Talk to KING 5 about BEX IV?

Meg Coyle over at KING-5 news is looking for a parent(s) who were affected by school closures and now see the BEX IV levy through that lens.  Anyone who can talk to her about it?

mcoyle@king5.com

Comments

Jon said…
Obviously, closing schools in 2009 only to face overcrowding in 2011 and have to re-open schools was incompetent, harmful to children and families, and a utter waste of public funds.

Maria Goodloe-Johnson is gone now, but a few SPS board directors remain who approved the fiasco and allowed it to happen. They should also step down. There has to be accountability.
4/30/12, 1:57 PM
Anonymous said…
She should call Joy Anderson who sued the District over closing the general ed program at Cooper. She subsequently ran for school board.

The closure of Cooper means we now have to find Schmitz Park a $$$$ new home. The real tragedy tough was what it did to the Cooper kids.

Based on that one move alone, I STILL smile that Sundquist lost. He did nothing for our community on capacity issues.

DistrictWatcher


PS: My friend is reminding me that perhaps there is a parent from Olympic View out there. They closed that school, threw out the wonderful autism inclusion program, had the building stripped down by vandals and now voila: we just reopened it at a cost of millions and millions of unnecessary dollars. Thank you Goodloe-Johnson!
4/30/12, 2:05 PM
Anonymous said…
As commenters for the Times noted, what is Peter Maier doing as treasurer for this levy? (I know he's helped in the past and is to be saluted, but sometimes timing merits a different approach.)

Do the education elites (Alliance, LEV) really not GET the depth of taxpayer anger and the power of appearances?

This "ask" needs to be double squeaky clean. Maier right now is a misstep. So is the SLU school, although I am still hoping it will be dropped.

-skeptical-
4/30/12, 2:19 PM
Jan said…
Schools with affected families that come immediately to mind include:

Olympic View
Cooper
Lowell APP (it was the closure of TTM that resulted in the APP split, the cohousing with an attendance school, and the resulting loss of any school building at all for the SNAPP program)
NOVA
Summit K12?

Another group, slightly harder to tease out, are families aat schools that will NOT be fixed, rebuilt, etc. during BEX IV because the money they should have gotten will go to fixing the closure problem. This is real damage, to real families, but harder to quantify because while some schools pretty legitimately might have thought they would be included, there was no "firm" list-- and thus, no clear delineation of who bears the brunt of the governance/management folly that surrounded the 2009 closures.
4/30/12, 2:27 PM
Maureen said…
I think Jan and District Watcher mean Viewlands, not Olympic View.
4/30/12, 2:36 PM
Jan said…
Thanks, Maureen. I took the name from Watcher's post, and appreciate the correction.
4/30/12, 3:30 PM
dj said…
Jan, I don't think that the T.T. Minor closure drove the Lowell APP split. Frankly they could have closed T.T. Minor and at the time easily fit the entire school into Madrona and Bailey Gatzert (maybe even just Madrona), particularly given that the Montessori program was shifted to Leschi and took a couple of classrooms of an already very small school with it. However, the sequence of moves that was closing T.T. Minor --> sending those kids to Lowell --> moving out APP --> moving out more APP --> proposing a new South Lake Union school when Lowell is sitting half-empty nearby is appalling.
4/30/12, 3:46 PM
seattle citizen said…
Speaking of the levy, the Times just published an editorial:
Seattle Public Schools needs to tighten money controls
"If Seattle Public Schools wants voters to approve $1 billion for construction and operations, it must learn to keep better track of the money it has...." and it goes on to focus mainly on the Van Asselt situation.
4/30/12, 3:50 PM
seattle citizen said…
Speaking of the levy, the Times just published an editorial:
Seattle Public Schools needs to tighten money controls
"If Seattle Public Schools wants voters to approve $1 billion for construction and operations, it must learn to keep better track of the money it has...." and it goes on to focus mainly on the Van Asselt situation.
4/30/12, 3:51 PM
Anonymous said…
RE: ST's piece. More small red herrings to fool us. Please how about better control over cost so we don't have another $110+million Garfield renovation (is that finally signed off as completed?). How about listening to communities over where to open schools, when and how???? Why do we keep renovating, but don't add more seats? Can we build and keep it BELOW cost? It isn't just about BEX, but all the sad stories percolating out. All the $$ spent on pet projects while common sense priorities thrown out the window.

PS mom
4/30/12, 4:09 PM
Anonymous said…
"Lowell APP (it was the closure of TTM that resulted in the APP split, the cohousing with an attendance school, and the resulting loss of any school building at all for the SNAPP program)"

I don't agree with this sentence either, because
1. There was the split first and then next year they closed the TT Minor (that is how Mr King, from TT MInor, could be the principal at Lowell)
2. Lowell APP would have needed to move out from the Capitol Hill building anyway. Last year or this year the latest, looking at the enrollment numbers.

- LL
4/30/12, 5:42 PM
Anonymous said…
Correction: The APP split was concurrent with the closure of TTM. The program split, there was a new principal at Lowell (from TTM), some TTM kids enrolled at Lowell, along with a new neighborhood program and the remaining 1/2 of elementary APP + SPED, all in the same year.

The split and closures were voted on in January (or thereabouts) and put in place the Fall of that year.

If all of APP remained at Lowell (too far away for some families), would the enrollment have increased as much as it has these past two years??

who knows
4/30/12, 6:10 PM
Anonymous said…
Hamilton as an APP middle school location has also played heavily into the growth of the program.
4/30/12, 7:51 PM
Anonymous said…
Jan,

You might be thinking of Rainier view.

open ears
4/30/12, 9:10 PM
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