Details are few but in case you saw the police/fire/ambulance activity at Chief Sealth HS in the past half-hour — police confirm there was an assault there and 2 suspects were taken into custody. Injuries NOT reported to be major. Police also note they’ve had a stepped-up presence at all area middle/high-school campuses today in the wake of what happened yesterday in Illinois.
Thank you WSB for capturing this photo. Pictures tell a thousand words. To all of the proponents of a merged 6-12 school in a low-income, urban school….please really look at this picture. Is this where you want your middle school students to attend?
I love this school, and wouldn’t teach anywhere else, but I am a realist. There is a high at-risk student population at this school. This is an example of why Chief Sealth and Denny Middle School need to be separate. There are bigger, stronger, more powerful people who will take advantage of the younger, smaller, and more vulnerable students.
Nice, Marlene, way to perpetuate the stereotypes about Sealth. Hedging your bet by saying you love the school doesn’t undo the damage.
To GenHillOne:
I didn’t realize there was a stereotype about Sealth. Admin has tried to suppress reports of violence at Sealth. Thank god that WSB still supports the First Amendment. You can’t fix a problem until you admit you have one.
So now if someone is honest about problems that they know about firsthand, they are perpetuating stereotypes and this causes damages? So police just hang out for no reason at Sealth? Teenagers do not have perfect reasoning skills. They do stupid things to each other, and some do violent things to each other for stupid reasons. This is a real issue. I’m beginning to think from the way people from outside the Sealth community are acting towards the parents, teachers and students of the school that the REAL stereotype is that we are a bunch of ignorant, helpless people that need to be told what is best for us. From your earlier posts I know that we both have honor/band students who are involved in their schools and would probably do great anywhere. This is not true for the majority. Neither of us really knows what the other’s school is like without being there.
Another telling story that didn’t get reported is what happened at Denny today. But at the risk of perpetuating negative stereotypes, maybe it’s better if nobody knows.
FWIW, in case anyone cares … we happened onto the Sealth story because we heard the sirens (WSB HQ is about a mile away), saw the address on the 911 log, zoomed down the street to see if it was an incident with police accompanying the fire/aid crews (we routinely check out ANYTHING with an aid call to any local school, public or private, elementary, middle, or HS), saw police there too, called the precinct to check. But much of what we report is dependent on tips “I saw … I heard …” that we subsequently check out. We were at the SW Precinct checking reports today as usual but they usually lag by a few hours since the officers are still out in the field, so if whatever happened at Denny today involved police, we may not see that report till Monday. Just FYI.
Time for Denny parents to ask questions, LOTS of them. The School Boards own Threat Notification Policy was not followed at Denny.
I applaud the police for the steps they were taking at Denny. However, let us be honest. At Denny on Friday, those steps were going to be taken long before the gunman opened fire in Illinois.
Parents, ask questions, LOTS of them.
My point is that this stuff DOES happen at other Seattle high schools (not that long ago at WSHS). The way you positioned it Marlene, it read like a slam on Sealth in particular. Yes, it is the school I want my middle-school student to attend. I’m not saying there aren’t issues, but I’m not going to give into the fear. And yes, there has been a stereotype in the community about Sealth over the years. If you don’t know that, then your working knowledge is not as honed as it could be. It also had been enjoying a shift in that perception, which may now be at risk.
The damage (that I see) is happening in the students. My student complains at least once a week about someone – from other middle schools, public and private – making a comment about his “ghetto†(or some other similarly stupid description) school. The commenter is quickly set straight on all of the “cool things†at Denny! I’m pleased that his school pride is still intact and strong. I hope it will be carried into high school without hearing from his own teachers that his school is somehow an inferior choice. There is a great opportunity here with the current Denny students occupying ¾ of the building after construction. They should feel like this is going to be THEIR school and be empowered to say “no more.†BTW – I don’t advocate any suppression of reports; and Indaknow, I hear you, maybe from a different direction, but I hear you. ugh, long post, sorry…
GenHillOne
My son is told that his school is ghetto all the time by students from other schools. I have parents of children I know say the same thing to me too. Heck, I know people who don’t consider the Westwood Village neighborhood part of “West Seattle” and think that we live in the ghetto! It does not bother either of us, because we know different and opinions do not make fact and it sounds like you and your son do too.
