West Seattle schools: City councilmembers visit Roxhill Elementary

While sharing the news last weekend about the Roxhill Elementary Saturday Academy graduation, principal Carmela Dellino mentioned that her school played host last Friday to Council President Sally Clark and Councilmember Tim Burgess. She shared a note he wrote afterward; it read in part, “Council President Clark and I came away inspired, encouraged and motivated to share your story with our colleagues and all of Seattle. I’ll do a blog post early next week on our visit.” And indeed he has – you can read it here. He describes the school as “impressive” and closes by calling Roxhill “another example of a Seattle public school that’s working.”

3 Replies to "West Seattle schools: City councilmembers visit Roxhill Elementary"

  • Roxhill and AH booster April 11, 2012 (3:22 pm)

    What!? No mention of your cronies’ interests in building a new school in South Lake Union while destroying Roxhill by dissolving into Arbor Heights?

    Where DO you stand on that CM Burgess?

  • Craig April 12, 2012 (6:39 am)

    From the City Council website..

    “Roxhill’s student population is more diverse than the city as a whole—27% Black, 40% Hispanic, 17% Asian/Pacific Islander, 12% White. Thirty-five percent of Roxhill’s students are English language learners. Seventy-five percent of the students are enrolled in the free/reduced lunch program. Twenty-three percent of the students receive special education attention. Student achievement lags behind the school district’s overall elementary school averages, but Roxhill students are getting better on their reading, math, writing and science tests. Their academic improvement rate beat district-wide averages in both math and reading in the 2010-2011 school year.

    After walking the hallways of Roxhill and visiting classrooms, you can see why. The visit revealed a school focused on learning. It was orderly and clean. Students worked well together. Teachers and their helpers, including student teachers from the UW, were walking around, sitting on the floor, encouraging and drawing out the best from their students.

    We saw child-focused commitment. We saw teachers and student teachers pouring themselves into the kids. We saw the order and discipline of the building and classrooms. We saw engaging and stimulating teaching methods being used. We saw kids who were learning, having fun and working with each other. We sat in on a local government civics lesson for third graders.”

    Mr. Burgess’s comments echo many of the feelings of Roxhill staff, parents and students. Roxhill is a great school that is worthy of support and concideration on the part of SPS. Many of us feel that our community should have more options than a merger.

  • Roxhill and AH booster April 12, 2012 (11:18 am)

    Based on public records, it would seem that CM Burgess considers himself an unelected school board member. If you want to run our district, then run for school board – but we know you want to be mayor. I will vote for your opponent.

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