35 Replies to "VIDEO: Seattle Public Schools proposes making new Alki Elementary regional site for Highly Capable program"

• Conjunction Junction January 27, 2026 (6:08 am)

  Unfortunately, siting the program at Alki means that it will be the furthest possible school from our marginalized students.  I appreciate the capacity and draw reasons, but it will be hard to serve students from the SE of West Seattle.   At the bare minimum, there will have to be a bus commitment.  I hope folks will advocate for a clear, flexible, creative, and ever widening program to identify all demographics of students for this program. Also, unfortunately, it looks like the link for the slide deck requires SPS credentials. 

  • Kyle January 27, 2026 (9:00 am)

    Apparently Highland Park was the other West Seattle school under consideration.

    • GH January 27, 2026 (11:38 am)

      So the only possible options are schools at the extreme edges of West Seattle.  Lunacy. 

      • Lauren January 27, 2026 (5:44 pm)

        Genuinely not trying to be difficult, but curious: why do you view Highland Park as at “extreme” end of West Seattle? To my mind, it’s almost smack dab in the middle. 

        • K January 27, 2026 (6:57 pm)

          It’s not, it’s walking distance to the southern border of West Seattle and less than a dozen blocks from the freeway, which is the eastern boundary of West Seattle.  Fairmount Park is probably the closest to the geographic center.

  • GH January 27, 2026 (11:10 am)

    Exactly. This is the worst possible site in West Seattle for a magnet program. It is isolated from much of the community both by distance and by challenging geography. There are very few busses to Alki, and the school is situated on very narrow residential streets.

    • dwg January 28, 2026 (7:46 am)

      Yes, but, it’s where West Seattle’s wealthiest live, so for SPS it was a no-brainer. 

  • Frog January 27, 2026 (12:19 pm)

    People have been scratching their heads and wondering out loud why SPS chose to build such a large school at the Alki site, much too big for the size of the lot, and for the size of the nearby student population.  It seems that Plan A was to close Lafayette, and transfer a big chunk of those students to Alki, but that was shot down by public opposition.  I don’t think they had a Plan B originally, but the sudden revival of the HC cohort concept (which was being completely phased out as of just two years ago), gave them a Plan B.  If not the HC cohort, how else would they fill the school, and how would it be any less ridiculous in terms of logistics?  P.S. SPS administrators and teachers don’t actually encourage or want students to choose a cohort option.  They especially don’t want the best, easiest students drawn away from higher poverty schools.  So putting the program at Alki makes a certain sense.

    • GH January 27, 2026 (12:42 pm)

      Our kid has been encouraged by teachers to join the HC cohort, and we haven’t up to this point due to the travel requirements. We would seriously consider it if at Alki despite my griping about the location. It is way better than the existing options for WS students.

      Also, I think teachers have higher motivations that holding on to “easy” students, and FWIW a lot of HC qualified students aren’t “easy”, many are “2e” students who lack serious behavior issues, but can be a handful in other ways.

      • Frog January 29, 2026 (11:24 am)

        I don’t.  A lot of mythology and romantic views circulate among desk-chair experts about teaching now days, but in reality, most teachers have the following hierarchy of motivations:  1) get through another week; 2) get through another year;  3) get as many students as possible up to a 3 on the SBA; and 4) generally avoid being a target of the principal or other higher-ups.  A few star teachers may have the human capacity for additional motivations, but only a few.

  • dwg January 27, 2026 (12:32 pm)

    Agree 100%. Disappointing, but not surprising to see the wealthiest get the best access to quality education. 

  • IDC9 January 27, 2026 (4:49 pm)

    A bus commitment will be a tough sell in this era of budget cuts and limited staffing, but it will be a necessary move to make if SPS is truly committed to serving HCS students from all corners of the city.

    • RA February 12, 2026 (9:18 am)

      Any kid further than one mile from the school gets bus service. Right now, all of the kids in West Seattle who are highly capable who want to go to a cohort have to go to Thurgood Marshall, and they get a bus. But the bus ride is 80 minutes for kids from Alki. This was enough to discourage us. I didn’t want my six-year-old on a bus for almost 3 hours a day getting to and from school across the city. So she missed out on four years of basic education, and now she’ll finally get the opportunity for fifth grade. It’s a shame.A bus ride from the furthest point away in West Seattle to Alki is going to be significantly faster and easier than the current situation. No, it’s not the most central location that it could have been, but it is so much better than the current situation. It is a move in the right direction.

