2 SEALTH EVENTS AHEAD – FILM FEST AND MULTICULTURAL NIGHT: Received a note tonight about an event at Sealth this week – a Community Film Fest of Digital Stories, “short environmental videos made by youth in the global leadership class,” at 6 pm this Thursday in the school’s Little Theater (2600 SW Thistle), everyone invited (here’s the official flyer). Meantime, the PTSA is reminding the community about the upcoming Multicultural Night at Sealth, 6:30 pm December 9th, including music, dance, and spoken-word performances by school groups; more details here.
LAFAYETTE ELEMENTARY PLAYGROUND PROJECT: The “Play It Forward” committee raising money to match a $100,000 city grant – with January deadline looming – has set a meeting for December 6 to provide a progress report, and is inviting community input on project design. The meeting’s at 6:30 pm in the Lafayette library (2645 California SW). (Here’s our recent story about the project and the quest to match the grant.)
Some of the news we share from local schools is quickly summarizable – a photo, a few words. This report is more verbose – because it’s about words. Just before what became this snow-extended Thanksgiving break (most students have been out since noontime Monday, if not earlier), West Seattle High School language-arts teacher Kira Hopkinsshared her news about WSHS and Writers in the Schools, working with her ninth-grade students. Here’s what WITS writer-in-residence Katie Ogle writes about her experiences so far – including a sample of student work:
Writers in the Schools at West Seattle High School
Writers in the Schools, a program of Seattle Arts and Lectures, employs local teaching artists to bring creative writing into King County public schools–and I, Katie Ogle, am delighted to be a 2010 writer-in-residence at West Seattle High School.
I visit Kira Hopkins’ four 9th-grade Language Arts classes each Friday. The early morning classes are usually still waking up and the afternoon classes are sprinting toward the imminent weekend, and yet they still are able to give me astute observations about published work I bring in to examine and push themselves to create stunning responses to my challenging writing prompts.
So far we are learning about the autonomy the writer has over language, the efficacy of literary devices, and how to develop honest, interesting poetry and writing. In keeping with Mrs. Hopkins’ course-theme, Identity, we have written self-portrait poems, odes to cherished objects, and poetic memoirs. I am so pleased to share one of many sharp and well-crafted poems that has come out of our short time together:
Click ahead to read that “well-crafted poem,” and a bit more from Katie Ogle:Read More
(Photos courtesy Bil Hood)
Congratulations to the Seattle Lutheran High School soccer team – they have won the state 2B/1B title, beating Napavine this afternoon in Sumner, 1-0. ADDED 4:32 PM: Photos courtesy of SLHS’s Bil Hood – including this one of longtime coach Jeff Norton with the trophy:
We talked with Coach Norton last month after his 200th career victory. He was the SLHS boys’ coach when that team (the girls’ team is the school’s only soccer team now) won the state championship in 1991. For SLHS athletics overall, this is the second state title this year – they took the 2B baseball championship in May (WSB coverage here).
ADDED 6:57 PM: More photos – courtesy of Bike Hugger, a West Seattle-based blog about bike culture; Angela Wissmar, the publisher’s daughter, played in the game:
Holiday bazaar/arts-crafts sale/open house season continues, as noted in our quick preview – and Schmitz Park Elementary is a big one to visit today, benefiting theSchmitz Park PTA. More warm hats for the cold weather ahead are part of what sale co-chair Anne Weglin, is selling (with her daughters assisting nearby, close to treats including $3 chocolate pretzels). She pointed out that the fourth-graders are raising money for an environmental campout – here’s Emma Kasameyer with mom Karen Kasameyer:
Their fundraising wares include Re-Usies, the increasingly famous reusable snack/sandwich bags invented by West Seattle moms (from nearby Lafayette Elementary). And don’t miss the raffle bags in the hallway – vendors donated items for those; raffle proceeds also benefit the PTA. The bazaar’s on till 3 today in the Schmitz Park cafetorium, 5000 SW Spokane. (P.S. Late addition to the list of all bazaars/open houses/etc. – JF Henry in The Junction is having one today/tomorrow too – we’ve added that to the list on the West Seattle Holidays page.)
Our cameraphone photo shows the end of the student demonstration along California SW Friday morning by West Seattle High School, where an upcoming schedule change has sparked some controversy. We first heard of it in this article from the new edition of the student newspaper The Chinook; then we got a text about the protest, which was ending just as we arrived. After reading and republishing (with permission) the schedule-change story, we sought out further comment from the union whose action was described as having sparked the change, Operating Engineers Local 609. Their business manager, David Westberg, returned our call Friday afternoon – here’s what he told us:
EDITOR’S NOTE: The West Seattle High School newspaper will be sharing student-produced stories on WSB from time to time. Their new edition is out – should be linked here by day’s end – and the top story is big news; we are checking out reader reports of a student protest this morning, related to this change. Here is the student-reported story as published in the newly released November edition of WSHS’s The Chinook.
