West Seattle, Washington
06 Monday
In our ongoing quest to publish as much information and as many perspectives as possible on the Denny/Sealth project, as a final decision gets closer, we had wondered here why supporters didn’t seem to be speaking out publicly. Tonight, in comments on this post below, a Denny teacher supporting the co-located campus has spoken out – the school’s music director – and especially considering not everyone reads the comment sections, we wanted to highlight it here:
Over the past year that I have had the opportunity to work on the BEX committee, I have had numerous talks with Mr. Clark, the Denny principal regarding this project and the ongoing debate surrounding it. I know for a fact that Mr. Clark supports option 2, the “adjoined†campus, because he sincerely believes option 2 is what is best for kids. (I posted his letter on this subject in my previous comment and I have the attachment if anyone would like it forwarded to them).
Having listened to everything for the past year and having consistently participated on the BEX committee, I tend to agree that an adjoined campus is in the best interest of our students. I say adjoined and not combined because I believe that “adjoined†is a more accurate description of what has actually been proposed and I have spoken to a lot of kids (and some adults) who have misconceived notions about what was actually proposed. The only “combined†part of the campus, where the students would be regularly encountering one another, is our music department, which is largely combined already with students from Denny going to Sealth for orchestra and choir, and Sealth students coming up to Denny for steel drums.
In a recent survey of the Denny staff (January 30, 2008) 63% of the Denny staff supported or somewhat supported what is being referred to as Option 2, the adjoined campus. 22% were supportive or somewhat supportive of separate campuses, with the remaining 15% checking a box marked neutral. The Denny homeroom representatives, in their most recent meeting saw the district’s budget comparison of Options 2 and 3, including the list of upgrades to be performed to Sealth under the two plans, and saw the drawings that have been done so far of the adjoined campus. They listened to the input of their student represenative to the BEX committee, and discussed the pros and cons of having the middle school next door to the high school. After much back and forth, the Denny homeroom representatives issued a unanimous statement in favor of the adjoined campus. They are working with the administration on plans for grade level assemblies to occur next week, to present the information to the Denny students as a whole and to do a survey to invite their input. I think this is particularly relevant because, although the vast majority of the high school students will never have to attend school in the adjoined campus, the middle school students are the ones who will ultimately have to live with whatever is decided. Although I am personally of the opinion that adults, not students, should be making decisions about what is best for kids, if we are going to consider student opinion, the middle school students support for the adjoined campus should be given special consideration and weight.
As for me personally, I support the adjoined campus because I believe it affords us with an opportunity to build a 6-12th grade “nest†around these students, to create the framework for collaboration and sequential instruction, to foster mentoring and tutoring programs between the two schools, to support the development of specialized programs for both middle and high school students, to support the maintenance of students’ relationships with positive adult figures from their middle school experience, and to work together as a community to address the real challenges faced by many of our students. While there are undoubtedly going to be challenges that come along with any change, it is clear that we need to do something to help the many kids who are falling through the gaps, for example students dropping out of school. To the extent that we can create continuity and a sense of community for these kids, it is a good thing.
One of the primary concerns I have heard expressed with this project has been a reported danger of mixing the student populations. Personally, I think the risks are being overblown. In all the pleas for evidence to support the academic benefits, has anyone presented any real evidence that bringing a middle school and a high school in close proximity will bring about the doomsday I hear so many predicting? I student taught at Chinook M.S. and Tyee H.S. in the Highline district (two schools separated by a parking lot), and I was never aware of any issues there. Is there any data to suggest that this has worked out disastrously in the many other places where this has been tried? Or, are we just assuming the worst of our students?
Personally, I would argue that adjoining these two campuses has the opportunity to actually improve the security situation as it will enable the teachers and administrators to make concrete plans for how to move students around safely, and will put directly in our face the mixing, that is already occurring, and that our two block distance has previously allowed us to ignore. Furthermore, my understanding is that as with any new project being completed now, we will have security cameras and access points with ID card readers.
