West Seattle school overflow: Briefing today, meeting tonight

As noted in this morning’s preview, Seattle Public Schools‘ proposal for relieving overcrowding next year – just *next* year; proposals for other years are yet to come – officially goes before the School Board tonight. We’re just back of a media briefing at district HQ, offered as a chance for media reps to ask questions about the plan (see it here), crafted as the district deals with 1,500 more students this year than last, and another 1,000+ jump next year. (Added – video of the briefing, unedited, including the media Q/A:)

For West Seattle, the key component of the plan is spending $3 million to fix up and reopen the former Boren Junior High School (5915 Delridge Way SW) as temporary home of a new “option” elementary school – meaning you have to apply to attend, there is no automatic assignment zone – focused on STEM (science, technology, engineering, math). We asked what happened to the possible Montessori component mentioned at the second community meeting on the topic in West Seattle (late November; here’s our story). While that remains a possibility for West Seattle at some point after next school year, district officials said, they decided they couldn’t ramp up for it in 2012-2013 – particularly because some Montessori teachers elsewhere in the district who at one point were going to have to be moved, no longer need to be.

Boren has been empty for two school years, since serving as the interim home of Chief Sealth International High School during its two-year renovation project (completed in 2010). We asked how many students the district hopes it will serve in its first year; they didn’t have that number handy but promise to get it to us shortly.

Beyond reopening Boren, they expect to need some portables next year – perhaps at least 25 around the district, though no decisions on which schools and how many portables will be made until after the “open enrollment” period February 27-March 9 gives them some idea of next year’s trends. District officials, led by assistant superintendent for operations Pegi McEvoy and interim assistant superintendent for business and finance Robert Boesché, say they plan to lease portables rather than buy them, in hopes they won’t be permanent.

Much of the overcrowding-relief talk has focused, in the short term, on elementary schools, but in West Seattle, there’s also a challenge at Chief Sealth, which started the year above its 1,200-student (approximately) capacity. McEvoy said it might be in line for the addition of a portable next year, but decisions won’t be made before February.

Then there’s the issue of a permanent home for the program that is expected to launch at Boren this fall, and whether West Seattle would need another new elementary school beyond that. The current documentation mentions that the sites of the former Fairmount Park, Genesee Hill, and Hughes elementaries in West Seattle are all still in play for “intermediate” and “long-term” capacity-management decisions, despite the fact that Hughes was leased and renovated by Westside School (WSB sponsor). Asked about Hughes reappearing on the list for future consideration, McEvoy noted that its lease goes through 2015 and they intend to honor that, but beyond that, it depends on the district’s needs.

So what’s next? For starters, the short-term capacity-management proposal will be introduced at tonight’s board meeting (6 pm, district HQ in SODO) – where we’ll see what board members have to say about it, and whether any changes are proposed – with a final vote expected at the next meeting in two weeks. We’ll have a followup after tonight’s meeting.

13 Replies to "West Seattle school overflow: Briefing today, meeting tonight"

  • a parent January 4, 2012 (2:43 pm)

    Such a bad idea. I would never send an elementary child to this location, no playground, no appropriate-sized or in-class bathrooms for the kindergarteners, etc. Let alone the neighborhood. I didn’t like it when my high school student was there. Sorry – but it’s the truth….. (from a current WSHS & Madison, previously PathFinder & Sealth parent)

  • Laura January 4, 2012 (4:45 pm)

    What a stupid idea! There are unused classrooms around West Seattle in our current elementary schools. There are classrooms being used for childcare – through outside agencies, and for preschool programs that could be moved to portables or to the Boren Site. To pay to open a new elementary program, to hire administration, office staff, and custodians, and electricity, and all the rest that comes with opening a new school… ridiculous! We just closed schools! Where are the priorities – how does this decision reflect the needs and current resource level of SPS. UGH! I’m disgusted! I think parents should simply protest and NOT enroll! We need solid leadership that has COMMON sense! Like we have the money to bus students from around West Seattle to another magnet school – GET REAL!

  • seattle parent January 4, 2012 (5:00 pm)

    Woohoo! Can’t wait to see how this STEM school will look! We definitely need more than a few classes (above) and being able to choose a school rather than be forced by boundary changes will be just what some of us need. There is so much evidence that this could develop into a great program that WS parents have been asking for.

  • Delridge mom January 4, 2012 (5:39 pm)

    I don’t know whether to laugh or cry when I read uninformed comments like yours “a parent”. I have lived here in North Delridge for 11 years and it is a great place to live. There is a lot to be said for the neighborhood including acres of beautiful greenspace, central location and affordability of housing. I am proud to live here and be raising my kids here.

    It is funny because in the past it was the high school kids smoking in the alleys and parks who made more trouble than the people in the neighborhood. I encountered a number of kids out on the trails smoking when Sealth was at Boren.

