By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor
Reopening a closed West Seattle public school is virtually inevitable, Seattle School Board president Steve Sundquist confirmed during this morning’s community-conversation meeting at Delridge Library, as the district deals with overcrowding issues in the second year after the last round of closures. And though no decision’s been made yet, Fairmount Park Elementary at 38th/Findlay – shuttered for four years – seems likely to be that school, he acknowledged – with one caveat. Read on for details of the discussion, which also tackled issues including sibling waitlists:
Nine parents attended the meeting – one of two that Sundquist is hosting this week – all identifying themselves as having students (or incoming students) at various West Seattle public schools, except for one whose student is at Lowell Elementary in the north end. School crowding was the major topic – here is how it played out, leading to the Fairmount Park discussion:
One West Seattle parent started with a question about sibling assignments; siblings coming into the system are no longer likely to be assigned to the same school as their older sibling, unless the latter is already in the family’s “neighborhood school” (and many aren’t, since they entered the district before the “choice” system was abandoned).
She said she lives two blocks from Lafayette Elementary but is no longer in its district as of last year’s neighborhood mapping – and this fall, the assignments have her children at two different schools, Lafayette and Schmitz Park Elementary (whose area her home is now in).
Sundquist said that she should be able to get her older child into Schmitz Park – but she explained that student is in the Spectrum gifted program, and would not be appropriately served at SP, since there’s no Spectrum program there. “I think the challenge you’re going to have,” said Sundquist, “is what’s the most important value to you as a family – to have both kids in the same location … together, or (to have the older child remain in the Spectrum program at Lafayette)?”
“Are those acceptable options to you?” the parent asked. “I don’t like them,” Sundquist acknowledged. “There’s a lot of things I don’t like about (current scenarios),” but, he indicated, there’s no way around it with the new policy – you have to make an “educational or lifestyle choice.” He noted that similar situations had arisen under the previous “school choice” assignment system as well.
Both Schmitz Park and Lafayette have waitlists, another parent noted, urging Sundquist, at summer’s end, to monitor the situation in any way possible, because she said, she knows of some families in the reverse situation – with one student at each of those schools, but wanting both to be at SP.
Lafayette has a 10-student sibling waitlist and SP has an 8-sibling list at the moment, said the first parent. (Editor’s note: We have asked the district to make available the waitlist numbers in general, and we have been told that could happen as soon as the end of this week.)
“What is the district going to do” about the siblings-in-different-schools situation? another parent pressed.
“We’re going to push schools as hard as they can to make sure all their space is used,” Sundquist replied. “The lists will be worked very hard again (this year) … as they were last year …” Last year, he recalled the district managed to accommodate roughly 80 percent of the families who wound up in that situation district-wide. But, “enrollment is continuing to trend up and up,” he warned. “I expect the staff will work very hard to make this happen,” but it cannot be guaranteed.
The other parent there to discuss a similar situation said she also wants both of her children to be at the same school – but doesn’t want to move her older child, a Gatewood Elementary student, to the reference-area school into which her younger child has been assigned, because that school happens to be West Seattle Elementary School, which Sundquist acknowledged is one of the state’s worst-performing schools – while adding that steps have been taken toward performance, including a principal change. “If you visit that school, I think you will find a much better situation for teaching and learning,” he added.
However, he also noted that each August, families whose children have been assigned to schools at a certain low-performance level have the option to seek a different assignment, under federal “No Child Left Behind” law. “One of the difficult things about (NCLB) is that it sets up a punitive framework for schools,” he lamented, saying the law was written in such a way that within a few years, “a majority of the nation’s schools (may be) failing.”
Saying that relief for the area’s overcrowding would likely help with the sibling-separation challenge, Sundquist said, “Clearly we’ve got capacity issues in West Seattle- we need to open one more school year, pronto, but we’re going to be even tighter next year before we can make that happen.”
“What about the boundary redraw for Lafayette?” pressed the parent who opened the topic, saying she knew of students miles away who were going there, while her children two blocks away were not. The current boundaries are “not perfect,” Sundquist allowed, recalling some turned out to be particularly unnatural because of the history involved in the last school-closure round – particularly the Cooper program closure, “because it was the least likely to be successful as a neighborhood reference area school,” with Pathfinder K-8 moving into that building on Pigeon Point, “and now at capacity … serving many more kids than they were at the (now-closed) Genesee Hill building.”
As a result, though, he said, Lafayette wound up as the school with reference-area students who do indeed live some distance.
Boundary changes also were the topic of yet another parent’s question – whether any are in the works. Sundquist said the board had originally hoped it wouldn’t have to change boundaries for at least five years, but “we are unlikely to make” that goal because of problems around the city – though “it’s a very difficult thing to make all the parties happy” when they absolutely have to make a change, so, he cautioned, “the district isn’t going to want to mess with boundaries if we can avoid it.”
