Eckstein and Its Safety Issues Addressed by District

Update:

I was notified that the Salmon Bay crossing guard was hit by a car while on duty on Monday.  His own daughter was also hit by a car when she was a student at Ballard.  That area of 65th is extremely busy due to it being an arterial as well as the presence of both Salmon Bay K-8 and nearby Ballard High School.

The crossing guard is doing well and is home from the hospital.  

End of update

So a group of parents wrote to the district about their concerns over Eckstein, its capacity and safety issues.  Actually, there were two letters.  Below are their letters outlining their concerns as well as Pegi McEvoy's reply.  

Letter 1

To Whom It May Concern,

As you know, some of our schools are facing significant capacity issues.  On January 31, the Seattle School Board voted against opening Jane Addams Middle School in 2013-2014 in an effort to address capacity issues at Hamilton and Eckstein Middle Schools. However, they voted in favor of moving Laurelhurst students entering middle school from Hamilton to Eckstein.  This decision adds additional students to an already over-capacity school.

Our primary concern is for the safety of the students, faculty and staff at Eckstein Middle School.  As it is, the hallways are so crowded between classes that students are sometimes knocked over and cannot get up; students can often not use the restroom because the lines are so long; students are left without administrative supervision in portables throughout the day; and on January 29, a pedestrian in the crosswalk (though not an Eckstein student) was hit by a car at the intersection of 75th & 35th just as school was released. The students cope with these safety issues on a daily basis.  We can't imagine what would happen if there was an actual emergency, or if the school was placed on lockdown.

There is a real and growing concern from parents with regard to the physical and emotional safety of students.

We are asking the City of Seattle, the Seattle Fire Department, City of Seattle DPD and the Seattle School District to provide written documentation that clearly outlines the following:

• What is the official capacity of Eckstein Middle School, who determines capacity, and how is it calculated?

• Does this capacity information take into account the portables housed on the property in addition to the physical building?

• Based on the official capacity of Eckstein Middle School, is the current level of capacity in compliance with the findings?

• If students are to be added to the population for the 2013-2014 school year, how does this affect compliance?

• Is there documentation from the Fire Department that certifies the building as safe at current capacity levels?

• Is there documentation from the Fire Department that certifies that adding students to existing capacity levels will not affect safety?

• Whose responsibility is it to ultimately address and resolve the safety issues which students already face on a daily basis, including students being knocked down and unable to get up between classes, students not having access to a restroom because there are too many students in line to use too few facilities, and students left in portables without administrative supervision?

• Whose responsibility is it to provide crossing assistance at the major intersections near school (25th & 75th and 35th & 75th) to ensure that another pedestrian is not hit while legally crossing in the crosswalk with the light?

If you are not able to provide this information to SPS families, how do we begin the process of requesting a formal investigation into these issues, and who is ultimately responsible?

Also, if you can indicate who is the correct point person(s) within each department for us to communicate with moving forward, it would be greatly appreciated.  It is not our intent to unnecessarily take up the valuable time of so many individuals.  We simply do not understand where the responsibility lies with regard to policy and compliance.

We believe strongly that the Administration at Eckstein does their best to manage the situation without adequate means.  As parents and advocates for our children, it is difficult to accept that students are not at risk without written documentation and assurance from the City and the School District.  The physical and emotional safety of every student in this district is a fundamental and basic right, not a privilege.

We look forward to a prompt response to our concerns.

 Letter 2

To Whom It May Concern,

We would like to thank Sherry Carr from the School Board and Bryan Stevens from DPD for responding briefly for our request for information by indicating that the request has been forwarded to the appropriate staff, and that "both the Department of Planning and Development and Fire Marshall’s Office will look into to our concerns and respond to our questions."

Unfortunately, we have yet to hear from anyone else directly, including anyone from the School District, with regard to the email we sent yesterday (below).

