Thanks to the WSB’ers whose texts and calls brought news of this picketing at the Admiral Safeway construction site. You’ve seen similar protests at other project sites (we recall at least three in West Seattle in the past few years) – this time, it’s the Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters claiming site subcontractor Marquise Drywall is not paying “area standard” wages, according to their signs and according to what one of the protesters told WSB.

Then we found there was more to the story than the picketing itself: The drums, whistles, and bullhorns the protesters were using had drawn a different kind of protest: Lafayette Elementary, across the street, had called the police. Principal Virginia Turner explained they are not opposed to the protest – but the protesters had been using drums and other noisemakers, and that was disrupting classwork. Much louder than the ongoing construction work, she and office manager Connie Wicklund explained. While we were talking with them in the Lafayette office, SPD Officer Barnes came in to explain that the protesters had agreed to stop using the drums, but, he said, there wasn’t much more police could do than talk to them, which they had done. Turner said she had gone over to talk with the protesters too. If the drums started up again, the officer advised the school administrators, give them a call. (In our video, shot from the Lafayette side of the street, you will see and hear the protesters, minus the drums, and you also see the police who responded to the California/Lander corner.)

(WSHS’s three FCCLA medalists)
From Sarah Orton at West Seattle High School:

As you may or may not know, we have some FCCLA (Family, Career and Community Leaders of America) state winners among us in the West Seattle area!

Our West Seattle High School FCCLA chapter went to Wenatchee last Wednesday-Friday and were amazing.

Ms. Henry and I could not have asked for a better group of students; they were Irvette Taruc, Phi Huong, and Chris Nguyen who helped facilitate STAR (Students Taking Action with Recognition) Events and our chapter had three STAR Event competitors as well:

Silbee Sanchez and Phuc Nguyen competed in National Programs in Action and received a GOLD medal!!

Steven Nguyen competed in Job Interview and received the highest GOLD and will be representing Washington State at the NATIONAL FCCLA CONFERENCE in ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA this summer!!!

Steven is our first student to make it to Nationals for FCCLA and we are super proud and excited for this experience.

Please congratulate these students for a job well done, they represented West Seattle well.

Sarah Orton & Danielle Henry
Family and Consumer Science Department
West Seattle High School

From Lafayette Elementary‘s ‘Play It Forward’ playground-project team – a big decision for the playground upgrades at West Seattle’s most populous elementary school:

Here is the result of the Lafayette playground equipment vote. A Playground Equipment Selection Committee comprised of staff, faculty, parents and community members met to develop criteria for the “big toy.” They then sent out RFPs to all of the vendors approved by the Seattle School District.

Of the eight RFPs the committee received, three fit the criteria. After a vote at the community meeting, the students, parents, siblings, faculty and staff. Here is the winner!

Thank you to everyone who voted in our Big Toy Vote for the Lafayette Playground. By an overwhelming margin, Proposal “A” was selected with 365 votes, 48% of the total votes. Proposal B came in second with 290 votes, and C with 103. We’ll be breaking ground at the end of the school year and building the new playground over the summer break.

There’s still a lot of work to do before the kids can enjoy our new playground – money to raise, bricks to sell, volunteers to help prep and build the toy over the summer. We need you! Look for upcoming announcements about our community update meetings and volunteer opportunities. We also will be closing out our brick sales on May 13th – be sure to get your orders in before you miss out! Questions/Ideas/Wanna Help? Contact Holly at rhgrambihler@msn.com or Deborah at deborah@civicgroup.net

That’s not an audience for a concert, or a sports event, or a play – hundreds of people filled the seats at the Central Library downtown last night to watch students answer questions about books! With Roxhill Elementary, Sanislo Elementary, and Concord International teams among the 10 finalists in the citywide Global Reading Challenge, we had to go downtown last night to see what happened. Though none of the three – the Concord Orange Dragons, Roxhill Bulldogs and Sanislo Ice Dodos – scored high enough to be one of the two teams advancing to a championship match against Canadian teams (Bryant and Thurgood Marshall teams will do that, via video conference) with north-of-the-border teams, they all performed well. Concord’s team is at left in the next photo, with the Roxhill team at right (Sanislo was in the middle of the floor, out of our range):

Competing teams sat at tables on the auditorium floor and wrote down answers to multiple-choice questions about the books they had read for this year’s challenge (here’s the list of books), which in the beginning involved dozens of schools around the city; then finally after almost two hours, the scores were tallied, winners announced, cookies were enjoyed. (And hopefully, even without a “challenge” to live up to, more books!)