You’re right on Indaknow. I just wonder how it affects those who aren’t as strong in their convictions. And let’s face it, at this age, even the strongest of convictions can have a moment of weakness. Does it set the bar for behavior expectations too low? “If everyone thinks this is a violent school then I guess it doesn’t matter if I beat up that kid?” Don’t know.
GenHillOne,
Sorry your student is new to defending his school. Get used to it.
The story isn’t really any different than when I attended Denny in the 70’s. There are some that inhabit West Seattle that think West Seattle proper ends somewhere north of the Junction.
The great news is that we as parents know the good things that happen inside the building. I gave up trying to defend our “ghetto” school. I know better. In fact, I rather enjoy being a part of the best kept secret in West Seattle.
Let’s lay the responsibility where it really belongs. The Seattle School District and the administrators that perpetuate the lack of open and honest communication about the real happenings at the school. If they kept us informed about what was happening and the positive steps they take to resolve these events we wouldn’t even need to blog.
Possibly. I moved my son out of a local elementary school because of the chaotic environment and its effect on him, but he was only 6 years-old. Here I defer to who I consider the experts, the ones on the frontlines-the teachers. The Sealth teachers are amazing. If they forsee problems with co-joining I HAVE to listen to them. I do not know the Denny teachers, and the only one I have heard from is Marcus who I know indirectly through All City Band. I have lots of respect for Marcus, but he is not the only teacher at Denny. Why aren’t we hearing from any of the others one way or another? (advance apology if I did not recognize any of you as Denny teachers in your postings) I really want to know what they think and the “secret survey” they took only was 41 staff members out of the 87 staff members listed on the Denny webpage so that doesn’t feel like a real measure of opinions to me.
Funny, Debbie’s post beat mine so my first word seems a bit out of sequence! I do agree with you Debbie. I think that all of the Middle and High Schools should be blatantly clear about statistics, especially violence.
Debbie – best kept secret in West Seattle, good one – I’m going to steal that!
It does baffle the mind why anyone would think putting 6th graders in with high schoolers is a good idea. A k-8 would make more sense, but as we know, our school board (wait, didn’t we just kick out the old and bring in the new)looks like they have some strong ideas that they want to push through without proper input and thought. This is a time that when something goes awry there will be many offers of I told you so. Hopefully they will come to their senses. Another thing I find funny, I went to Boren (which was the ghetto school of its day) and Denny was thought to be the elite school at the time…I guess all things go full circle. Maybe we can have a one room school house in the gymnasium….
Having attended K-12 in a large school district that choose to line up schools of all grade levels on one street, I am still waiting to hear what exactly is so different about having a middle school next to a high school as opposed to being half a block away. I think that the real difference is a chance for improved safety: the security staff and adminstrators can share monitoring duties and better supervise the interaction of the two groups. Tell me that this is happening now when the Denny and Sealth students meet up in Westwood Village, or the strech of wood that are around Sealth. Don’t think so.
Having attended K-12 in a large city that choose to line up a school of each grade level on the same block, I am mystified by the “safety” arguement that keeps being made. Marelene, do you not see the Denny and Sealth students already co-mingled at Westwood Village every day? I do. What concerns me more is when they are mingling out in the woods around Sealth. What is the big difference in having these two schools next to each other instead of half a block away? Do you think that the middle school students didn’t hear the sirens (particularly as the WSB apparently did from much farther away)? I think the difference is a postive one: the adminstration and security staff can work together to better monitor the interactions between the student groups and to coordinate response to shared problems. To me, this is a huge benifit to Option 2.
