is NO reason they had to do it now.
And people wonder why there is so much disgust and frustration with the district. It just doesn't take that much to show a little thoughtfulness.
It really is the perfect visual representation of how the district has treated the various individual programs. It's not enough to tear apart communities, close buildings, move students only to move them again, and basically treat anything special or different as if it were the plague, they have to go out of their way to rub our faces in it.
Please follow Melissa's advice and send a note to each Director about this. Just a "this is why we feel as though they don't care about the kids" thing.
stu
Lux et veritas, omnia extares, dandelions:
Light and truth, let it all hang out.
The invitation to other schools to pick at the carcasses of ALL the closed libraries, before the poor things are even decently buried, is also a crime of similar magnitude. No just society would see these things as representative of a caring and compassionate populace, yet some of our public servants, who represent us, have desecrated the bodies of these wonderful schools.
We must demand justice.
The closing of Summit is tragic. Thank you much to the students, families and staff who for decades, demonstrated the possibilities for success in a diverse public education system. May you all flower and seed in your new schools.