Seattle Schools This Week
Friday, August 8th
BEX Oversight Committee Meeting, 8:30 am-10:30 am, JSCEE, Room 2750
Minutes from June.
It will be interesting to see if the downtown school issue will be discussed. (Yes, I know that BEX money is spoken for but it might come up as a topic.)
No Community Meetings with Board directors on Saturday the 9th.
To note: next week, the schedule starts picking up again with two Board committee meetings and one Community meeting.
SPS News:
Distinguished Seattle Public Schools Health Services Manager Katie Johnson has been named one of 20 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Executive Nurse Fellows for 2014. Johnson joins a select group of nurses from across the country chosen to participate in the final cohort of a three-year leadership development program aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of nurse leaders who are working to improve the U.S. health care system.
According to a news release from Mayor Murray's Office on July 21, 2014, five new Seattle landmarks were named. One of them is Cedar Park Elementary School.
I also see that McGilvra Elementary will be considered for Landmark Nomination on September 3, 2014.
As well, Woodrow Wilson Junior High School (Wilson-Pacific) has this nomination document.
The neighborhood of Licton Springs was named for a natural spring, located presently within Licton Springs Park, which had a long history of use by Coastal Salish native people who recognized it as a spiritual center named “Liq’tid” or red-colored after the color of the iron oxide-rich water. In around 1870 David Denny built a cabin near the springs, and later a house located still at 1680 N. 90th Street, near the remnants of Pillings Pond, named after the dairy family that lived on the property in around 1912.
David Denny donated land for a small one-room school, which was built in the late 1880s. The property, near the later site of the Oak Tree Village Shopping Mall, became part of the Shoreline School District after it incorporated all schools north of N 85th Street in 1944. The Denny School was closed in June 1982, leaving only the pedestrian walkway over Aurora Avenue to recall it.
District Building History in that area:
Adoption of interscholastic sports programs by Seattle School District in 1948, following the sharing of sports programs by the Public Schools and Seattle Parks Department during the war years, also led to changes in both school design and school site planning. This effort reflected a national interest, advanced by the National Education Association and others, to meet the needs of teenagers, as a special category of youth. Thus the post-war schools also accommodate more sports and play, with a typical emphasis on indoor/outdoor connections, and additional paved outdoor recreation and equipment areas, along with athletic fields and gyms with bleacher-type seating at junior high schools and high schools. While many schools were fenced, play areas were typically accessible for neighborhood use.
In 1945, the Seattle School District Board commissioned a study of population trends and future building needs. One proposal called for the modernization of all existing schools and the addition of classrooms, along with multi-use rooms for lunch and assembly purposes, covered and hard-surfaced play areas and play courts, and expanded gymnasia. Improvements in lighting, heating, plumbing systems, and acoustical treatments were sought as well. This survey occurred at a time when student enrollment in Seattle was stable, at around 50,000. By this time the School District was overseen by a five-member Board of Directors, and employed approximately 2,500 certified teachers, with an average salary of about $2,880.35
In 1949, a 6.8 Richter-scale earthquake damaged several elementary schools, resulting in their subsequent replacement by temporary portables. The 1950s brought the increased use of these structures as a way to address enrollment increases with quick, flexible responses to overcrowding. In 1958, an estimated 20% of the total Seattle student body was taught in portable classrooms. Despite their popularity, however, the occupants of the portables suffered from inadequate heating, lack of plumbing, and distance from other school facilities.
BEX Oversight Committee Meeting, 8:30 am-10:30 am, JSCEE, Room 2750
Minutes from June.
It will be interesting to see if the downtown school issue will be discussed. (Yes, I know that BEX money is spoken for but it might come up as a topic.)
No Community Meetings with Board directors on Saturday the 9th.
To note: next week, the schedule starts picking up again with two Board committee meetings and one Community meeting.