By Simone Machmiller
Reporting for West Seattle High School’s newspaper, The Chinook
Special to West Seattle Blog
West Seattle High School is planning to once again change the schedule. This schedule is slated to go into effect in January and will be the sixth time the senior class has faced a new schedule in their four years as WSHS. The schedule change is planned in order to solve union disputes with [Operating Engineers] Local 609, the union the lunch workers are protected through, and will result in WSHS going to two lunches.
Principal Ruth Medsker came up with the idea of splitting the school into having two lunches and having each half take a lunch before fourth period or after fourth period. This is a big change for WSHS students who are used to going to lunch straight after fourth period all together. Now they’ll have to compromise and go to lunch with only the people with the same lunch period.
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” said junior, Emmie Riley. “There’s no problem with our lunch now so there’s no reason to change it.”
Although the principal is in favor of this new change, the students don’t really agree with her.
The Seattle Lutheran High Schoolsoccer team is one win away from the state finals. Tomorrow, they play Warden in Sumner, 4 pm – and if they win that game, it’s on to the championship. We talked with players Ashley Shaw, Emily Winter, Michala Watford, Jillian Smith and Danya Van Trojen, looking ahead to the big game:
This is the second year that Chief Sealth International High School put on a Seahawk Spirit Dinner/Auction fundraiser, but the first one since the school moved back to its renovated/upgraded permanent campus – and as you can see in our top photo, it all unfolded tonight in the sweeping space known as the Galleria. Its multiple levels allows for surprises to pop up during events – like the cheer squad:
Speakers included school-community leaders like principal John Boyd, PTSA president Amy Daly-Donovan, and school board member Steve Sundquist, but there was even more Sealth student power helping make it hall appen – including the ASB and Senior Class officers at the Dessert Dash table:
Students from Sealth’s acclaimed music program performed as well – the pep band and orchestra in the early going, the honor choir a bit later:
Tonight’s event was presented by the Chief Sealth PTSA, with support from the alumni group Friends of Sealth & Chief Sealth Performing Arts. It was also the occasion for presentation of Community Partner Awards to Friends of Sealth, El Centro de la Raza, and Campana Quetzal. We’ll update this story when the evening’s fundraising total is announced.
What they heard most loudly from the crowd of approximately 100 was that they needed to answer more questions before community members would be ready to offer suggestions.
Quick reminder before Tuesday gets here: Two big one-of-a-kind meetings are scheduled in West Seattle tomorrow night. At West Seattle High School, 6:30 pm tomorrow, the next phase of the Seattle Public Schools student-assignment plan transition is up for discussion, particularly potential tweaks to how it’s affecting local schools and students – this Power Point presentation updated by the district last week includes some of what’s under discussion for West Seattle, including:
*Realign feeder patterns
*Grandfather non-attendance area students at Denny on to Chief Sealth, and non-attendance area students at Madison on to West Seattle
*Ensure more than 10% Open Choice seats at both Chief Sealth and West Seattle
*Establish a “West Seattle Preference” so Open Choice seats go first to students in West Seattle
*Make Gatewood, West Seattle Elementary, and Sanislo dual feed with transportation
*Add ALO at Lafayette to meet needs of students who can’t get into Lafayette Spectrum
*Institute multi-year waiting lists for Spectrum
*Monitor enrollment balance for future consideration of additional school bus transportation for MS grades
Meantime, the Viaduct/Tunnel meeting is at Madison Middle School, 6-8 pm tomorrow, open-house style so you can drop in any time. In addition to obtaining information about the newly released Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement focusing on the tunnel’s potential effects, you can also officially comment – either by talking to a court reporter who’ll transcribe your comment for the record, or by typing into a computer that’ll be on site (if you have had trouble commenting some other way).
Today was the big day that West Seattle Montessori School (WSB sponsor) students got up close and personal (as previewed here 2 weeks ago) with two turkeys from a flock that’s about to gain nationwide fame: They’ll be officially pardoned by President Obama in the traditional pre-Thanksgiving White House event (a ceremony initiated by the first President Bush in 1989). The turkeys’ role here: Educating kids about agriculture.
West Seattle Montessori was the only Seattle-area school chosen for the turkey talk; it was held at Delridge Community Center since the WSMS campus didn’t have quite enough room for the entire student body plus the turkeys and their entourage.