Three school updates tonight:

MADISON MIDDLE SCHOOL MUSIC UPDATE: From the WSB inbox:

The Madison Middle School band, under the direction of Clark Bathum, performed at the All-District Middle School Band Concert at Eckstein Middle School, Thursday, March 24. They played “Into the Storm” by Robert W. Smith and listened to 12 other band performances. Select Madison musicians performed “Trombone King” by Karl L. King with the All-District Honor Band. This was the largest number of middle-school bands performing at the All-District concert to-date. Go Bulldogs!

ARBOR HEIGHTS ELEMENTARY NOTE #1 – PLANT SALE! Thanks to Cori for sending word that the Arbor Heights Elementary School fundraising plant sale is under way. They’re taking orders through April 11; pickup will be April 30th. The plant list and order form can all be found at this link on the AH website. Another green tidbit:

Thanks to the AH parent volunteer who shared that photo of the school’s new Up-Cycling and Recycling Center. It’s the creation of second-grade teacher Angie Nall (shown with kindergartener Ella), described by our tipster as “the powerhouse behind the school’s composting and Up-Cycling programs,” several of which AH participates in. (There’s more about “up-cycling” here.)

We’ve been covering the story of Lafayette Elementary raising money – and matching a city grant – to improve the playground, which serves West Seattle’s most populous grade school. Today, students are voting on which “big toy” they would like to see on the improved playground; tonight during Lafayette’s Science Fair (6:30 pm) parents will get to vote. (Thanks to Lafayette parent “Luckie” for the photo and vote update – the project also has a website, here!)

Three notes this morning from the West Seattle High School PTSA: First, its monthly meeting is tonight, 7 pm, WSHS library. As the announcement puts it, the meeting is “a fantastic way to stay informed about what’s going on around the school.” Second, the WSHS PTSA also has announced a new website, meant to be “more user-friendly (with improved) navigation and content)” – find it at wshsptsa.org. One of the events you’ll find on the site is the PTSA-presented West Seattle 5K, coming up May 22nd (with WSB among the co-sponsors). If you haven’t already registered, you’re invited to a registration party this Sunday at West Seattle Runner (California/Charlestown), noon-4 pm – promising food, festivities, and prizes.

(Photo courtesy WSHS; from left, Latisha Evans, Kirby Davis, and Johnny Le)
West Seattle High School principal Ruth Medsker is beaming about her students who are just back from the Washington Restaurant Association‘s ProStart Invitational statewide competition in Spokane last weekend:

West Seattle High School’s culinary team ROCKED Pro Start State this year. Our team of three, won the “BEST ENTREE AWARD” out of seventeen competing teams from across Washington State. This is a proud accomplishment. Students received a $500 scholarship to The Art Institute of Seattle, a Certificate of Achievement and a chef’s knife along with the “BEST ENTREE AWARD” honor.

The WRA has photo galleries up for all the schools in the competition – here’s the Flickr gallery with their WSHS photos:

ADDED 3:32 PM: Teacher Sarah Orton has shared a news release with more information – including what the winners cooked! After the jump … Read More

Not that they don’t have a tough-enough leader in Marcus Pimpleton already, but … imagine the pressure of hitting the right notes when Darth Vader is wielding the baton! The Chief Sealth International High School Band had a surprise guest conductor for a few minutes during their mini-concert this morning at the Pacific Science Center grand opening of “Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination.” We reported on Thursday about the band’s downtown gig to celebrate the Science Center opening the doors for the first ticketholders to the new exhibit; after they played a medley of key themes from the entire “Star Wars” movie series, an entourage of familiar characters made their entrance, including Lord Vader. (They’re from the 501st Legion – explained here; right after the opening event with the Sealth band, they paraded over to the new exhibit, posing for photos – which their leader had explained is part of the deal in exchange for the costuming help they get from Lucasfilm!)

ADDED 2:04 PM: The band’s performance of the “Star Wars” medley, WITHOUT Darth Vader. That’s above; click ahead, and after the jump you will find the section of the encore that featured the Dark Lord of the Sith, plus a few more photos from this morning’s event:Read More