(Above, Dahlia Sebastian; below, Rowan Preedy)

Congratulations to the Madison Middle School students whose scientific achievements landed them in a districtwide spotlight! Thanks to science teacher Fred Jenner for the photos and report:

Madison MS had four finalists submitting projects at Thursday night’s District Science Fair at The Museum of Flight. Sixth graders Elliott Allen, Dahlia Sebastian, Rowan Preedy, and Ian Iserman showed their projects to a large crowd of visitors and twenty plus judges. Dahlia Sebastian’s engineering project “The New and Improved String Instrument Cleaner of the 21st Century” won Best Overall project for engineering design and Rowan Preedy’s engineering project “Automated Chicken Door Closer” won Most Original Engineering Project award for the entire district’s 6th grade category field of projects.

(Above, Elliott Allen; below, Ian Iserman)

This year there were more engineering design projects than science inquiry projects. Congratulations to all of them for their awesome work and for making Madison Middle School proud!

(UPDATED 4:59 PM with district slide deck from meeting)

(WSB video of entire Thursday night meeting at Louisa Boren STEM K-8)

By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

“Say it!”

Just a few years after Seattle Public Schools designated the former Louisa May Boren Junior High School as the permanent home of West Seattle’s STEM K-8 school, its parents and supporters found themselves last night demanding that district officials re-state that status.

Which they eventually did – but without an accompanying guarantee the school won’t be moved.

The campus’s past as an interim site is the main reason it’s in the district’s crosshairs right now for a potential return to that status, the STEM K-8 community was told during the boisterous briefing meeting (previewed here and here).

Associate superintendent Dr. Flip Herndon opened the hour-plus meeting by explaining that the district expects to be constructing and renovating schools “for the next 15 years, at least” as its enrollment continues to grow and its buildings continue to age.

Capital Projects and Planning director Richard Best went through the slides, starting with a recap of the schools recently built and renovated in West Seattle, including last fall’s opening of the new Arbor Heights and Genesee Hill elementaries, with the district expecting to grow to 55,000 students soon. He directed people to the Facilities Master Plan on the SPS website for an overview. They’re adding dozens of classrooms each year. Slides showed most elementary schools trending up, though they’re wondering if it’s plateau’ing. (Update – we requested the slide deck and received it this afternoon – PDF here, embedded below:)

Best said that adding special education capacity at every school also leads to campus-capacity challenges, as well as class-size-reduction mandates. They’ll be working with enrollment planners over the summer. And he noted that “in West Seattle we are seeing elementary growth occur more rapidly in the northern section than in the southern section.”

Capacity planning also involves looking at schools’ outdated systems that might not support technology – so those “rise to the top of the list to meet the educational needs of our students and staff.” That will figure into the 2019 BEX V levy. He added that school modernization means that “of the 102 schools that we have, over a third have historical landmark designations, so we can’t tear those buildings down.” (Those include EC Hughes, being modernized right now so that Roxhill Elementary can be moved there in a year, as we’ve been reporting.)

So, that all came down to this: Boren is “one of our largest school sites left to be utilized as an interim location,” Best said, drawing boos. Read More

By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

It’s a challenge, a lesson, and empowerment.

Every year, eighth graders at Explorer West Middle School (WSB sponsor) are exhorted, invited, and assigned to “Change the World.”

That’s the theme of the group projects they must complete and present before leaving EWMS and moving on to high school.

We’ve featured some in past years – two years ago, a group that wanted to make sure kids of all abilities had a place to play, and made a difference in a local project; last year we featured a group advocating for expanding the availability of healthful food.

This year’s topics were, according to teacher Tim Owens, as chosen by students, all relating to sustainability:

– Bullying of students with disabilities
– Sexual harassment and assault in schools
– Immigrant rights
– Assistance for refugees
– Sex trafficking
– Youth homelessness
– Depression among adolescents
– Gender inequality (regarding pay)

Along with group projects, EWMS students invited world-changers to speak with them about some of those problems and what is being/can be done about them.

We were there on Tuesday afternoon as the entire school gathered in the gym to hear from four people representing organizations working on civil/human rights, and then moved on to classrooms where the eight groups of eighth-graders made their project presentations.
Read More

As mentioned here last week, Seattle Public Schools reps will be at Louisa Boren STEM K-8 tomorrow night for a meeting about the possibility that the district will seek to move the school to another building.