The “presidential turkeys” – a flock of more than 20 Nicholas Strain toms – were raised by Foster Farms in the Central California town of Modesto. The touring turkeys are making a stop up north this afternoon, in Arlington, the other destination on their whirlwind Western Washington stopover. We’ll be adding video from their West Seattle visit a bit later.
The Chief Sealth Band is participating in KZOK’s Battle of the Bands competition, in which the winning high school band will receive a $10,000 grand prize. The first round of the judging is based on votes texted in from listeners. We are encouraging everyone to text their vote to help the Chief Sealth Band make it into the finals. Sealth is the only Seattle Public School participating in this year’s contest, so we are encouraging all Seattle residents to rally around this band. Much of the Chief Sealth Band’s inventory is also used by the Seattle All-City Band, so a win for Sealth is a win for All-City.
To support the Sealth Band, text “rock8” to 24300. The system will accept up to 10 votes from the same number per day, so please text ten times a day every day for the next month. Voting begins (this morning) and runs to December 15th. Following the first round of judging, a panel of judges will ultimately judge the video submissions on their musicianship to choose the winning band, but we need texted votes to make it into the final round of judging.
Videos of the high school bands participating [editor’s note, including the one we embedded above] are available online at therockwfp.com/category/botb-2011 and will begin appearing on Comcast on Demand next month.
Tomorrow (Sunday) from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM the 5th grade class of Our Lady of Guadalupe School will be serving one of their bi-annual free dinners to senior citizens. It will be in the school lunch room (34th Ave. SW Entrance). The 5th Graders have been hosting this event for years, and many area seniors look forward to the event. The dinner will be deliciously prepared by Petros Fotopoulos, OLG Parent & proprietor of Christos on Alki. West Seattle seniors are invited & encouraged to come by for a delicious dinner tomorrow (Sunday), served by the proud 5th grade class. There will be raffles & prizes as well. For more information, contact Eleni French (eleni@alki.net). The next dinner will be early 2011.
Haven’t been to OLG? 34th and Myrtle (just east of the water towers); here’s a map.
(L to R: Quentin “L.J.” Burns, Maia Jordan-Griffin, Michelle Steele, Justice Burwell, Sam Orlin, Brady Crane)
The first schoolwide Read-a-Thon is under way at Denny International Middle School – to raise money for books for Denny’s literacy program, and “to inspire reading among all Denny students,” according to Susan McLain, one of the organizers. And you can support them by using a special voucher at Barnes and Noble later this month (more on that in a moment). “Denny International Middle School needs books. We have a diverse population of kids who read in several different languages. We need books that are geared to each child’s reading level,” McLain explains. “We also need books that inspire kids to keep reading because the subject matter is interesting. Often, a child will pick up one book in a series, and then they are pulled into reading the entire series because the books are so compelling to them.”
(L to R: Sophie Strongman, Anne Jorgenson, Gavin Garcia Penor, Aisaya Corbray, Brady Crane, Nicole Roes, and Abdirisaq Diriye Abdi)
For the Read-a-Thon, Denny students are asking friends and family members for pledges, based on how many books or pages the students read up until December 3. You are also encouraged to shop at Barnes and Noble in Westwood Village on November 20 using the voucher found here, or you can use that same voucher number online between November 20 – November 27. Part of the proceeds from each purchase will benefit Denny International Middle School PTSA. And if you’d like to buy a book for Denny as part of this – here’s the wish list.
BENEFIT AUCTION NEXT WEEK: The second annual Seahawk Spirit Dinner and Auction is one week from tomorrow night – Thursday, November 18th. The 5:30 pm event will be preceded by guided tours of the school at 4:30 pm. It’ll be highlighted by presentation of the Community Partner Award to: Friends of Sealth (Chief Sealth’s alumni organization) & Sealth’s Latino Community Partners: El Centro de la Raza, Campana Quetzal, Consejo, Sea Mar and South Park Community Center. The dinner/auction is sponsored by Chief Sealth PTSA, Chief Sealth Performing Arts, and Friends of Sealth. Tickets are on sale and auction donations are still being accepted. Information for both is online here, or you can contact Dick Lee at rjlee@seattleschools.org.
GOLF TOURNAMENT: A new fundraiser for Chief Sealth athletics has just been announced – a first-ever golf tournament and dinner, set for Friday, June 3, 2011, at Rainier Golf & Country Club. Information regarding how to participate should become available soon.
FALL SPORTS WRAPUP: As celebrated at the CSIHS sports banquet last night, here are the highlights of the sports season just concluded, courtesy of athletic director Sam Reed:
The Seahawks’ 2010 Fall sports season was a very successful one, in that it saw solid team improvement, outstanding individual achievements and tremendous overall achievement both in the field of play and in the classroom. Overall 175 student-athletes donned helmets, knee pads, shin guards, running shoes or spikes and represented Chief Sealth International in Metro League competition.
