As the plan for West Seattle’s new public school K-5 STEM at Boren continues to take shape, its Design Team is meeting to discuss details big and small. One potentially big item came up at the May 29th meeting: Principal Dr. Shannon McKinney‘s suggestion that the school should require uniforms, or have a uniform-like dress code. (Our coverage of that meeting reports the rationale, as well as the opinions voiced that night.) Though no decision was made at that meeting, as planned, the discussion continued at the most recent meeting this week – and Design Team member Robin Graham tells us the team decided to support the recommendation:

With understanding and appreciation of the community’s thoughts on both sides, the design team supports Dr. McKinney with our vision that STEM is a place kids should know they are doing something very important – this is their uniform for learning.

The uniform will go far to increase safety, reduce distractions; communicate to the students, staff, and the community that we are serious about learning at K-5 STEM; increase equality between sexes; reduce teasing between boys and girls; enable teachers to truly “see” the student as a student; encourage students to see beyond external attributes and get to know his/her classmates on the basis of who they are; along with many other reasons.

The uniform to be decided upon will not be something akin to “ties for the boys and only skirts for the girls.” On the contrary, students will be able to wear khaki-colored pants, shorts and/or skirts of appropriate length, along with initially, perhaps a navy blue polo shirt. After the student body and staff have together chosen school colors, a mascot and a name, then more choices will be added to the uniform. All the logistics and the support to families are details that will be addressed.

The Design Team, which includes community, school, and district representatives, is scheduled to meet again at 6:15 pm June 21st at Madison Middle School‘s library. The school’s PTA is in formation, too, and its charter membership meeting is set for 6:30 pm June 27th at the West Seattle (Admiral) branch of the Seattle Public Library (2306 42nd SW). Meantime, the Yahoo! discussion group for enrolled and interested families continues going strong – find it here.

Excitement and maybe a few nerves were evident – as you’d expect! – as the Seattle Lutheran High School Class of 2012 entered the school’s Menashe Family Gymnasium for their graduation ceremony last night. The 43 seniors comprise the school’s 32nd graduating class; Keegan White was this year’s valedictorian; Valerie Reid, the salutatorian. 15 of this year’s graduates qualified for the National Honor Society; this night also represented a milestone for their NHS advisor (among her many other roles), Shirley Vradenburgh, photographed pre-ceremony with SLHS principal Mark Henderson:

She is retiring after 32 years during which, as the school newsletter noted, she has “worked with every student who has graduated from SLHS.” A celebration is planned next week, but on this night, the spotlight was on the students moving to the next phase of their lives. Congratulations to them all!

Madison Middle School‘s Senior Orchestra performed together one last time Thursday night at the school’s second concert of the week, and our first clip begins with music director Clark Bathum‘s explanation preceding Rimsky-Korsakov‘s “Capriccio Espagnol.” (The music begins about a minute and a quarter in.) The concert also featured the Junior Orchestra, Combined Orchestra, and the Jazz Band, which is in our next clip with one of the numbers from their division-winning performance at a recent music festival:

Our coverage from Tuesday night’s concert is here.

Gatewood Elementary principal Rhonda Claytor shared the photo, explaining:

This is a picture of Gatewood Elementary teacher Dana Bogel and fifth-grade student Claire Palmer-Paige, at Camp Warm Beach in Stanwood, conquering the wall challenge. Our 4th and 5th grade students have been at camp since Wednesday and many have challenged themselves to climb the wall, ride horses and row canoes for the first time in their lives. Additionally, they do many cooperative challenges and work together in groups. They also seem to enjoy the food and swimming pool!

Checking out the Gatewood website, we noted other special offerings – including four days this summer that the school library will be open for summer-reading checkout.

West Seattle High School is in celebration mode this afternoon. Principal Ruth Medsker just announced they’ve won a major grant from the city Families and Education Levy:

West Seattle High School was awarded one of five high school Levy grants! We will be receiving $350,000 per year for the next seven years! It was an extremely competitive process and we are very proud of our grant, and the continuing work we will be doing to support students. The funds are from the City Levy. Below is a snapshot of how we will be spending the funds:

*Full time Academic Intervention Specialists to case manage the academic success of all 9th graders teaching 1 Focus class, coordinate University Tutors, manage Mandatory After School Study Halls and Saturday Schools, monitors daily individual student academic progress, collaborates with teachers, participates in AIS and 9th grade team meetings, tracks progress toward meeting Levy Target goals, attends Levy meetings, calls 9th grade families, refers identified students to SIT, collaborates with feeder middle schools for early intervention, coordinates 9th grade MAP testing.

*Fund additional counseling services for our 9th graders to do the following; schedule all 9th graders in appropriate classes, hand schedules Focus students, plan 9th grade Parent Night, track 9th grade attendance, and creates attendance agreements for identified students, participate as a member of the Student Intervention Team, organizes parent/teacher conferences, implements the roll out of ConnectEdu to 9th graders and supplemental curriculum to support College and Career Readiness.