The STEM community has since received more elaboration from associate superintendent Flip Herndon about what’s being considered and why. He says that as the district plans its February 2019 BEX V ballot measure, with possible school renovation/reconstruction projects including Alki and Lafayette Elementaries, they’re assessing what they have for interim sites – and finding the inventory lacking. Boren had long been an interim site, Herndon notes, and is bigger than what’s left around the city. His statement says Alki and Lafayette might be rebuilt at the same time, and that would “require a site to accommodate more than 1,000 elementary students.” Herndon’s message continues:

Current possibilities on interim locations would still be John Marshall (in use until 2021), Original Van Asselt (in use 2018-2020), Roxhill, Schmitz Park, Webster (won’t be open for any use until 2020).

The possibility of having Boren used as an interim site, as it has been in the past, would clearly have an impact on the STEM K-8 School and any move would require that any new space would be able to meet the facility needs of the program, which would include lab spaces and rooms that are able to meet the academic needs of all students. We realize that there are some concerns about needs at any site they include spaces to support CTE programs, science, two PE teachers, athletics, seven special education programs, preschool, technology integration, and middle school programming in general. Furthermore, STEM K-8 will have experienced dramatic change and growth for four consecutive years through 2017-18. Moving to a facility with significant limitations will disrupt efforts to build consistency and stability in a new K-8 program. Timing is a challenge as well. Work has to be done in preparation for any site, interim or not, in the 2017-19 timeframe to be prepared for school needs. We are also looking at the balance of options within clusters of schools. We are trying to make sure every middle school attendance area has additional options for students and families.

We are having the conversations now so we can get the perspective and understanding of impacts before we make any final decisions on how we will be able to accommodate our physical capacity needs for the next 10-20 years. These decisions and conversations are not taken lightly and they are helping to have SPS be able to meet multiple demands from multiple communities. We are looking at making some decisions, at the earliest, in October 2017 and at the latest January 2018.

Meantime, the STEM PTA is making its case about why the school needs to stay at the location designated its permanent site in 2013, rather than make a move considered likely to be to the former Schmitz Park Elementary campus:

• In its current location, STEM is able to serve all of West Seattle. By contrast, the boundaries of Schmitz Park’s northwest location would negatively impact equitable access to the school for students in the community.

• STEM is the only option school in the Denny Middle School service area, and has a geographic zone aligned with West Seattle Elementary. That geozone would change if the school moves to Schmitz Park, which means placement of students from the less diverse, more affluent neighborhoods of West Seattle would take priority over students living in the central and south areas.

• The current capacity of the Schmitz Park building is 216 without portables. The public voted to approve the BEX IV levy, in part, to get children out of portables. Moving a school from an adequate site to one where 60% of students would be in portables disregards the wishes of the taxpayers and the goal of the District to provide permanent classrooms for West Seattle’s growing student population.

• STEM provides a unique project-based curriculum. The high demand for this type of curriculum, as demonstrated by our projected 2017-18 enrollment of 539 (and waitlist of 189), will continue to grow and can only be accommodated at Boren. STEM’s Special Education families depend on the valuable services offered at the school – any disruption to these services is unacceptable.

• Schmitz Park was designed as an elementary school and does not have the physical infrastructure to support middle-school programs and activities.

• A move to Schmitz Park will create logistical hardships for families living in the southern neighborhoods of West Seattle, increase transportation costs for the school district, and increase vehicle traffic in the residential neighborhood surrounding the location.

Thursday night’s meeting is at 6:30 pm at STEM K-8 (5950 Delridge Way SW).

Denny International Middle School was honored by Seattle Public Schools superintendent Dr. Larry Nyland after a presentation at the School Board’s mid-May meeting. Principal Jeff Clark shares the photo and report, saying the staff was:

… recognized by Dr. Nyland for continued success in eliminating opportunity gaps in math and literacy! Congratulations to all of the Denny scholars, staff, and families on this special honor!

We were presented with a framed certificate of appreciation stating, “In recognition of Denny International Middle School’s commitment to eliminating opportunity gaps for historically underserved students. We are fortunate in Seattle Public Schools to have a number of ‘positive outlier’ schools that continue to provide leadership and inspiration for our community. Seattle Public Schools recognizes and acknowledges Denny International Middle School’s hard work, success, and innovation. Denny International Middle School continues to ‘Eliminate Opportunity Gaps’ for our students.

The superintendent also spotlighted Denny’s achievement in his May 19th weekly memo to the board (page 4), noting that the key strategies at Denny include:

o Positive belief in the capability of each and every one of their Denny scholars.
o Standards-based curriculum
o Common units and multiple formative assessments
o Standards-based grading

The memo also mentioned another recent Denny achievement spotlighted here, regional competition in underwater robotics.