Students live up or down to the expectations of the adults in their lives. If we believe in them, educate them, and demand that they live up to high behavioral standards, they will. If we are convinced they can’t, they won’t. Up until last year, Denny and Sealth students rode the same school busses to school every day with next to no incidents (and this was under the supervision of a bus driver who was watching the road). Today, the students still manage to commingle safely on the streets coming to and from school and in the after school hours at the community center and the Westwood Shopping Center.
The students at this adjoined campus will not be mixed. They will have separate schools and separate facilities, including a completely divided lunchroom facility. It is not a “combined†school, but two schools adjoined.
Having been on the design committee, I had the opportunity to travel with the group that went to New York and Boston. My observation from the visits at the schools in New York and Boston was that the kids we saw in those schools were excelling, despite the fact that those buildings were not designed with the 6-12 environment in mind. In those schools, middle and high school students shared a single building, sometimes with just a sign and a door separating high school classes from middle school ones. In at least two of the three schools we visited, over 90% of the graduating classes were accepted into colleges and universities, and none of the students I spoke to expressed any issues about having middle schoolers and high schoolers near each other. While I have heard my colleagues make the case that those are different kids and a different situation, I am convinced that our kids are every bit as good and as capable as the kids in New York, Boston and anywhere else. If kids in other schools can excel in the difficult environment of multiple ages in a single building, I know our kids can excel in a well-planned environment where they will not be sharing one building, but a large campus with separate facilities for middle and high school programs.
Thanks for taking the time to hear me out. I am convinced that as a community we can not only make this work, but we can ultimately realize all the potential benefits of better curriculum alignment, increased collaboration, improved programming, and greater continuity from middle school to high school. For these reasons, I strongly support Option 2.
Marcus J. Pimpleton
Music Director, Denny Middle School
Director, Seattle Schools All-City Band
Denny/Sealth Alumnus
Again, this originally appeared in the comment thread below this post, where the same author earlier posted a previously circulated letter from Denny’s principal Jeff Clark (a letter from Sealth principal John Boyd was circulated last week). WSB archives of Denny/Sealth coverage are here, including reminders about tomorrow night’s meeting @ CSHS.
Two days after we reported the story of “Mo” the Katrina-survivor dog getting seriously ill from suspected poison at Westcrest Park‘s off-leash area, at least two citywide media sources are picking up the story tonight, and Pasado’s Safe Haven — which rescued “Mo” from New Orleans and brought him here, where his “mom” Cammie Owen adopted him — is reported to be offering a reward, as some WSB readers hoped would happen. We are checking directly with PSH to be sure we have the facts straight, since at least one of the citywide reports so far seems to be confusing the Westcrest case with the Fauntleroy Park poison alert also circulated on Friday. But according to the e-mail forwarded to us, PSH will be posting artwork on its site for flyers to print out and post. Not there yet, but we’re keeping watch. Stand by for more. 11:40 PM UPDATE: Pasado’s Safe Haven tells us it’s working on the website update. Citywide coverage from tonight is here and here.
One day to go till what will be the school district’s last public meeting in West Seattle about the Denny/Sealth proposals before the school board vote later this month … though it’s not THE final public meeting — the Westwood Neighborhood Council is presenting a panel discussion on Feb. 12 (announcement here). If you missed it yesterday, here’s our post about the meeting (including the official district flyer), with a side note about the dearth of online information about the proposal. Meantime, there’s another perspective of note: We received via e-mail and postal mail copies of the January student newspaper from Chief Sealth, with a front-page article about opposition to the original proposal (known in the current discussion as “Option 1”). You can read it here; the headline and photo from “above the fold” over the article can be seen here. (In fairness, we should note that we don’t have copies of prior months’ papers so if there was a pro-project article, we can’t currently point you to that, but would be happy to upload it if we received one.) Back to tomorrow’s meeting: 6:30 pm, drawings & one-on-one conversation opportunities; 7 pm, public meeting begins, Chief Sealth High School Library. WEDNESDAY MORNING 2/6/08 ADDENDUM: School district legal counsel has asked WSB to remove the links to the images of the student newspaper article because of “factual inaccuracies” in the article, until a correction for those inaccuracies can be written up. We are declining the request, since the newspaper was published and circulated and that fact alone is newsworthy, but did want to note here for the record that the school district has made this request; as our lawyer told theirs, we will be more than happy to publish the correction text (and/or any other clarifying information) as soon as possible after they provide it to us.
