Bulletin from the Seattle School Board meeting under way right now (live on Channel 26, though no further Denny-Sealth discussion is expected tonight) — in her “superintendent’s updates,” Dr. Maria Goodloe-Johnson said there will be a community forum at Chief Sealth High School on Feb. 4 to present the 3 options under consideration (continue current plan, continue current plan but add some $ to Sealth renovations, rebuild Denny on its own site and renovate Sealth separately) — this apparently is separate from the Westwood Neighborhood Council‘s planned Feb. 5 meeting on the project (we will check with the Westwood folks to be sure). Then, she said, a resolution will be introduced at the Feb. 13 school board meeting recommending which option to pursue, and the board would vote on it at its next meeting after that, Feb. 27. More later, including highlights of the Denny-Sealth speakers in tonight’s public comment period (all opposed to the consolidation project — is there a reason no supporters ever seem to appear?). 11:30 PM UPDATE: Speaker recap ahead:
Everyone who spoke about Denny-Sealth tonight spoke against it. Notes from each (spelling of names is taken from board agenda, so please let us know if anything needs to be corrected):
Marlene Allbright, CSHS teacher: Took exception to comments she says she heard at the board work session on Denny-Sealth on Jan. 9 (WSB coverage here), suggesting school staffers weren’t paying close enough attention when the consolidation idea first came up in 2006. She contends that they were “blindsided” because they were first told that a state-of-the-art renovation would be included for Sealth. She also took exception to the description of the Design Review Team as “volunteer”; she contends members were “hand-picked” to be “design-friendly.” She calls the consolidation plan “disastrous.”
DeRon Jones, CSHS student: Offering $ (the new “Option 2”) is a “slap in the face.” Says his main concern is safety, and says combining Denny and Sealth is a threat to that. Warns direly that if the result is the combined school winding up on the news because of the death of a child, “you can’t say you didn’t see it coming.”
Noah Zeichner, CSHS teacher and design team member: Says he tried hard to support the project and figure out how it would be academically beneficial, but just couldn’t. Says info has been hard to come by. Says Sealth staffers want to work closely with Denny teachers and build stronger connections, and a state-of-the-art new Denny building will be great for Sealth too – but there’s no reason they can’t develop those closer ties while remaining a few blocks apart.
Female CSHS student whose name we didn’t get: Warns direly of middle-school girls being prey for high-school boys, resulting in everything from heartache to pregnancy: “Can you turn a blind eye when an 11- to 13-year-old girl gets used like a tissue?”
Nancy Conyers from CSHS PE: Implores board directly to “stop the co-location.” Second speaker to mention that relatively new tennis courts and fields at Sealth will be lost in this project, a waste not only of facilities but also of taxpayers’ money. Regarding “Option 2,” she says, “No amount of money you can offer us would make this plan palatable.”
Roberta Lindeman, teachers’ union “building rep” at Sealth: Talks about the Seattle Education Association resolution passed last week (WSB coverage, including full text of resolution, here). Says board members should all have received copies of it.
Debbie Taylor: Says trying to stay informed about the project has been extremely difficult; says some meetings even changed locations at the last minute, and there was no way to find them unless she literally followed someone who knew where they were going. Says she was told early last year that the best way to be heard was to contact the school board; says she did that at the time, got no replies.
Carol Strohm, CSHS teacher: “I tell my students to make wise choices, because there are always consequences.” Says there’s no shame in changing your mind — and implores the board to change its mind about Denny-Sealth. Says Option 3, with Denny rebuilt on its current site, is a good option.
Nan Johnson: Talks about running a high-school shop program on the Denny campus now, and the strict rules her students have to follow to be on the middle-school campus.
Laura Robb, Sealth IB coordinator: Talks about how much work it’s taken to get the IB program off the ground at Sealth. Wonders, “has anyone identified what a 6-12 school does better than a 9-12 school?”
One P.S. – this may be SOP but in the copy of the agenda we obtained and linked to just this morning, “Superintendent’s Updates” did not list a Denny-Sealth item. Probably no rule it would have to, but it was almost sheer accident we caught the info, because we’d tuned in to the meeting to check out the heralded speakers. A lesson, we suppose, that you want to pay as close attention as possible to all of your public officials and their meetings, because you just never know when something regarding your items of interest will come up. We expect plenty more Denny-Sealth followup info tomorrow, so stay tuned.
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