Garfield Rebuild: The Never Ending Story

Even though the Seattle Times doesn't seem to be particularly interested in doing actual reporting on K-12 education in Seattle, there is reporting happening elsewhere.

The Central District News alerted us to this story in the Garfield Messenger about problems with the Garfield rebuild.

Comments

Steve said…
Wow, what a great article. Everyone who reads it should try to elevate it to the major local news outlets.
5/28/10, 11:06 AM
Melissa Westbrook said…
It's a pretty good article for a high school newspaper. And naturally, there is much I can say (I wrote the author, Sam Dunnington, and told him I could fill in some gaps.) I need to send this story to the Board.

1) as I reported just a couple of weeks ago, allowing schools to reopen when they are NOT finished (punchlist and all) is a bad mistake (as Garfield has learned). And yet, we are doing this again at Sealth.

2) As was discussed at BEX Oversight Committee meetings, the principal and staff made many demands/asks of the district and the district allowed a lot of it. Why? I don't know but this was AFTER they knew they were blowing the budget because of issues around "historic" cement renovation. If you were already over budget, wouldn't you tell the school staff, gently, they can have a couple of things, not all of them. (Clearly, things are not happening but this is what was sat at the meetings.)

Mr. Dunnington notes that Roosevelt got its track and that's true. But the road to a true finished school is not smooth and Roosevelt's HVAC didn't work from day one, there was already water damage by the front entrance, and they had to replace the entire gym floor.

This article reminds me to call the State Auditor and see how that BEX audit is going (nearly two years on). I'm sure Garfield will feature prominently.

"Says Garfield Graduate Matt Mogan, “In Japanese class freshman year, a ceiling tile fell and smashed on an empty desk. One week later, another tile fell, same spot.” "

THIS kind of stuff has got to stop before someone gets hurt but it seems pretty random.

By the way, any Hale people want to comment on the new building? I drove by and was startled at how low-slung and industrial it looks.
5/28/10, 11:29 AM
Unknown said…
Actually, there were hella problems with the new Roosevelt building, particularly in regards to the HVAC, and getting district personnel to stop spinning stories and begin to face them took severe persistence and downright ugliness on the part of some risk-taking teachers and the SEA. :)
5/28/10, 3:33 PM
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