That’s “Bruno” the recurring pothole (or should we call it a potpit?) at 35th/Alaska, as nicknamed (and photographed) by Casey Crowell, who e-mailed WSB with a complaint that sparked plenty of discussion after we featured it here two weeks ago. Casey’s contention: Sure, the city will come out and fix potholes, but they don’t fix them correctly, and the repeated repairs cause even more trouble, so why aren’t they fixed properly the first time? Now Casey has sent photos plus a response he just received from the city’s top transportation boss:Read More
While the “Painted Lady of Beach Drive,” aka the Satterlee House, remains listed for sale after a year and a half, city hearings are now scheduled for a proposal to build three homes on its sprawling front lawn. According to the city Hearing Examiner’s Office website, proceedings are scheduled to start March 5 with what the site describes as “testimony from David Satterlee on the appeal of William Conner from a Denial by the Landmarks Preservation Board for a certificate of approval for construction of 3 homes on property known as 4866 Beach Dr. SW.” (David Satterlee sold the property to William Conner in 2000.) The HEO site says March 10 and March 13 also are set aside for proceedings in the appeal. The short plat for the land was granted in May of last year; last word we had of Landmarks Board involvement was in July of last year. The house is one of a handful of officially designated landmarks in West Seattle (full list here).
Todd e-mailed to alert everyone that his car was broken into — “again” — tonight @ 21st/Roxbury. He asks, “When will these little brats learn that I keep NOTHING in that car?”
That’s Mo, a Chow mix who lives with Cammie Owen — after being rescued from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, plagued by mange but ready to thrive in a new home. You would think the hurricane would have been enough of an ordeal that this dog should have had smooth sailing ever since, but then came a sudden, life-threatening sickness:
That’s Mo just days ago, his belly shaved after an ultrasound, as vets tried frantically to figure out what was wrong with him. Cammie says they believe he ingested rat poison — and she suspects that happened at Westcrest Park, where she has put up warning flyers. And she says he’s not the only dog that runs there that’s gotten sick:Read More
We have been working today on a story about a dog that got very sick after running in Westcrest Off-Leash Area, and its vet and owner suspect rat poison may have been to blame. While we are continuing to work on those details for a longer article you will see here in a little while, we have just received what looks like a followup on the Fauntleroy Park poison concern we posted here two weeks ago. This was forwarded from the Partners for Animal Welfare newsletter, quoting another organization’s bulletin:
This notice just came in via Pasado Safe Haven’s e-mail newsletter the week of January 28th . In looking into this a little more on the web, unfortunately people may be trying to poison the many coyotes that have been spotted in the area, but your dog might very easily pick up the food or treats being left out. Please watch your dogs while at any park in West Seattle!
NEWS ALERT JUST PHONED IN:
Reported Poison in Fauntleroy Park, West SeattleIf you walk your dog in Fauntleroy Park, in West Seattle, please be warned; multiple dogs have ingested poison in the park! Apparently the poison is in dog food, bones, and other dog treats. These enticing treats have been found under bushes and throughout the park. Please be careful and let anyone you know who goes to Fauntleroy, know also. Thank you!
Just as we were reading that e-mail, we got a call back from the Parks Department employee we’d called about Westcrest, Carol Baker. She tells WSB the department is NOT aware of any NEW incident of suspected poison having been found in Fauntleroy Park since this report on Jan. 14. More later on that and also the Westcrest report (we have spoken with the owner of the dog in that incident, which is recovering, but in the short run, if you take your dog to that park, sounds like it would be a good idea to keep very close watch to keep it from ingesting anything).
Just a couple hours after the announcement (see below) of SDOT work at California/Othello tomorrow, we just got another alert from the city — regarding work on the Admiral medians (December photo above) tomorrow, and beyond, including a request for input on the median trees when work crews return a week later:Read More
Just out of the WSB inbox, from the city Transportation Department:
SDOT crews will replace concrete panels in California Avenue Southwest, between SW Othello Street and SW Orchard Street, tomorrow (Saturday, February 2), if weather permits. Work will start at 8 a.m.