It was a sweet night at West Seattle High School, in multiple ways. It was first and foremost a celebration of Career Tech, with students showing off projects in various disciplines, including culinary (above) and woodworking (below):

From the health program, Naomi Meredith showed the game she created, focused on talking about mental health:

Music was in the spotlight too, with WSHS Band members performing:

Career education ultimately is meant to get students along the road to their future, and in one year, West Seattle HS students will have a new option to help with that – as we’ve reported, the school is becoming part of the South Seattle College (WSB sponsor) 13th Year Promise program – one free year at SSC for any graduating senior who wants it. Thursday night’s event was a celebration of that too, and administrators from both schools talked about it:

Find out more about the 13th Year Promise Scholarship program here.

Earlier this month, we reported that principal Ruth Medsker is leaving West Seattle High School at the end of this year, headed for Lincoln High School. This afternoon, Seattle Public Schools just announced that WSHS’s next principal will be Brian Vance, who’s been leading Roosevelt HS. Here’s the letter sent to families:

Dear West Seattle High School community:

I am pleased to announce that Brian Vance has been selected to be the new principal of West Seattle High School.

Mr. Vance was selected because of his vision for social-emotional learning for high school students within the Multi-Tiered Systems of Supports framework, his culture building experience as principal in several different comprehensive high schools, and his experience developing and leading work in high school advisories.

Mr. Vance has served as principal of Roosevelt High School since 2007. Under his leadership, the school has made significant progress to close achievement gaps, and established a school culture that promotes rigorous instruction for all students, and has been recognized for its academic and performing arts successes numerous times. Prior to that, Mr. Vance was the principal of the Center School from 2003-2007.

Mr. Vance holds a Master of Education in School Counseling from University of Maryland, a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Hobart College, and an Administrative Certificate from the University of Washington’s Danforth School of Educational Leadership.

Principal Vance is excited to be a part of the West Seattle community that he calls home, and continuing the momentum built by the staff and students around student achievement and positive school climate. His official start date will be July 1, 2017. We will be scheduling opportunities for staff, families and students to meet Mr. Vance before the end of the school year.

I would like to extend my thanks to Principal Ruth Medsker for serving as principal for the past seven years. Her deep commitment to the West Seattle community is greatly appreciated, and Principal Vance looks forward to build on the foundation to lead the school into the 21st century.

Welcome Principal Vance to West Seattle High School.

Sincerely,

Dr. Larry Nyland
Superintendent
Seattle Public Schools

Four years ago, Seattle Public Schools proposed moving what was then K-5 STEM to what was then Schmitz Park Elementary.

Eventually, it was decided instead that what started as STEM’s temporary home, the former Louisa May Boren Junior High School, would be its permanent home.

Or maybe not permanent after all.

This week, a Louisa Boren STEM K-8 parent is calling attention to new talk of a possible move, and a district official coming to the school next week to talk about it.

When we asked district spokesperson Tom Redman what’s under consideration, his reply included the meeting announcement:

Dr. Flip Herndon, Associate Superintendent for Capital Projects and Planning and Enrollment Planning, will meet with the Louisa Boren K-8 STEM School Community on June 1st from 6:30-7:30 at Louisa Boren School to provide information and answer questions.

With growing student enrollment and the McCleary class size student-teacher ratios for grades K-3 issue, we’ll need additional classrooms in our elementary school buildings. With this in mind, we need to identify short and long term capacity solutions for Genesee Hill, Alki and Lafayette elementary schools. At the same time, we need to identify interim locations for future school capital construction projects: we will consider the use of Schmitz Park, Louisa Boren and Roxhill school buildings as options.

Just a few of the factors that might be playing into this: The Roxhill building is already scheduled to be vacated after next school year; as we’ve been reporting for more than a year and a half, its program is scheduled to move to EC Hughes Elementary, which is about to start renovation work to get ready to reopen in fall of 2018. Schmitz Park, meantime, has been home to preschool and after-school-care programs this year, since its former elementary program moved into the new Genesee Hill building last September. It, Lafayette, and Alki are already being studied for the BEX V ballot measure that the district will send to voters in 2019. Stay tuned.

Thanks to Jim Edwards for photos of West Seattle High School‘s band (above) and orchestra (below), performing in Victoria, B.C. today.

It’s Victoria Day Weekend and that means a showcase of visiting high-school groups. If you happen to be up there this weekend too, look for the WSHS musicians near the Parliament Buildings at 5 pm Sunday. Then on Monday, it’s the Victoria Day Parade.