By mid-afternoon, we decided that we would personally visit the Fire Marshall's Office and the City of Seattle DPD in an effort to obtain the Certificate of Occupancy for Eckstein ourselves, and to better understand who is responsible for policy, and who is responsible for compliance.  Though we had fantastic interactions with employees in both departments who were as helpful as they could individually be, we are surprised by some of what we found:

• Despite the assistance of several DPD employees, we were not able to locate a Certificate of Occupancy for Eckstein Middle School.  We were assured that, if a Certificate was on file, it would have been included on all of the microfilm documents available in the DPD Public Resource Center.
• There is a Certificate of Occupancy (Building Permit Number 651299) dated August 9, 1993 for "E-2 Portable Classroom" on Eckstein property.  The "Max. assembly occupant load" is listed as "NA."
• There is a Certificate of Occupancy (Building Permit Number 689865) dated January 31, 1997 for "E-1 Portable Classroom" on Eckstein property.  The "Max. assembly occupant load" is listed as "N/A."

Because this seemed out of the norm to us and to the employees helping us, we decided to check the records for Laurelhurst Elementary as well, since we knew the address of that school. 

• We were not able to locate a Certificate of Occupancy for Laurelhurst Elementary School.  Again, if there was a certificate on file, it should have been available.
• There is a Certificate of Occupancy (Building Permit Number 649287) dated September 5, 1990 for "E3 Classroom" on Laurelhurst Property.  The "Max. assembly occupant load" is listed as "NA."
• There is a Certificate of Occupancy (Building Permit Number 660108) dated January 15, 1992 for "E3 Temporary Daycare Facilities" on Laurelhurst property.  The "Max. assembly occupant load" is listed as "NA."

Because it was later in the afternoon, we did not have time to continue searching for Certificates of Occupancy for other schools.

We have left a message for the DPD Chief Inspector to see if these certificates could be located anywhere else, if there is a reasonable explanation as to why these buildings do not have Certificates of Occupancy, and to learn why the capacity loads for the various portables are considered "not applicable."

The good news is that we have been assured by the Fire Marshall's Office that they are working with DPD to look into our concerns. We expect to hear from the Fire Marshall's Office by the end of this week or early next week.

We are very grateful to the employees at the Fire Department and the Department of Planning and Development for their assistance today.

We will continue to pursue answers to questions and resolutions to our concerns regarding the safety of students, faculty and staff at Eckstein Middle School.

Pegi McEvoy's reply to the questions:

What is the official capacity of Eckstein Middle School, who determines capacity, and how is it calculated?

The program capacity of Eckstein Middle School is 1269. (The calculation is shown after the explanation below.)

The capacity of a school, provided by the Capital Planning staff, is driven by four main factors: (1) the physical size of the instructional spaces, (2) the negotiated class size, (3) the schedule of uses, and (4) the programs and services that are provided at the school. Seattle Public Schools uses a consistent methodology to calculate school capacity in the following contexts:

-      Operating/Planning Capacity: A baseline figure that reflects the current negotiated class size agreement and the programs currently placed at a school. This figure is assumed to remain constant unless and until the program placement at the school is modified, and/or the negotiated agreement on class size is modified. 

-      Operating Capacity With Buy-Down: A figure that reflects the total number of students a school can house given the programs currently placed at a school, and current decisions/actions by site leadership that affect class size and space usage.  This is most commonly practiced at the secondary level.

Methodology for calculating the Operating/Planning Capacity of a hypothetical elementary and secondary school is outlined below.

A school’s capacity is calculated by multiplying the number of teaching stations, by use (e.g. kindergarten rooms, primary grade rooms, intermediate grade rooms, special education rooms, PE teaching stations, music rooms, secondary general classrooms, art rooms, etc.) by the class size limit stated in the negotiated agreement. Current negotiated class sizes are:

Kindergarten – Grade 3                         =             26 students

Grades 4-5                                                  =             28 students

Grades 6-12                                                =             30 students

PCP (loaded @ 0 capacity)                    =             1 classroom per 8 K-5 homerooms, rounded up

                                                                                             to the nearest 0.5.

The sum of the products is then multiplied by a scheduling factor used to reflect the fact that not every classroom can be scheduled to have a “perfect fit” of students. For elementary schools, a scheduling factor of 95% reflects this imperfect fit. PCP classrooms are not assigned a capacity load because those students are counted in their homeroom.

