Needed Elementary Capacity in West Seattle


Issue #2: The urgent need for additional elementary capacity in West Seattle.

Possible Solution A: Two new elementary schools eventually located at Fairmount Park and at the Denny site. The programs will meet at the Boren site until the buildings are ready. I, personally, think this is the best path.

Possible Solution B: Two new elementary schools eventually located at Fairmount Park or Genesee Hill or E.C. Hughes or the Denny site. The programs will meet at the Boren site until the buildings are ready. I, personally, think this is the best path.

Important variations: The two new schools in West Seattle may not necessarily be attendance area schools. They could be option schools and they could host a variety of programs including Spectrum, language immersion, Montessori, an alternative pedagogy, or a conventional pedagogy. I, personally, think it would be best if both of the new schools used option enrollment and had language immersion and Spectrum in one building and Montessori and Spectrum in the other building. This would end the conflict between Spectrum and neighborhood enrollment in attendance area schools. It would also provide equitable access to language immersion or Montessori.

Possible Solution C: What suggestion do you have?

Comments

wsnorth said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
12/1/11, 10:17 PM
wsnorth said…
...of course they just bulldozed YES bulldozed a perfectly serviceable school. Neither of these options will help much, as the main issue is in the "North" part of West Seattle. It is so simple, the Delridge neighborhood needs its school back. Open it at Boren and leave it there. It could be 50% neighborhood and 50% option. DONE. EASY.
12/1/11, 10:18 PM
Anonymous said…
Sure thing, and I say put Pathfinder at Boren and give Cooper its new building back.

Get it, got it, Good.
12/2/11, 8:31 AM
Anonymous said…
GetIt: That actually makes the most sense, and would centrally locate Pathfinder better than it is now, as well as fill the growing need for a neighborhood school in North Delridge, one of the fastest growing parts of the City, which of course, the last Board ignored.

Pathfinder folks would not be happy, but, in the long run, option programs are supposed to be centrally located and Boren is plainly more central than Cooper. WSDWG
12/3/11, 10:35 AM
wsnorth said…
This is such an easy, obvious, and equitable solution (in one variation or another). I suppose that is why they WON'T do it!?
12/3/11, 12:33 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tuesday Open Thread

The speaker list is up for the Board meeting tomorrow; not as packed as I thought with just four people on the waitlist. The majority of the speakers are speaking on high school boundaries (with several wanting to talk about Ballard High). There are only three of us speaking about the Green Dot resolution asking the City to not grant the zoning departures that Green Dot has requested.  It's me, long-time watchdog, Chris Jackins, and the head of the Washington State Charter Schools Association, Patrick D'Amelio.  (I knew Mr. D'Amelio when he headed the Alliance for Education and Big Brothers and Big Sisters; he's a stand-up guy.)
Read more

Breaking It Down: Where the District Might Close Schools

Update 2: an absolutely fabulous interactive map made by parent Beth Day (@thebethocracy on Twitter - she covers Board meetings and is fun to read).   end of update    Update 1: Mea culpa, I did indeed get Decatur and Thornton Creek mixed up. Thanks to all for the correction. end of update   I suspect some who read this post will be irate. Why do this? Because the district seems very hellbent on this effort with no oversight skid marks from the Board.    To clearly state - I do not believe that closing 20 schools is a good idea. I think they hit on 20 because they thought it might bring in the most savings. But the jury is still out on the savings because the district has not shown its work nor its data. I suspect closing schools and THEN leasing/renting them is the big plan but that means the district really has to keep the buildings up.   But this district, with its happy talk about "well-resourced schools" is NOT acknowledging the pain and yes, grief, that is to come fro
Read more

MEETING CANCELED - Hey Kids, A Meeting with Three(!) Seattle Schools Board Directors

 Update 2: So I have seen a message from President Liza Rankin on why she, Director Evan Briggs, and Director Michelle Sarju backed out of this meeting.  In a nutshell: - She says there was no organization to the meeting which is just not true. They had a moderator lined up and naturally the board members could have set parameters for what to discuss, length of meeting, etc. All that was fleshed out. - She also claimed that if the meeting was PTA sponsored, they needed to have liability insurance to use the school space. Hello? PTAs use school space all the time and know they have to have this insurance.  - She seems to be worried about the Open Public Meetings law. Look, if she has a meeting in a school building on a non-personnel topic, it should be an open meeting. It appears that Rankin is trying, over and over, to narrow the window of access that parents have to Board members. She even says in her message - "...with decisions made in public." Hmmm - She also says that th
Read more