Retired Brigadier Gen. Steve Ritchie, legendary as a pilot ace during the Vietnam War, is speaking at two local schools on this day before Veterans Day, and one appearance is open to the public. This morning, he’s at a Seattle Lutheran High School assembly; tonight, Holy Family Parish School invites the community to hear him speak to the Seattle Chapter of the Air Force Association and the Puget Sound Chapter of the United States Air Force Academy Association of Graduates. That appearance is at 7 pm, 9615 20th SW (map), no admission (though school donations accepted), but principal Frank Cantwell requests that you RSVP – fcantwell@hfseattle.org.
“I thought Veterans Day was just another day until July 23rd of this year,” you’ll hear Will Newlove tell Chief Sealth International High Schoolstudents in our clip. He spoke during their Veterans Day assembly today, as a tribute to his brother Petty Officer Jarod Newlove, also a Sealth graduate, missing in Afghanistan on that day in July. He tells the story of how they got the news, first that his brother was missing – then, that he was gone. Like his brother, as you might have deduced from the uniform, he is in the US Navy. Also at the assembly, Sealth singers performed the national anthem:
(The Sealth honor choir is raising money for a once-in-a-lifetime trip – separate story on that is in the works.) Also acknowledged during the assembly, five Sealth staffers who are veterans: assistant principal Lupe Barnes, a former Army ROTC 1st lieutenant; literature teacher James MacDonald, a U.S. Army veteran whose wide-ranging experience included Operation Silent Echo, which removed short-range nuclear weapons from Europe; former MP “Jimbo” Di Obilda, now working security; and two Marine Corps veterans, DuWayne Young and Mr. Jewels. A plaque honoring 15 Sealth graduates who lost their lives in combat was presented today as well.
The actual Veterans Day is this Thursday – and Seattle Public Schools, along with many others, are closed that day.
Big announcement from Westside School (WSB sponsor) today – as they had hoped would be possible once they moved into the former EC Hughes site in Sunrise Heights (here’s our coverage of the dedication 2 months ago), they’re expanding to add middle-school grades. It’ll be an incremental expansion – Westside will add 6th grade in fall 2011, then 7th grade in fall 2012, and as of fall 2013 will be fully preschool through 8th grade. The school says it’ll be organizing Middle School as a unique “rigorous, high-school-preparatory curriculum,” not just adding classes; we’re scheduled to talk with Head of School Jo Ann Yockey momentarily to find out more, and will add to this report later.
ADDED 2:11 PM: More details, as promised! For starters, there’ll be there is now a new section on the Westside website with middle-school details. As for what we learned in a conversation with Jo Ann Yockey, read on:Read More
“The epicenter of the achievement gap in Seattle.” If you watch that video clip from our partners at the Seattle Times, you will hear West Seattle Elementary fourth-grader teacher Chrissie Coxon use that phrase. In the start of a special series of Times stories, she discusses how they are working to close it – and her hopes for her students. The Times also reports that because of implementation of the mandated transformation plan for West Seattle Elementary, which must shake itself out of being one of the lowest-performing schools in the state, about half of last year’s teaching staff chose to leave. Find the Times’ first story here.
This weekend’s Lafayette Elementary Sports Swap – drop off donations/consignment till 3 pm today, shop and “swap” 9 am-3 pm Sunday (flyer here) – is the current fundraiser for a longrunning project that’s suddenly attained new urgency: Upgrading the playground for West Seattle’s most populous public elementary school.
The playground-upgrading project has been under way for years (Lafayette is one of the schools our son attended, and we recall fundraisers up to six years ago!) – but now, there’s a “use it or lose it” component: A $100,000 city Neighborhood Matching Fund grant for Phase 2 (outlined here) that MUST be matched with cash and other contributions by the end of January, or else it goes away.
To get the job done, there’s now a catchy campaign name – Play It Forward – and parent volunteers specifically focused on marketing (including production of the explanatory video you can watch atop this story). We chatted recently with the Lafayette moms who are project co-chairs, to find out why this is a matter of concern beyond even the 530-plus families with students at the school now:Read More
Two high-school football games tonight – Chief Sealth International High School defeated Lakeside, 21-14; Seattle Lutheran High School is playing Rainier Christian right now, and we’re tweeting live at @wsblive (will update with the score here when it’s over). UPDATE: SLHS won 57-7. After the jump – more details and video from both Friday games:Read More
Retired Brigadier Gen. 
Big announcement from
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