SPS News:
Distinguished Seattle Public Schools Health Services Manager Katie Johnson has been named one of 20 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Executive Nurse Fellows for 2014. Johnson joins a select group of nurses from across the country chosen to participate in the final cohort of a three-year leadership development program aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of nurse leaders who are working to improve the U.S. health care system.
According to a news release from Mayor Murray's Office on July 21, 2014, five new Seattle landmarks were named. One of them is Cedar Park Elementary School.
I also see that McGilvra Elementary will be considered for Landmark Nomination on September 3, 2014.
As well, Woodrow Wilson Junior High School (Wilson-Pacific) has this nomination document.
The neighborhood of Licton Springs was named for a natural spring, located presently within Licton Springs Park, which had a long history of use by Coastal Salish native people who recognized it as a spiritual center named “Liq’tid” or red-colored after the color of the iron oxide-rich water. In around 1870 David Denny built a cabin near the springs, and later a house located still at 1680 N. 90th Street, near the remnants of Pillings Pond, named after the dairy family that lived on the property in around 1912.
David Denny donated land for a small one-room school, which was built in the late 1880s. The property, near the later site of the Oak Tree Village Shopping Mall, became part of the Shoreline School District after it incorporated all schools north of N 85th Street in 1944. The Denny School was closed in June 1982, leaving only the pedestrian walkway over Aurora Avenue to recall it.
(To note, the district still does own the Oak Tree Village Shopping Mall.)
Seattle architect John Morse cited the origins and formal principles of Modern school designs in a 1957 publication:
After the doldrums of the Depression, the Second World War waked architect and public alike: new designs for one-story schools came out of Michigan, Texas and California – plans based on groups of classroom wings and landscaped courts, together with a complete restudy of assembly and athletic rooms. The following terms became well known: single-loaded corridors, bilateral lighting, sky-lighting, radiant heating unit ventilation, the finger plan, the campus plan, multipurpose room, slab-on-grade, brightness ratios, color harmony; and still later: luminous ceilings, window walls, audio-visual techniques, resilient playground surfacing, flexible special-purpose rooms, student activity rooms. Washington State contributed to the national wakening with pioneering work in top-lighting, color design and concrete design in both pre-stressed and shell design.
The principal changes in regular classrooms have been these: more floor area per pupil – minimum 30 sq. ft., square rooms, sinks in all primary classrooms, day- lighting from above or from two sides, lower ceilings – down from 12 feet to 8 or 9 feet, mechanical ventilation, more tackboard – less chalkboard, more positive colors on walls and floors, higher illumination – 40 foot candles minimum, sun control outside the windows, all furniture movable.
The principal changes in regular classrooms have been these: more floor area per pupil – minimum 30 sq. ft., square rooms, sinks in all primary classrooms, day- lighting from above or from two sides, lower ceilings – down from 12 feet to 8 or 9 feet, mechanical ventilation, more tackboard – less chalkboard, more positive colors on walls and floors, higher illumination – 40 foot candles minimum, sun control outside the windows, all furniture movable.
In 1945, the Seattle School District Board commissioned a study of population trends and future building needs. One proposal called for the modernization of all existing schools and the addition of classrooms, along with multi-use rooms for lunch and assembly purposes, covered and hard-surfaced play areas and play courts, and expanded gymnasia. Improvements in lighting, heating, plumbing systems, and acoustical treatments were sought as well. This survey occurred at a time when student enrollment in Seattle was stable, at around 50,000. By this time the School District was overseen by a five-member Board of Directors, and employed approximately 2,500 certified teachers, with an average salary of about $2,880.35
In 1949, a 6.8 Richter-scale earthquake damaged several elementary schools, resulting in their subsequent replacement by temporary portables. The 1950s brought the increased use of these structures as a way to address enrollment increases with quick, flexible responses to overcrowding. In 1958, an estimated 20% of the total Seattle student body was taught in portable classrooms. Despite their popularity, however, the occupants of the portables suffered from inadequate heating, lack of plumbing, and distance from other school facilities.
Comments