The school staffs can already work together to better monitor the interactions between the student groups and to coordinate responses to shared problems. They just don’t. And there is no reason to believe that they will make any different choices if the District moves forward with Option 2.
These are not decisions based on architecture.
Likewise, if the two schools wanted to align their curricula, they could already do it. All of the academic and programmatic benefits promised in Option 2 are already possible. The insurmountable distance between the buildings is not the barrier preventing these actions.
If, after fifty years of such close proximity, the two schools have not gotten together on academics or security when they are just across the street from each other, what in the world would make anyone think that they will suddenly do these things when they are across the atrium from each other? Distance isn’t the barrier.
So how can someone tell if the kids are from Sealth or Denny when seen at Westwood? Do you know these kids that you see (and therefore know that they don’t go to the same school) because that is the only way it would make sense.
Yes, I know some of the students. And often times the Sealth students are wearing Sealth shirts and the Denny kids Denny shirts. Makes it pretty easy to spot.
I think the shirt analogy is a bit too simplistic to be scientific, but thank you for your explanation. With the exception of letterman’s jackets, the students I know generally do not where Sealth or Denny clothing every day.
Meena:
I have no problem with K-12 schools. My son and daughter attended Summit K-12. Summit K-12 is an alternative school. Summit probably has more parental involvement than any other school in Seattle. It is an entirely different community. It was designed to be a K-12 school. Parents choose to have their students go to that school. They have a school auction every year that nets at least $40,000 per year for their arts program. It is a school heavily into the arts.
Interestingly enough, the strong core of the school is K-8. My children and most of their friends elected to go to a traditional high school after the eighth grade, because they wanted to be in a more adult atmosphere. This is the time that many students in late adolescence want to feel a sense of independence in order to shed their childhood and become successful adults. Summit has an extremely small graduating class compared to the populations K-8.
Denny and Sealth are traditional schools, although Don Gillmore lumped Denny/Sealth into a speech about non-traditional schools at an architects’ conference in Toronto in October.
Also, the socioeconomic factors are completely different at Summit than they are at Denny and Sealth.
The suspensions/expulsions are part of the public record. If you think Denny and Sealth have similar demographics to Summit, then you need to look at the data.
Summit didn’t need community buy-in. The community created Summit.
As for co-mingling at Westwood, the Denny students have a closed Campus, and if they are co-mingling after school, my question is where are their parents?
I worked at Denny for six years. I’m sure that I will be “perpetuating the stereotype” but I was on the inside. I will not tell you the things that I witnessed there. The data is there for you to look at.
There are great students there, as well as great teachers. But there are also probems, and as I said before, you can’t fix the problem, until you admit that you have one.
The problems need to be fixed before you put two schools that have problems together. The research that has been done on co-located schools is pathetic. I have been looking at Carla Santorno’s statement that there is strong academic research to recommend co-located schools. This is a complete fallacy. I have looked up the research studies she quoted, and there isn’t a scintilla of evidence to back up her assertion. There was not one 6-12 school that had similar demographics to Sealth. As a matter of fact there wasn’t a 6-12 school listed. There were K-12, K-8, K-10, and 3-8, but there was not a shred of data on a 6-12 school that Santorno spoke about.
This to me is very telling. It tells me that the idea to save money came first, and “let’s try and fit the research around the idea.” This is too serious of an issue to rush into. Why make the Sealth and Westwood community suffer for the next 50 years because of a school district that has been disingenuous about this project from the beginning?
Here’s a 7-12 school located in California http://www.busd.k12.ca.us/bellflower-high.htm
The website does not indicate how much the kids actually interact. It is a large (!) population, with similar percentages of free/reduced lunch population to Sealth and Denny. Make sure to check out the Accountability Report Card tab over to the left. The suspension/expulsion rates and test scores leave a lot to be desired.
Does anyone actually know what happened at Sealth Friday 2/15? Were these students?
Sorry, comment time is over.
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