Northbound and southbound traffic will be allowed through this block of California Avenue, alternating between the two directions of traffic with the assistance of a traffic flagger. The sidewalk on the western side of the street will remain open for pedestrians; crews will repair the sidewalk on the eastern side. SDOT will reopen all of the lanes of traffic once the concrete has cured, depending on weather conditions, no later than Sunday night.
The work is needed in order to restore the pavement following work on underground utilities.
This is in Gatewood, acrosss from Seattle International Church, about a block south of Caffe Ladro (map)
Quick update ahead of our police-report check at the Southwest Precinct later today — Lt. Steve Paulsen confirms the arrest of one juvenile in the Admiral rock-throwing incidents, as Meredith reported last night; he confirms they are still looking for the two other suspects but know who they are looking for.
Less than a week after West Seattle Christian Church (WSB sponsor) broke ground for its multipurpose building, the latest Land Use Information Bulletin from the city (subscribe here) includes the permit application for Our Lady of Guadalupe‘s new Parish Administrative Center. This will be built at the site of the existing offices, north of the parking lot (which is at the northeast corner of 35th/Myrtle; the green rectangle at the top right of the art shown above from the church’s online brochure). According to the OLG website, it’s part of a two-phase project, first building the administrative center, then a parish Family Life Center. (We reported the capital-campaign kickoff last March.)
Another local kids’ sports league starts registration today: the West Seattle Soccer Club‘s spring season. It’s open to players ages 5-12, and it’s a fairly low-impact commitment – games on Sunday afternoons, no practices, various fields around West Seattle; the season starts April 6 and runs for six weeks (no games on Mother’s Day) — $40 per player. You can register any time from now till March 1 by going to the West Seattle Soccer Club website (click here), where you will also find lots of news about the league — which has a fall season too (with almost 1,300 players last year!).
More than a year in the making, Spring Hill Restaurant and Bar in The Junction — west side of California, north of Oregon, next to Seattle Fish Company — is getting closer to opening. We got a bit of new info earlier :this month when Spring Hill advertised for a maitre d’; since then, its proprietor, Chef Mark Fuller, agreed to answer some quick questions by e-mail, such as whether his establishment will follow the recent adults-only trend in West Seattle and what kind of food it’ll serve:Read More
Just out of the inbox from Meredith:
Just seen at Grayson & Belvidere (just north of Admiral): Three police cars with one teen in custody (Caucasian, about 14-years-old). Chased down after caught throwing rocks at cars. Officer says this kid, plus two others have been reported in 20-30 incidents along the Admiral Way corridor (37th – 41st). Two kids still at large, reportedly around 14- to 15-years-old, one Hispanic, one with longish red hair. PLEASE alert drivers for their own safety, and ask residents to keep an eye out for these kids. Their actions could case an accident, perhaps a death for one of those b*****ds speeding up the hill. Kids are also suspect in the knifing of a neighbor’s tires, theft from vehicles in the area, and rocks thrown thru home windows.
The area and description are similar to the 1/11/08 reader report we published on the Crime Watch page, involving a brick thrown through a front door, after three teenage boys were seen “cruising” the area.
23-year-old Rey Davis-Bell (photo left) has just been booked into the King County Jail within the last 40 minutes, according to the KCJ register, for investigation of homicide, assault, and drive-by shooting. Almost every citywide source that has posted about this has a different nugget – the Times has the most thorough information on his criminal background, for example. It’s been widely reported that the Longfellow Creek Apartments unit on Delridge where he allegedly fired shots through a window 
yesterday morning (photo from WSB contributor Sage K) is where his girlfriend lives; exactly what ties he had to the Central District restaurant where he is accused of opening fire half an hour later, killing the restaurant’s owner and wounding another man, is still not clear, though the owner’s niece is quoted as saying her uncle did “know” Davis-Bell somehow. The suspect was captured after a manhunt that is said to have involved more than 100 officers, many of them out on the streets all night.