  • Molly January 28, 2026 (2:05 pm)

    Currently there is only bussing offered for students in SW for HC services. My student has a 1 hour bus ride in the morning and 1 hour in afternoon to access his HC services.I had said that if we were going to do like for like, it would have made sense for them to put HC at WS Elementary, but I understand why they would choose a new school to put the program at. It’s not going to be convenient for everyone, but this is a heck of a lot more convenient for us than TME. 

  • Molly January 28, 2026 (2:09 pm)

    Also want to note – any student that tests into pathway schools like HC cohorts, I believe, are provided bussing if they are over 1 mile from the location of the school. That is why all of WS students are given busing to Thurgood currently. 

• Keenan January 27, 2026 (8:24 am)

  Public schools in Seattle need a gifted and talented program where students serious about learning can meet their potential without being distracted by disruptive classmates that completely wreak the classroom environment and monopolize teacher attention.

  My ex-wife is an elementary school teacher and it’s the same story every year.  25 great kids and between 1-3 bad kids that she had stories about every day who just ruin it for everyone.  Those bad kids should be isolated, not integrated.

  The fact that SPS has totally ignored gifted and talented in recent years is confirmed by exploding private school enrollment and falling public school enrollment.  Parents can and will yank their children out of the public school system entirely, which is bad for everyone in the long run.  Public schools should focus on the 95% of children who want to be there and manage the 5% as best they can, separate from normal kids.  And give the top 10% their own gifted and talented program so SPS doesn’t lose our brightest and best to private schools.

  • Jake January 27, 2026 (10:52 am)

    In the past these programs were for super privileged kids, and not equal across class demographics. It must fix that first. 

  • k January 27, 2026 (11:13 am)

    Wow, Keenan.  Why don’t we just send the “bad ones” off to jail, or some youth reeducation camp, since you don’t seem to believe they should be part of society at all.  Most kids with behavior issues have unaddressed needs.  Hopefully it isn’t your ex-wife advocating segregating kids after she failed to meet their needs, and it’s just you who came up with such an awful solution. 

    Kids with undiagnosed learning disabilities, or ones who have a diagnosis and whose IEP is being ignore, those kids have behaviors.  Kids who experience violence, abuse, and trauma at home, those kids have behaviors.  Shame on you for saying those kids should be further isolated, for having very normal responses to the failures of the adults in their lives.

    • IDC9 January 27, 2026 (4:54 pm)

      The only justifications for further isolating these students are to protect the safety and wellbeing of the other students, and to give these troubled students the dedicated focus, attention, and resources they need to become stable and successful enough to eventually be able to return to traditional classrooms.

  • Belvidear January 27, 2026 (11:21 am)

    “bad kids”, “normal kids” – Sounds like you need to focus on your own education. 

  • Teacher January 27, 2026 (6:32 pm)

    There are no bad kids. There are kids who struggle, kids who have emotional dysregulation, kids who need extra academic support, kids with behavioral issues. Some kids are definitely more challenging to teach and require more patience, that is for sure.But if we label our children as bad, then there’s no sense in offering them compassion because they’re just bad kids, right? I don’t buy into it. Every kid is deserving of a teacher who sees them as someone full of potential and helps them to meet that potential. Labeling them as bad kids is the opposite of that.

    • Delridge Engineer January 27, 2026 (8:32 pm)

      Fact: My wife is a teacher, her story is that same. A few disruptive kids can ruin a class. Opinion: I think there should be a gifted program.  

    • Catdog January 28, 2026 (11:54 am)

      Why did the teacher at Fairmount tell parents that because a handful of students in class can’t read at grade level therefore focus will be on the squeaky wheels? Help me understand how teaching to an average helps above average students (the majority)?

    • Keenan January 29, 2026 (8:19 am)

      Label or don’t label the disruptive kids however you want.  The fact is that there are a couple of them in every class who make it impossible to complete the mission of a school – to educate society’s children.  A single teacher cannot tend to 2 or 3 “special needs” children all day while still running a functional classroom for the other 25.  Sure, those kids deserve attention and resources and an education.  But not at the expense of the majority.  Resources should be divided equally among all students.  The 25 well behaved children deserve the full attention of a teacher and a calm, generative learning environment.