At the middle and high school levels, the District must account for a teacher’s planning period; one period out of six in which a classroom is unoccupied by students. The capacity multiplier for secondary schools is 83% (5/6). For specialty classes, the multiplier is the number of periods the classroom is in use divided by six if the space can only be used for that class.

Planning staff uses the “buy-down” capacity for secondary schools as it reflects the reality of how the school is operating.

Does this capacity information take into account the portables housed on the property in addition to the physical building?

Portables are teaching stations and therefore are part of the capacity calculation.

Based on the official capacity of Eckstein Middle School, is the current level of capacity in compliance with the findings?

The building’s original architect designed the school to hold 1,250 students in the central and north wings alone. Since then, classrooms have been created by converting space which the architect did not assign capacity to in the south wing (11 teaching stations). Also, 15 portables have been added to the campus. The overall result is a building with a lower density (students are more spread out) than originally designed. Based on the table above, with no changes to current programming and use, capacity is 1,269.

As far as restroom facilities, according to WAC 51-50-2900, there is more than enough capacity for more than 1,200 boys and 1,000 girls.

If students are to be added to the population for the 2013-2014 school year, how does this affect compliance?

The enrollment for Eckstein for 2013-14 is approximately 1,309, which is 10 more students than the October 1, 2012 enrollment count. The effects on fire systems and core facilities will be negligible. Below is Eckstein Middle School’s enrollment history for the past 15 years.

Is there documentation from the Fire Department that certifies the building as safe at current capacity levels?

The Seattle Fire Department conducts an annual inspection of Eckstein.

Is there documentation from the Fire Department that certifies that adding students to existing capacity levels will not affect safety?

The fire department does not certify the addition of students.

Whose responsibility is it to ultimately address and resolve the safety issues which students already face on a daily basis, including students being knocked down and unable to get up between classes, students not having access to a restroom because there are too many students in line to use too few facilities, and students left in portables without administrative supervision?

Principals are responsible for the safety and security of their students. They are supervised by their respective Executive Director of schools and supported by central office staff as appropriate.

Whose responsibility is it to provide crossing assistance at the major intersections near school (25th & 75th and 35th & 75th) to ensure that another pedestrian is not hit while legally crossing in the crosswalk with the light?

As shown below, the two intersections in question are near the school, but not directly adjacent to. This would fall under the jurisdiction of the Seattle Department of Transportation to mitigate any road issues and adjust the timing of the street lights, and the Seattle Police Department to enforce any and all laws. Those two agencies, along with SPS risk management, are represented on the City of Seattle’s School Traffic Safety Committee. Citizens can bring their concern for the safety of students walking or biking to school to their attention by emailing Brian Dougherty at Brian.Dougherty@seattle.gov.

End of Ms. McEvoy's reply.

Now this is interesting because frankly I thought Eckstein was already at 1300 students. 

I wish to negate none of these concerns and I applaud parents who seek answers based on health and safety concerns.  I absolutely understand the concerns over an emergency situation.


However, a little history.

Eckstein has been large for a long time.  It's been more than a decade.   And, in fact, when my oldest son entered Eckstein, the boundary circle around it had been tightened.  Many students to the south of it got drawn out of the boundary and their parents complained.   The then-superintendent unilaterally allowed 100 students in and sent their parents letters, apologizing for them not getting into the school in the first place.  (No, the other parents were NOT notified that their school had suddenly grown.)  The school was even more overcrowded and yet no parents complained then. 

Eckstein is also build on a rise and the pedestrian problem has always been there.

I will also point out that Pathfinder's entire middle school existed in portables, for years, when they were at Genesee Hill.  

I have faith in the leadership of Eckstein and the staff there.  And, I believe the district will, as promised, direct mitigation efforts their way for the next year until JAMS opens.  

The physical and emotional safety of every student in this district is a fundamental and basic right, not a privilege.

I'm not sure I know what "emotional safety" is but the district's primary role is physical safety.  I wish I could say that every single student in every single building was, in every minute of the school day, safe.  I don't think all of them are and I think a dire emergency would be a huge challenge at many schools.

But I believe the district takes this all very seriously and is working towards solutions.