West Seattle, Washington

04 Monday

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West Seattle schools 5400 results

Snow day, AGAIN
January 16, 2007 6:15 am
|      18 COMMENTS
 |   West Seattle schools | West Seattle weather

Seattle Public Schools will be closed today, as we all deal with Snow, The Sequel.

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No four-day weekend
January 12, 2007 5:31 am
|      1 COMMENT
 |   West Seattle schools | West Seattle weather

Seattle Public Schools will start two hours late today.

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School’s out
January 11, 2007 5:28 am
|      1 COMMENT
 |   West Seattle schools | West Seattle weather

It’s official … Seattle Public Schools are all closed today. Watch out for those snowballs!

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No snow day
January 10, 2007 7:46 am
|    Comments Off on No snow day
 |   West Seattle schools

If you haven’t already heard, Seattle Public Schools are open for business as usual today, says their website.

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Get ready to hear a lot about this
January 2, 2007 6:20 am
|    Comments Off on Get ready to hear a lot about this
 |   Denny-Sealth | West Seattle politics | West Seattle schools

There’s a lot at stake for West Seattle in the school vote coming up five weeks from today. The measures are mentioned as part of this “year ahead for Seattle Public Schools” story in today’s Times. To find specifics, you have to scavenge through the SPS site; a no-frills doc outlines the half-billion dollar bond measure that we’ll be voting on, a large chunk of which would go toward combining the Denny Middle School & Chief Sealth HS campuses on this side of WS (new turf for the Denny/Sealth field is in the bond plan too). But when you go vote, keep in mind the bond measure is separate from the $400 million levy the district needs just to keep running. And neither will pass, no matter how many “yes” votes, if not enough voters (at least 40% of the # who voted last November) show up.

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Back to school
November 30, 2006 4:38 am
|    Comments Off on Back to school
 |   West Seattle schools

Seattle Public Schools will reopen today, with a 2-hour delay, according to the site that lists major regional school changes.

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No school
November 28, 2006 10:01 pm
|    Comments Off on No school
 |   West Seattle schools | West Seattle weather

Seattle Public Schools’ home page says things are still so icy on the north side, the entire district will stay shut down again for a second day.

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Saw that one coming
November 27, 2006 10:46 pm
|    Comments Off on Saw that one coming
 |   West Seattle schools | West Seattle weather

As of 10:45 pm, Seattle Public Schools have already decided tomorrow (Tuesday) will be a snow-closure day.

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6 WS schools on the lead list
November 9, 2006 5:39 am
|    Comments Off on 6 WS schools on the lead list
 |   West Seattle schools

Seattle Public Schools is re-testing water at West Seattle High as well as Alki, Cooper, Highland Park, Lafayette, and Schmitz Park elementaries (plus more than 2 dozen other schools citywide). The general story is that the plumbing may be the culprit — but when you look at the geographical location of the schools, it’s interesting (and of course potentially coincidental) that none of the southernmost WS schools are on the list (such as Gatewood, Arbor Heights, and Roxhill elementaries, or Denny Middle, or Chief Sealth HS).

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Back to business?
November 1, 2006 6:38 am
|    Comments Off on Back to business?
 |   West Seattle schools

We can only hope the Seattle School Board has a calmer meeting as they gather tonight for the first time since the infamous events of two weeks ago. The newly renamed Seattle Public Schools blog has the lowdown on tonight’s agenda.

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Learn a bit of history
October 29, 2006 2:10 am
|    Comments Off on Learn a bit of history
 |   West Seattle news | West Seattle schools

Today’s Pacific NW magazine in the Sunday Times tells the story of the original Cooper School, now restored as the Youngstown Arts Center. Whether you read it online or in dead-tree format, don’t miss the pix. (And if you are interested in the history of other West Seattle schools, you can find it all here — including recollections of the days when they couldn’t build public schools fast enough to serve the booming WS population; what a 180 we’ve done since.)

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Bye-bye, Raj
October 23, 2006 1:13 pm
|    Comments Off on Bye-bye, Raj
 |   West Seattle schools | WS breaking news

We didn’t think he was long for this world after the School Board smackdown of his Phase II Closure Recommendation last Wednesday, just hours after it came out. And now comes the news – superintendent Raj Manhas is leaving.

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It’s not ALL shouting, scuffling, and rabble-rousing
October 21, 2006 11:23 pm
|      4 COMMENTS
 |   West Seattle schools

In fact, there’s an olive branch of sorts extended right now across the north side of the Fauntleroy walkover — a huge banner reading THANK U, SCHOOL BOARD. Couldn’t tell in the dark if it was courtesy of Cooper, Pathfinder, or both. But it deserves a little notice while the Wednesday night rumble is still getting play.

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Pathfinder/Cooper merger iced after all
October 19, 2006 4:18 am
|    Comments Off on Pathfinder/Cooper merger iced after all
 |   West Seattle news | West Seattle schools

Didn’t stay up to watch the rest of the turbulent School Board meeting (see below) – woke up early to find out it ended with an unexpected vote that iced the Pathfinder/Cooper merger and everything else left in the superintendent’s “Phase 2” plan. According to this morning’s P-I story, West Seattle school board rep Irene Stewart explained, in proposing the sudden vote, “I don’t think anybody needs to go through this for two more weeks.” (As the Times also notes, the board originally wasn’t supposed to vote on the plan till Nov. 1.) So our prediction turned out to come true after all, albeit in an unexpected way.

