Seattle Schools Community Forum

I attended part of the Board retreat last Saturday and part of the (kind of funny) School Board meeting last night.  If you've been around this district awhile, you could definitely feel a change. 

Not a complete bust but not a great interview with these candidates on The Conversation this afternoon.  First, KUOW should make up its mind on the format.  For District 2, the candidates were interviewed individually and for a longer period of time.  (There were three of them.) For District 6, they had them all in the studio and interviewed each for a much shorter period of time but did allow them to interact.   I think it would be better to have the interaction among candidates AFTER the primary and allow people more time to get to know these candidates now.  Steve was first.  He was asked about Pottergate and the sale of the MLK,Jr. building.   His answer will now set the tone for his campaign.  He says they acted promptly when they had the State Auditor's investigation report.  What!?   If he is saying he had no idea anything was wrong until that point, he was simply not paying attention.  He stated that the...

First off, I really like West Seattle. I'm not a native so let me know if I have this wrong but what I always heard is that SW Seattle is considered "West Seattle". So that area has two high schools, two middle schools and a number of elementaries that serve their area. And, since West Seattle is a somewhat isolated area, most families stay in that area for school. Second, I really like the West Seattle Blog . They do such a great job of covering that whole area like a little mini-city. There seems to be such a sense of community over there. They also getsome pretty interesting reader comments on their stories. I was checking out what was being said about the departure of Bruce Bivens, the current principal at WSHS. Just as you would expect there are differing thoughts about his departure but then some tension crept in over the differences between Chief Sealth High School and West Seattle High School. Here's what one commenter had to say: Currently have s...

Thanks to Speducator for the alert about the article in the West Seattle Herald about the district adding classes to Lafayette and Schmitz Park. From the article: "Schmitz Park will add a third kindergarten class and Lafayette will add a third class at the kindergarten and first grade levels. According to Seattle School District spokesperson David Tucker, enrollment needs have increased this year, forcing the district to provide more seats in West Seattle schools. Parents at both schools are concerned that the schools will not have enough space or administrative resources for the added classrooms. "I was surprised like everyone else,” said Geoff Patterson, a parent with two children at Lafayette Elementary. “It struck me as odd that one of the biggest elementary would be getting two more classrooms." There was also concern over movement (within the building) of Lafayette's autism program. The students from Cooper's program had to go somewhere. Some may be...

The appeal of the School Board decision to close Cooper will be heard on Friday, June 12 at 10:30 in King County Superior Court. The plaintiffs are asking for a summary judgement against the District and they really should get it. For more detailed information, please see the West Seattle Blog complete with links to the Court filings. For some history, here are some related posts from our archive. Cooper fights on Bomb Recipe

There are all kinds of imprudent instructions available online. How to hack, how to phreak, how to build a pipe, how to disappear and assume a new identity, etc. So it is in that tradition that I offer this sketch of instruction on how to sue the School District to stop the closures. It may be irresponsible of me to provide this information. It may also be pointless to offer the instruction because the chances for success are so poor. So there is no need to write a comment to advise me of either of these two points. I am already well aware of them, thank you. I'm providing the information so that people will have the facts while a tornado of misinformation swirls around them. Information wants to be free. Knowledge is power and this blog is about empowering people with knowledge. So spare me, please, the rants about how I am either irresponsible or foolish. The best chance to blocking the closures will only delay them, not really stop them. And the only ones that I think can be del...

[Updated 6:30 pm with links to appendixes.] So I was wrong about there being a meeting at 4 pm today. It was just a media briefing which has already happened. See Cooper on list of school-closure “final recommendations” on the West Seattle Blog for details. I'm reading the West Seattle Blog post myself right now and will add more to this post in a few minutes. Full document of final recommendations is online on district page. Changes from last time: AS#1 is not closing but Summit is. However, AS#1 must create a restructuring plan and transportation is now limited to two clusters (North and Northeast). "If AS#1 does not meet the metrics outlined in the restructuring plan we will evaluate discontinuing the program for fall 2010." Thornton Creek is not moving and expanding to K-8 ; instead a new traditional K-8 will be in Jane Addams building. TT Minor General Ed program moved to Lowell. TT Minor Montessori still moving to Leschi. And a bunch of the options discussed...