    Setting up a new school in 6 months seems like a very ambitious plan to me, but hopefully some planning work has already been underway. I think there is a need for an additional option school based on waitlists at other schools and it will be less upheaval and just as much work as opening a new neighborhood school.

  • Pam January 4, 2012 (7:45 pm)

    3 million to fix up Boren? It was just fine when Sealth was there and it has been empty ever since? Who does the budget for this stuff, Id like to be on the receiving end!
    It does have a nice big green space to play on! My son loved Boren for his freshman year at Sealth and says he misses it every time we drive by!

  • Eric B January 4, 2012 (8:43 pm)

    Unfortunately, there are several real problems with this plan. 1) the schools that are really over-crowded are less likely to have families choose to send their kids to the new Boren school. Instead, it will pull kids from weak programs that have finally managed to get enrollments up because parents no longer have a choice. Pam, your teenage son may have liked Boren, but a parent is dead-on – and those s/he didn’t even mention the exterior doors that lead right onto a busy street (perfect for a bolting kinder-gardener) or the many other safety issues. Boren is not an elementary school. It also is a very expensive school to operate with very high utility costs and a large maintenance backlog. And then there are the busing costs…

  • Melissa Westbrook January 4, 2012 (9:24 pm)

    “There are classrooms being used for childcare – through outside agencies, and for preschool programs that could be moved to portables or to the Boren Site.”

    I’ll point out that portables can’t be used for pre-schools without bathrooms (and the district can’t afford to buy portables with bathrooms).

    I note that several Sealth staff/parents complained about lack of space at Sealth at the Board meeting and said that they told the district when the remodel was going on that the district was not adding space but actually taking it away. Wait a minute, the community is right…again? Go figure.

    The news that I came away with is that the BEX IV renovation levy is going to have a BIG impact on boundary changes. I believe that once the list is approved, parents can start looking at how those choices could impact schools near them. If BEX IV passes, then you can really start thinking about boundary changes because what school gets what additional space will greatly influence who goes where.

  • Brontosaurus January 4, 2012 (9:27 pm)

    My son starts kindergarten in September. The question I would raise about the STEM school is: isn’t this way too early to start specializing in certain subjects? Sure, my kid is crazy about cars, trains, volcanoes and bugs right now. I would guess that’s he’s more of a science guy than an arts guy, but I don’t want to pigeon-hole him too soon or steer him in any one particular direction. I’m sure they’ll have arts at the STEM school too but, at age 5, I want him to experience arts and sciences equally. This sounds like a great idea for a middle school but I think it’s too soon for elementary kids.

    • WSB January 4, 2012 (9:34 pm)

      At the board meeting… The STEM is not going over well. Marty McLaren will propose an amendment to cancel that and focus planning on future neighborhood school. Story to come.

  • MB January 5, 2012 (7:52 am)

    Thank you Delridge Mom. I grew up in this neighborhood and (GASP!) spent 1st – 5th grade in the Boren building when it was Cooper and we did perfectly fine. If anything, the OLD Cooper building (now Youngstown) felt huge to me as a kid. As I said in a previous thread, no adults in my life were telling me the building was too big, so I barely noticed. And I made it out alive…don’t recall any of us booking for the street. I also survived scary Denny and Sealth. I even thrived…and not in spite of my neighborhood, but because of it. Then I went to college and became a fully functional and successful adult along with many of my peers. And all while living one street off of Delridge. Sure, the neighborhood isn’t perfect, but I had a fantastic childhood and fantastic teachers and am proud of where my neighborhood is headed.

  • Olliesdad January 5, 2012 (9:51 am)

    So the Boren building was fine when the Cooper kids were there in the late ’90s, waiting for the district to build them a school, a nice new building that was promised to them and then stolen from them, but suddenly, it is not an approptiate building for an elementary school now? Seriously. The District should have put Pathfinder in there all along. Thay started out there. Kudos to Steve Sundquist for creating this mess that will take the next 10 years to clean up. I want to beat my head against something every time I hear this mess. The Cooper kids have paid enough for the District’s discriminations, hubris, lies, and incompetence. This is just looking like a BAD reality show, folks, with no end in sight…

  • WorldCitizen January 5, 2012 (11:00 am)

    Whatever happened to Fairmount Elementary? It’s pretty centrally located, right? And it was already set up for the little ones I thought…

    • WSB January 5, 2012 (11:14 am)

      To recap some of the information in previous reports … Fairmount Park and Genesee Hill both would require a ton more work and money to reopen, according to the district. While they have discussed Fairmount Park as a possible candidate, so far Genesee has been discussed more as a candidate for a site for a new school (as has the site where the old Denny Middle School was torn down last summer – that has been mentioned as a future elementary site going all the way back to the “design team” process we covered more than three years ago). – TR

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