And a boundary change won’t solve the West Seattle situation, “with multiple schools full,” he added.
If you are in the sibling-waitlist situation, what do you do? asked one of the affected parents. Send mail to every board member, to senior district management (including Tracy Libros, who’s in charge of the enrollment), to make sure they understand “the pain that is out there,” Sundquist suggested. The enrollment team has the final accountability for figuring out who can be moved where without causing further problems, he clarified.
The next board meeting will include a preliminary report on waitlists and how to handle overcrowding, he also noted (that meeting is next Wednesday, June 15th). He also says he hasn’t seen specific information on sibling waitlists, just a “first cut” at overall waitlists. Another trend: Students coming back into the district, counter to original projections – the district is now projected to have 53,000 students by 2015, according to Sundquist, an increase of six thousand over the span of just a few years.
What West Seattle school might reopen? He couldn’t say for certain, but: “No one has said Fairmount Park is the building but it seems like the building,” he said. “The question the staff is working through is, if we choose it, and the school board is prepared to make (a decision) on fairly short notice – we’re prepared to take the risk, I think the most likely candidate is Fairmount Park. There was worry that the amount of work needed for it to reopen would exceed the time allowed or the money available,” since it’s been closed long enough to require code upgrades – possibly requiring $7 million to $9 million estimated upgrades (it’s being reroofed this summer). He said a district team was going to Fairmount Park as of about a week ago to evaluate it.
Sundquist then again speculated that Fairmount Park will be designated as the school to reopen – but if it isn’t ready by fall of 2012, Boren Middle School (closed since the end of Sealth’s temporary use a year ago) might have to be pressed into use as an elementary for a year, until Fairmount Park is ready.
One other point of note: A reopened elementary in West Seattle might be designated as an “option school” – chosen, not assigned by reference area. (Fairmount Park was closed in the first round of school closures three-plus years ago.)
Factoring into the evaluation process, Sundquist later said – the district has “essentially fired the entire Facilities staff” recently, so “consultants” have a prominent role in the process that’s under way right now.
Now that capacity is going up, also, “I don’t think you’ll see the district selling any more property,” Sundquist said. West Seattle could eventually see another elementary school built – the site where Denny IMS is about to be demolished has been designated publicly as a “future elementary school site,” but Sundquist said that’s not a sure bet for a future levy (in opening remarks, touching on the crowding issue, he talked about the 2013 BEX levy as one way of addressing it); Genesee Hill has been mentioned too – closed more than two years, since Pathfinder moved to Cooper – and the district of course also still owns the Boren and EC Hughes properties (the latter has been leased to Westside School [WSB sponsor]).
Timetable for a decision on reopening a school (theoretically Fairmount Park Elementary)? Soon, Sundquist indicated – maybe a matter of weeks.
Also discussed at today’s meeting: One parent’s philosophical observation about whether the district might move to a point where many distinct academic programs, Spectrum among them, might not be necessary, reducing some of the problems caused by the demand for specific schools where they are offered. In the ensuing discussion, Sundquist reminded those on hand that at least regarding Spectrum, he is proud that there are now “viable programs” available at more schools than there used to be – Arbor Heights Elementary in south West Seattle and Madison Middle School, for two. … On a separate issue, an Arbor Heights parent told Sundquist the school communities are happy that parents are involved in the selection process for their new principal (replacing Dr. Carol Coram, who is moving to Denny International Middle School as assistant principal, as first reported here) … That led to a suggestion that parents be involved someday in the feedback process for evaluating school staffers. That’s an “aspirational goal,” Sundquist observed, and not likely to happen any time soon, though he said the evaluation process is evolving …
Before the Q/A portion, Sundquist opened with an FYI on three topics he “wanted to bring to (the group’s attention).” One was capacity management, aka crowding, and since we’ve already reported on that, here are the other two:
Topic 1, the superintendent’s evaluation: “This of course is an odd year because in fact we fired the superintendent in early March – so Dr. (Susan) Enfield, who is serving in an interim capacity, has only been on the job three months … so we’ll offer an evaluation of how the district is doing … and also give some guidance on Susan’s performance as we see it,” at the board meeting next Wednesday night. Topic 2: “…the ongoing budget challenges we have, … the third winter in a row we’ve had to go through serious budget adjustments in a downward direction.” He said the district’s facing a $45 million budget gap because of how the state legislative session turned out, with a $4 million gap remaining, since their previous plans/actions had covered about $41 million. The district is negotiating with employee groups, he said, in “conversations … that will certainly last through June,” and is hoping to conclude talks before the July 6th School Board meeting.
If you have a Seattle Public Schools question/concern, Steve Sundquist’s next neighborhood-chat meeting is this Saturday at High Point Library (35th/Raymond), 11 am.
| 36 COMMENTS