In a previous thread, a reader (Jamie), provided a link to Cooper Elementary's " Cooper School Works". It's a great page (and I have to wonder why they were complaining about not being able to get information together - this is very professional looking). On this page they list all the reasons that picking Cooper is wrong. Some of it doesn't make sense like "Is it because of undercapacity (empty classrooms)?" They say no because if Pathfinder moves in, there won't be room at other schools for Cooper students (I'm thinking the district is hoping all those students will go to underenrolled West Seattle Elementary but that isn't likely). They also say that their enrollment is rising and yet, "Many of our students come from the High Point housing development. This development is not yet complete, so the number of families from there opting to bring their children will increase. Also, if another school closes Cooper could take on many of...

(Here's a link to the excellent coverage of the Genesee Hill public hearing last night over at the West Seattle blog .) A reply in a recent thread lead me to another blog (let's call it Blog S) where the closures are being discussed. Now I had initially thought to provide a link because our blog strives to give as much information and coverage as possible on Seattle education. However, when I popped over to it, I found a LOT of anger and vitriol and near-slander. I posted one thing and promptly got flamed. It is a very angry blog. None of you are children but I don't even want to give out the URL (you could find it if you tried). The tag line of the blog is "You can disagree, but I’ll still be right; that means, I don’t need you to agree with me for me to be right." (That pretty much says it all.) So why am I bringing it up? I'm posting about it because there are claims that no one is covering the story that Steve Sundquist allegedly worked with pare...

Contrary to what I expected prior to the announcement of preliminary recommendations, only one school building (Genesee Hill) and one program (Cooper) are proposed for closure. I am grateful that the importance of having a K-8 alternative school option in West Seattle is being recognized by both the district staff and the School Board. I'm not happy that Pathfinder 's continued existence is proposed to come at the cost of another school program (originally Arbor Heights and now Cooper ). My hope is that, if the Cooper program closes, many neighborhood Cooper students will choose to try an alternative school experience and enroll at Pathfinder K-8. I would like to see Cooper students given priority for enrollment at Pathfinder for 2009-2010, if they wish. And I hope that neighborhood Cooper students who do not want an alternative school experience will be given priority for enrollment for next year in other West Seattle North schools. One of the things that Rebecca, a Cooper te...

I met several people from Cooper Elementary last night at the Board Workshop. One of them, Rebecca Cressell, a teacher at Cooper, later sent me a Cooper School Closure Fact Sheet which presents the case against the proposed closure. The fact sheet is quite long (7 pages), so I've posted a link to it so readers can read the entire piece. Below is an excerpt from the introduction and a list of the section headings: "Cooper Elementary is not a wise choice for school closure. Relocating Pathfinder K-8 to Cooper Elementary would result in significantly insufficient capacity in the West Seattle North Cluster to serve area students. 56 displaced Cooper students would be mandatorily forced to bus outside of their cluster, a clear violation of the SPS student assignment plan. Additionally, displacing vulnerable Cooper students would cause significant academic and socio-emotional harm to Cooper’s historically marginalized student population." Cooper serves an increasing population...

In the Superintendent's presentation at this Wednesday's Board meeting, she mentioned several additional schools that may be impacted by the closure and consolidation plans: Cooper, Rainier Beach, New School, and probably others that I'm forgetting at the moment. ************ If any parents/staff/students/community members from those schools (and of course all the others already mentioned) would like to join this blog as temporary contributors during the closure process, please e-mail me . So far we have Summit K-12, AS#1, Arbor Heights and Lowell represented by temporary contributors who have taken me up on this offer. Ideally, I'd like to get voices from all the impacted schools. Spread the word and encourage those you know to contact me. ************ Cooper parents are already organizing and, according to the West Seattle Blog, have a meeting scheduled for tonight: School-closure fight: Meeting tonight at Cooper Elementary . Rainier Beach is getting a lot of media...