West Seattle schools: $475 million levy, schedule changes, assignment-plan changes at next School Board meeting

When the School Board meets next Wednesday, for the last time before its four new members – including West Seattleite Leslie Harris – are sworn in, the agenda includes three topics we’ve been watching. We’re previewing it tonight because if you want to speak during the public-comment period, you have to sign up by phone or e-mail first thing tomorrow morning, and spaces often go fast.

SCHEDULE CHANGES: Earlier this month, the board delayed action on changing “bell times” (start/end schedules) until the November 18th meeting. Here’s the final proposal. The 9:35 am start times for Lafayette Elementary and Louisa Boren K-5 STEM, as part of “Tier 3,” are still in the plan, despite some opposition.

$475 MILLION BTA IV LEVY FOR FEBRUARY: On February 9th, the district will have two levies on the ballot (here’s our coverage of the September public meeting about both). The first one, the Operations Levy, which provides a fourth of the district’s budget, has already received board approval. On Wednesday, the final draft of the Buildings, Technology, Academics/Athletics Levy, aka BTA IV, will go to the board – $475 million, up from $270 million for the last version of the same levy. Here are the West Seattle specifics:

*$6.7 million for EC Hughes upgrades to enable it to reopen as a 550-student elementary school (to which, the district has said, it will move the Roxhill Elementary program)
*5.4 million for Gatewood Elementary, most of that for HVAC, also some $ for cladding work
*1.8 million for athletic-field lights at Southwest Athletic Complex (ID’d in the documents as Chief Sealth IHS, which is across the street)
*$1.5 million for the roof at West Seattle HS
*94,000 for doors at Sanislo Elementary

ASSIGNMENT PLAN: The changes made at the last minute before what was to be a vote earlier this month – including the abolition of the summer/fall waitlist and the “distance” tiebreaker – will be brought back for a vote.

IF YOU WANT TO GET ON THE PUBLIC-COMMENT LIST for Wednesday’s meeting, here are the rules. In short, starting at 8 am tomorrow, here’s what to do:

To sign up for public testimony, members of the public should e-mail boardagenda@seattleschools.org or call 206-252-0040 and give their legal name, telephone number, e-mail address, and the topic they would like to address.

AmandaKH November 15, 2015 (9:10 pm)

How can West Seattle only get $15.5 million out of $475 MILLION from this levy? That’s a bit over 3%. West Seattle, 1/7th of the City’s population…. How did the EC Hughes project go from $22M to $6.7? Something stinks.

WSB November 15, 2015 (9:30 pm)

These are just of the named projects – unless you already have done the math, I don’t know that they all add up to to $475 million – the full list of what all the $ goes for is in the link. I believe some of it is districtwide money that includes schools here too.

Catherine November 15, 2015 (10:25 pm)

Since our upcoming city council representatives do have responsibilities for school facilities (check the comp plan), where are they in this?

AmandaKH November 15, 2015 (10:54 pm)

I don’t say this often… but I would be Thrilled if someone proved me wrong here.

Schools November 16, 2015 (6:30 am)

I think you should read the full text of where the money is going. It makes sense that older schools need more of these upgrades than, say Denny/Sealth, which was just remodeled a few years ago.
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Not every school levy is going to proportionately allocate monies by neighborhood or school. There will be some where West Seattle schools get proportionately more and some where they get less. It just depends on who needs the money the most at the time. It doesn’t really make a lot of sense to do things otherwise.

LS November 16, 2015 (8:32 am)

And it looks like our lame duck board also gets to vote on a $13,000 salary increase to Supt. Nyland’s already $276,075 annual salary. That doesn’t include his cell phone, computer, car expense or retirement extras. To see how our teachers struggle, what’s wrong with this picture?

bus money? November 16, 2015 (11:03 am)

Two separate levies, just one of them alone is 475 million, yet we can’t find 3 million for more busing to get rid of the ridiculous Tier 3 start times for Lafayette and other elem schools?

So hundreds of working parents have to arrange both before and after school care, because we need the money for athletic fields.

Nick November 16, 2015 (3:07 pm)

No kidding 2 separate levies and we still are having this dumb 3 tier start. I have a kid in Seattle schools but I can’t give more money with these out of touch bureaucrats in charge. The guy is making more than the governor running the district cutting his pay and allowances would get us closer to having fair start times

Lafayette Dad November 16, 2015 (5:29 pm)

Wow, so despite all the opposition to pushing back the already ridiculously late start times for Lafayette back even further, these tone deaf morons ignore the needs of working parents and go ahead with later times anyway. What a bunch of bozos! Yeah, no problem working parents, you can get before-school and after-school care for your kids just because we arbitrarily decide to have Lafayette start at 9:35am when all the other WS elementary schools start at 8am. I guess it is easy to ignore parents’ complaints when you have your head shoved so far up your a** that you can’t hear anything.

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