As you may recall, the community-building organization Megawatt decided last month to disband, but its leaders were hopeful that its legacy, and its best-known events, would carry on, with new organizers. As just officially announced in Megawatt’s last e-mail bulletin, that’s going to happen:
Megawatt’s Legacy Lives On
Megawatt is thrilled to announce that the West Seattle Community Garage Sale Day and the Gathering of Neighbors will continue in 2008 and beyond under new leadership.
The West Seattle Blog is the new organizer of the West Seattle Community Garage Sale Day. Tracy Record and Patrick Sand have a lot of creative ideas for this beloved West Seattle event. Check out the West Seattle Blog at www.westseattleblog.com for ongoing updates.
The Delridge Neighborhoods Development Association will take on leadership for the Gathering of Neighbors. DNDA is a trusted West Seattle steward and under their guidance GON will continue as an inspired community event. Contact Derek Birnie at www.dnda.org for more information.
Megawatt is officially signing off. Thank you for making all of this important work possible.
Here’s to community. Here’s to West Seattle.
Congratulations to Megawatt founder Mary Ellen Cunningham, her board, and their colleagues for everything they’ve accomplished. And to DNDA for taking on Gathering of Neighbors, which is an awesome way to find out more about community resources and opportunities. And now, about those garage sales — We are thrilled that Mary Ellen and the Megawatt board decided to trust WSB with Community Garage Sale Day. It’s something that truly and literally all of West Seattle can be part of – as sellers and/or shoppers (and we’re hoping for some community partners in other roles too) – and something that also can draw people from other areas to come visit our fabulous peninsula. Plus, we can all talk a lot about it online before, during, and after. Megawatt created an instant tradition by launching this event in 2005, and we hope you will help make the 4th Annual West Seattle Community Garage Sale Day ’08 a ton of fun. If you were a seller or buyer last year, and you have a thought on what you hope won’t change and what you think would make it an optimal experience, please leave a comment here or e-mail us any time at a special mailbox we’ve set up: garagesale@westseattleblog.com. Oh, and mark your calendar – we want to continue the Megawatt tradition of scheduling this for the second Saturday in May – that’ll be May 10th, 2008! We’ll talk more about this soon, and we’ll set up a forum topic when it gets a little closer.
Sanislo Elementary has just made it onto the city Department of Transportation “Safe Routes to School” project list, two months after students appeared with council members discussing the Pedestrian Safety Initiative along Delridge (WSB video coverage here). Here’s the full announcement, just out of the WSB inbox, which also mentions the sidewalk work under way for the Arbor Heights Elementary area:Read More
Two things, actually. First is that we actually got a coyote PICTURE for the first time after all these coyote reports. Thanks to JF for sending the photo taken this week of his neighborhood’s “resident coyote.” Second thing, the Discovery Park coyote just got a reprieve. According to this article, instead of trapping/killing the coyote, authorities will work on educating the public to co-exist with wildlife.
So says KOMO (location shown on this map). However, as of now, the suspect is still on the loose (see his photo in our earlier coverage). 6:40 AM UPDATE: No arrest reported yet.
Now that the school district has set its Sealth-Denny community meeting for Monday 2/4 (flyer), the Westwood Neighborhood Council has moved its previously planned forum from 2/5 to 2/12 (the night before the School Board considers whatever becomes the district’s recommended option). Here’s the official news release just sent out by WNC president Steve Fischer:Read More
Heavy smoke reported from the first units arriving at 9724 32nd SW, which is described as a single-family house. Everybody is said to have gotten out OK.
UPDATE: Here’s two pictures from WSB contributor Christopher Boffoli who also writes,
“Fire was out by the time I got there. Firefighters on the scene told me there were no injuries and they have not yet determined the cause of the fire. Every window in the house was totally blacked out from smoke damage.”
Kind of expected this one, once this waterfront building at 3633 Beach Drive went up for sale last April, and now it’s official: City records confirm it’s converting to condos. Upgrade work is about to start, judging by one permit that’s just been issued (which lists the owners as Alki Eight Partners, LLC, possibly hinting at what the future condos might be called; property records show they bought the building last month for $3,350,000).
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