By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

Tomorrow night, West Seattle’s representative on the Seattle Public Schools board, Marty McLaren, convenes her second community-conversation meeting since the start of the new school year. And the topics are expected to include Gatewood Elementary parents’ unusual campaign to raise enough money to keep a teacher.

We first reported on the situation Thursday; because of enrollment numbers that differed from projections, the district said it planned to reduce the teaching staff at Gatewood by one, moving a teacher to newly reopened Fairmount Park Elementary. At both schools, parents say, the result would include moving students around in multiple classes.

Gatewood parents say that circumstances at their school, including its programs with full inclusion for Emotional/Behavioral Disorder students, mean they cannot afford the disruption of losing a teacher now:

Parent Jena explains, “Gatewood’s educational model supports full inclusion for these children dispersed throughout our school in each grade level. ‘Emotional or behavioral disorders’ means an established pattern of emotional or behavioral responses like withdrawal or anxiety, depression, problems with mood, disordered thought processes with unusual behavior patterns and atypical communication styles; or in some cases aggression, hyperactivity, or impulsivity. All of our kids at Gatewood deserve the comfort of their current classrooms but these children are particularly reactive to change and need lower class sizes and stability even more.”

Saying the district told the school it would take $90,000 – in less than a week – to keep the school from losing a teacher, they launched a fundraising drive, including a bake sale on Saturday.

At midday today, after we asked for an update, two of the organizers told us they were more than halfway there:

Seattle Public Schools needs to do better by our students, teachers and administrators. The three parents who thought of the Friends of Gatewood direct drive are parents like so many of you in our district. Our relationship with Gatewood, which has strengthened over the 10+ years looks like this: advocating for our students (at local, city and state levels), volunteering as PTA Board Officers, supporting the other awesome West Seattle Public School PTSA’s, and nurturing the mission that great things happen when kids have a safe, proactive and collaborative school. After last year’s over capacity enrollment nightmare, we started the 2014-15 year with a more beneficial outcome in student enrollment. We are passionate and determined to not let the education of our students be interrupted by the SPS’s latest decision. Gatewood started with 18 classroom teachers, and we want to keep the same 18 teachers. We want every Gatewood administrator, teacher, interventionist, EBD specialist, ELL teacher, librarian and Everybody Teacher that comes to work every day to teach our children. Fairmount Park Elementary requires another teacher. They need our region’s support, too.

And after tallying the proceeds from over the weekend, we are getting closer! We are 55% there at $50,000. Keep those donations coming. Make checks out to Friends of Gatewood and get it to the Chase Bank at Thriftway in West Seattle. Our sincerest thanks to this motivated community for getting us this far. Class and staffing disruption is not going to happen, not if we have something to say about.

Moving forward,
On behalf of Friends of Gatewood
Natasha Hissong and Nicole Sipila

The parents who have banded together as “Friends of Gatewood” are hoping for an extension. That’s what McLaren told us she’s been trying to find out about too. But by multiple accounts, no one had received an official district reply by day’s end. McLaren says she hopes to hear something by her 6 pm drop-in community meeting Tuesday night (West Seattle Branch Library, 2306 42nd SW).