Alki Elementary currently has 265 students enrolled, but will be moving into a brand-new building this fall with a capacity for almost twice that many. Now the district is proposing making Alki Elementary a regional headquarters for a program that could significantly boost its enrollment. At last week’s School Board meeting, a briefing on the district’s Highly Capable (gifted) program included the announcement that Alki Elementary is proposed as a new Southwest Region site for the “cohort pathway” format of HC learning, along with Rainier View Elementary for the Southeast Region.

Right now, HC-identified students from those regions have to go to Thurgood Marshall Elementary to access a “cohort pathway” – self-contained classes offered there and at only two other SPS elementaries. So how many more students could that mean for Alki? Last week’s briefing projected that the Southwest Region will have 266 second through fifth graders identified as HC next school year:

Next school year is when the new Alki Elementary will open. Meantime, the proposal to make it and Rainier View sites for the HC program will be part of a proposal the board is scheduled to vote on February 11. (The full slide deck from the board meeting, which also touched on the feedback collected in community meetings around the district, is here. And thanks for the tips on this!)