• Allison January 27, 2026 (9:34 am)

  The full slide deck is behind an SPS firewall

  • WSB January 27, 2026 (11:34 am)

    I got it from the agenda. Tried to download it so I could reupload it for posterity but couldn’t. Will look for another path.

• SPS parent January 27, 2026 (10:42 am)

  This is great news for WS! There are a lot of kids who have been identified for HC services but don’t get them because the trek to Thurgood Marshall over in Judkins Park is just too daunting. I bet this move draws a lot of students from Westside and other private schools back into SPS. The district gets a lot of flak, much of it deserved, but let’s give credit where credit is due.  (Also, that fact that 14.9% of elementary students were identified for HC services shows how strong the SPS student body is. It’s not all basket cases as some commenters suggest. To get in generally requires scores in the 95th percentile or higher in both math and reading on standardized tests.) 

• Buffalo66 January 27, 2026 (12:32 pm)

  This is fantastic news for West Seattle families. Having a regional HC site at Alki Elementary means our students can receive the specialized instruction they need without the long commute across the bridge. It keeps our kids in their own community and makes the program much more accessible for Southwest Region families. I really hope the board approves this on Feb 11!

• Familee January 27, 2026 (12:35 pm)

  With the new Alki Elementary building opening this fall, this is the perfect time to maximize that beautiful new space. It makes so much sense to utilize Alki’s expanded capacity as a regional hub. Bringing the HC cohort here will breathe even more life into the school and ensure we’re making the most of the district’s investment in our neighborhood.

• Carlos January 27, 2026 (12:40 pm)

  Thrilled to see this proposal. Alki is a wonderful school, and making it a regional site for the HC cohort pathway is a smart move for West Seattle families. Looking forward to seeing this move forward in February. For too long, families in the Southwest Region have had to travel far for these services. Making Alki a regional site is a win for the students, the neighborhood, and the district’s commitment to meeting kids where they are.

• Admiral2009 January 27, 2026 (5:12 pm)

  Keenan is correct, I read a study from School Districts in the south that remove disruptive students from the classroom that resulted in significant improvement in outcomes for the remaining students.  One bad apple  can ruin the whole box.

  Before lamenting about the disruptive kids, I was one of them and spent time standing in the hallway hoping not to be seen by the Principal!  I learned my lesson by middle school and made it through College.  

• Seattle Schools Parent January 27, 2026 (10:25 pm)

  This is fantastic news for West Seattle! For more than half a decade, elementary children in WS who qualify for highly capable (HC) services have either been completely neglected by SPS or made to trek hours to and from a cohort at Thurgood Marshall which often in turn limited their abilities to make friends in their own neighborhood or participate in after school activities. Neighborhood schools have also not been given the tools or training to support these bright and eager learners, often leaving many families with no choice but to head to private schools, in turn increasing the districts budget deficit all the more. Sadly, if a WS neighborhood school did offer any sort of minimal HC academic support, it was typically supported financially by PTA funding, making it all the more unlikely the HC children furthest from educational justice would ever receive adequate academic rigor. An HC cohort in WS gives many more HC students the opportunity to access a curriculum level that challenges them and engages them. Thank you SPS for finally considering South Seattle!

• Admiral2009 January 28, 2026 (7:50 am)

  Keenan – agreed!

• Teacher January 29, 2026 (4:26 pm)

  Staff at Alki were told hours before it was brought to the school board. It’s all smoke and mirrors. This program has no way to be like the TME program right away. It will need to be an integrated model with gen ed, HC and  Sped students all together in classes. Already needing to learn a new building, new curriculum and no discussions. It’s  a lot put onto  the shoulders of the Alki staff. I wish the new Superintendent would learn about things before the upheaval of schools and programs. 

  • School Board Watcher February 2, 2026 (4:35 pm)

    The new Supt. had no hand in this decision, and is likely unaware that it was sprung on Alki staff. This is a continuation of SPS’ rush to make decisions before fully planning, engaging educators and community, and then presenting a fully formed plan to the Board for approval. The culture of SPS that allows uninformed decisions to go forward without intense scrutiny is a what has to change- and what the new Supt. was hired to do. With an understanding that SPS also has a culture of silencing, siloing, and retaliating against those that question leadership- especially staff- I encourage you to share your concerns with Supt. Shuldiner. It will take bravery, but it is the only way to make change.

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