*A half-time Social Worker provided by community partner YMCA. The other half will be shared with our feeder Madison Middle School. He/she supports a caseload of 10-15 students; provides home visits, coordinates care and direct counseling, family parenting classes, screening to support academic success and improved attendance.

*Pay for community partner YMCA to have a full-time Senior Director of Education and Development on-site and integrated into the WSHS community. A $26,000 program budget to provide 2-4 in-school and 8-12 after school enrichment and/or service based activities. Responsible for tracking all 9th graders to ensure they are involved in a minimum of one extracurricular activity during the school year and removing barriers for participation that arise for some students. Priority enrollment for identified 9th graders in “Y” activities will be given.

*Pay for community partner University Tutors to place 15 plus content specific tutors at WSHS in math and science classes and to support Mandatory After School Study Hall and Saturday School.

*Pay for a .2 FTE Academic Interventionist to teach a focus class for re-classified 9th graders. We will use carry forward performance pay from 20011-12 to pay the $20,000 cost.

(Click for larger image; photo by WSB’s Patrick Sand)
Congratulations to Holy Rosary School‘s fifty-six 2012 8th graders, who posed just before their graduation tonight. Thanks to David for the tip – we’ll admit we haven’t historically tracked middle-school ceremonies as consistently as high schools, and spot-checking school calendars, we see we’ve already missed a few (plus, not all middle schools have ceremonies). But we DO have all the high-school (and beyond) dates:

SEATTLE LUTHERAN HIGH SCHOOL: Friday (June 8), 7:30 pm, school gym
CHIEF SEALTH INTERNATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL: June 16, 1 pm, Memorial Stadium
WEST SEATTLE HIGH SCHOOL: June 16, 5 pm, Memorial Stadium
MIDDLE COLLEGE HIGH SCHOOL: June 18, 7 pm, Brockey Center at South Seattle Community College

Speaking of which, that’s West Seattle’s lone post-secondary school:

SOUTH SEATTLE COMMUNITY COLLEGE: June 19, 2:30 pm, Benaroya Hall

(Photos by WSB co-publisher Patrick Sand)
Walk through the Automotive Technology area on the north side of South Seattle Community College on Puget Ridge, and you’ll see students like those, hard at work – painting, fixing, building, inspecting, and more. But in the paint bay today, you won’t find a car – you’ll find a hydroplane!

And, as Automotive Collision Repair instructor Steve Ford was quick to point out during our visit, it’s no museum hydro – it’s the U-37 hydro that Schumacher Racing – owned by driving legend Billy Schumacher, who won 17 races in the ’60s and’70s – will bring to Seafair and other races this season. Right now, though, its refinishing and paint job comprise a final exam for his graduating seniors, one of three “teams” he set up (one of the other two teams did prep work like masking and sanding, pre-paint job, while the other worked on fabrication). Here’s everybody we found in the shop this morning – that’s instructor Steve, front and center:

So when you see that 14-foot-wide, 31-foot-long hydro at Seafair this August – where it’ll bear the SSCC name and logo – remember it’s got a little bit of West Seattle! (And yes, as the announcement sent by SSCC communications director Candace Oehler pointed out, the college is being paid for the work.)

By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

As this school year began, we checked in with both major local public high school’s PTSAs – and as the year ends, we’re circling back.

So on Tuesday night, we sat in on the West Seattle High School PTSA‘s last meeting of the year, eight months after covering its first meeting of the year.

The changing of the guard was among the major items of business – the full officer slate for 2012-2013 is at the end of this story. But the major discussions involved activities sponsored/presented by the PTSA, all successful in their own way, and yet with room for much more participation – particularly Grad Night, the all-night post-graduation party meant to provide both fun and safety.

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Congratulations to the recipients of 2012-2013 scholarships announced by the West Seattle High School Alumni Association, whose Tom Friberg shares information about the recipients and the scholarships – seven new and five returning – for a total of $76,500. Read on for details of the scholarships awarded to, and the studies planned by, Christian Carpio, Raymond Carter, Gabriela Flores, Haily Hage, Lauren Jeglum, Tessa Jinneman, Karen Lowe, Nahn Nguyen, Arlene Orbino, Megan Ormsby, Randall Stefanovitch, and Michael Swanson:Read More

Chief Sealth International High School athletic director Sam Reed and Illusions Hair Design (WSB sponsor) proprietor Sue Lindblom – in her Rotary Club of West Seattle vest – are two of the people we caught up with this morning at Rainier Golf and Country Club, scene of today’s 2nd annual Sealth Athletics benefit golf tournament. The late-spring showers were coming and going as participants hit the links around noontime, with the afternoon of golf scheduled to be followed by dinner and a raffle.

Some Seattle Public Schools parents may already have seen this in e-mail directly from the district (we got first word from Cami MacNamara of Webcami Site Design), and after what they describe as a few tweaks, the communications team has shared it with news media too: The bell times are out for next school year. Here’s the list. You might remember the uproar earlier this spring when the district suddenly pursued a transportation-plan change that might have drastically changed times for many, then scrapped most of the plan; this is the final result, and except for six schools (NONE in West Seattle), they’re described as mostly the same. Read on for the explanatory letter sent to families:Read More

Madison Middle School counselor Lauren Divina asked to share this with the community, regarding a school-system budget-cut effect you might not have heard about. We are publishing her open letter in its entirety, ahead:Read More

(K-5 STEM at Boren principal Dr. Shannon McKinney, center, leading last night’s meeting)
By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

Every decision, every discussion, is a momentous one, if you happen to be creating a new school from scratch.

If you happen to be creating one that is the first of its kind in the state’s largest school district – only the second of its kind in the region – then those decisions may seem magnified.

Yet the atmosphere was relatively relaxed last night as the Design Team for opening-this-fall K-5 STEM at Boren continued its third month of meetings (here’s our coverage of their first one in March).

The team already has made big decisions, such as pursuing Singapore Math.

Principal Dr. Shannon McKinney has made big decisions too, including her first staff hires – among them the celebrated Schmitz Park Elementary math teacher who fought to get Singapore Math there.

And Tuesday night’s agenda at Madison Middle School (now the team’s regular meeting site) brought not only more discussions, but also the start of a dialogue – uniforms, or no uniforms?

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Tomorrow he dedicates a brand-new building – but today, Fr. Jack Walmesley from Our Lady of Guadalupe was in a hockey jersey at Barnes & Noble/Westwood, right after reading a hockey-themed story during the OLG School Bookfair. We just missed his turn reading, but we did catch another celebrity reader:

That’s Brian Callanan from Seattle Channel, also a familiar face at OLG. While today is the official Bookfair day, with events till 4 pm, purchases made with the special code #10749117 at any B&N, or online, benefit the school through May 30th (next Wednesday).

It’s a beautiful day for that once-every-so-often car wash, and the only charity car wash we’ve heard of in West Seattle today is this one …the WSHS Class of 2012 raising money for Grad Night, the post-graduation all-night extravaganza meant to keep the new grads safe while they’re out celebrating. Because it’s extensively planned and managed, it costs $, and fundraisers like this one are paying for “scholarships” for those who might otherwise be shut out. The car wash continues till 3 pm at West Seattle Autoworks (WSB sponsor), 35th/Webster.

SIDE NOTE: The car wash is one of a long list of WSHS events and news notes that you can find on the comprehensive Westside Weekly newsletter, linked from the school website at the end of each week – see the latest edition here.

It’s reunion season! For the Chief Sealth High School Class of 1972, this year marks their milestone 40th class reunion, and while it’s not until September 22nd, they’re getting a jump on things by looking for classmates they haven’t heard from in a while – maybe you know what happened to one (or more) of them. First, the reunion details: Saturday, September 22nd, 2 pm school tour, then the reunion activities 5 pm-midnight at Rainier Golf and Country Club (11133 Des Moines Memorial Drive S.) You can join the Facebook group at facebook.com/groups/Seahawks1972. Click ahead for the list of missing classmates:Read More

Denny International Middle School principal Jeff Clark is famous far and wide for his suits – especially the bright blue one. He wore something darker to get dunked during a school carnival in honor of the recent state-mandated testing (same round for which they made another “inspirational music video”). Patricia Rangel from Denny shares the photo, and this report:

To celebrate the best performance of the students during the MSP, the Washington State Exams, the Denny International Middle School Staff hosted a school-wide carnival including dance, face-painting, and dunk booth. Principal Jeff Clark took his turn in full suit and tie while students aimed fire at the bullseye. Last year Denny International 8th graders saw more growth in their MSP scores in math than any other middle school in the city. They are expecting similar results this August when the 2012 scores are announced.

By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

A letter to families, or a news release, only says so much – so after news came in Thursday afternoon about the new principal hired for West Seattle’s most populous elementary school, Lafayette in the Admiral District, we asked for a chance to speak with her.

The announcement of Shauna Heath‘s hiring pointed out that she is a West Seattleite.

Not only does she live here, she told WSB in a Thursday-evening phone conversation, she lives less than a mile from the school she will be leading as of July 1st.

“My child said, ‘We could ride our bikes to school together'” if she worked close to home, instead of in Kent, where Heath has been principal of Sunrise Elementary for two years. (Her son is an Alki Elementary first-grader right now.)

Making a school community also feel like a “home”/”family” community is one of the goals Heath says she has strived for, wherever she has worked.

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