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It’s getting ugly
October 18, 2006 8:27 pm
|      12 COMMENTS
 |   West Seattle schools

Just happened to catch the school board meeting live on tv. Stopped to listen for Pathfinder testimony … after a couple of fairly mellow people from Pathfinder (and a West Seattle guy who sends his kids cross-town to another alternative school that’s threatened with “consolidation”), the public speakers turned to a more broad focus, including some quite incisive rabble-rousing, and a confrontation ensued. Something about a guy threatening one of the speakers. Hard to tell in those wide-angle public-access tv shots, but looked like someone might have gotten arrested or at least thrown out of the meeting. Wow. Will have to look for the online replay later.

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We guessed wrong
October 18, 2006 4:19 pm
|      1 COMMENT
 |   West Seattle schools | Westwood | WS breaking news

The superintendent’s final recommendations just came out, and he’s not backing down from the Pathfinder/Cooper merger. But he did decide not to close Roxhill after all. The final word rests with the school board, in two weeks. UPDATE: Here’s the P-I story, with Roxhill reaction; there’s also some in the Times writeup.

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Will the Pathfinderites pull it out again?
October 17, 2006 7:45 pm
|    Comments Off on Will the Pathfinderites pull it out again?
 |   Genesee Hill | West Seattle schools

By this time tomorrow night, we should know whether the intensely unpopular Pathfinder-Cooper takeover merger consolidation shotgun marriage WHATEVER will make it into School Boss Raj’s final “School Closures, Phase II” recommendation, or not. If I were a betting person, I’d say … not. Way too much heat. Even the teachers’ union is cranking up the heat. We predict Pathfinder will just wind up staying put on Genesee Hill a while longer and after all the drama of the past year-plus, being almost giddily happy about it. P.S. In tomorrow’s Herald, the editor tries again, mightily, to make up for the “huge egos” insult against the PF group two issues ago.

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Pathfinder & Cooper fight back
October 11, 2006 6:57 am
|    Comments Off on Pathfinder & Cooper fight back
 |   West Seattle news | West Seattle schools

At least, it sounds like that’s what happened last night, per Save Seattle Public Schools. I can’t find a news story about the hearing online from either daily paper. Prior to the hearing, though, the WS Herald had comprehensive coverage, even including a new editorial sort of apologizing for the controversial “huge egos” comment in last week’s paper.

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Monday nite notes
October 9, 2006 7:13 pm
|      1 COMMENT
 |   Alaskan Way Viaduct | Transportation | West Seattle restaurants | West Seattle schools

-The latest incarnation of the school-closure hearing roadshow is in West Seattle this week. As I write, the Roxhill hearing is under way; tomorrow night, I wouldn’t be surprised to see fireworks at the Pathfinder/Cooper hearing. You can track the developments more closely at the Save Seattle Public Schools blog (run by a Pathfinder mom).

-Speaking of closures, the viaduct will be out of commission 6 am-6 pm both days this weekend for its twice-yearly “is it REALLY still safe to drive on this thing?” checkup. And in The Junction, a closure related to the Cali Ave repaving is scheduled to continue for a few more days.

-Now, an opening: Sometime in the past few days, the GRAND OPENING banner went up at Kokoras Greek Grill in Morgan Junction, on the east side of Cali Ave, just north of Fauntleroy. We’ll run by in person as soon as we get a chance and report back on the menu offerings.

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Good point
October 4, 2006 6:24 am
|      8 COMMENTS
 |   West Seattle schools

Today’s WS Herald editorial takes a sensible tack on one of the other hot issues Seattle Public Schools bosses are wrestling, school choice. (Although taking a detour early in the editorial accusing the Pathfinder K-8 community of having “huge egos” is a cheap shot; their only sin is that they care A LOT about what happens to their program, and if they didn’t fight ferociously for it, they would have been roadkill long ago. This page says they’re planning a show of force at tonight’s school board meeting, by the way.) Anyway, on school choice, the Herald suggests it stay just the way it is, with one big exception: Make parents who want their kids to go to non-neighborhood schools figure out how to get them there. Here in WS, we know a few families already traveling that path — driving their own kids from their home on the north end to their chosen school in the south end, or vice versa. They consider it their responsibility, and arrange their schedules to make it work.

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Of institutions and men
October 1, 2006 8:58 pm
|      1 COMMENT
 |   West Seattle religion | West Seattle schools

–The Mars Hill-West Seattle blog puts turnout for Official WS Debut at 600 people, 90% adults, 10% kids. Can’t help but wonder how this will affect other evangelical Christian churches in WS, such as Calvary. And is everyone from the taken-over Doxa turning out for MH-WS? (Some interesting past posts from other bloggers with some sort of firsthand involvement: here, and here, and here.) UPDATE (10:17 pm): Tomorrow’s P-I covers the service and includes a mention of about 50 ex-Doxa people present.

–Speaking of assimilation … the Save Seattle Public Schools blog has been trying to unravel new confusion over what will really happen if and when, pending school-board approval, Pathfinder moves into Cooper. Maybe some light will be shone when the next round of public hearings starts this week. Or not.

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That billboard again
October 1, 2006 11:07 am
|    Comments Off on That billboard again
 |   West Seattle schools

Guess a billboard right over a school will naturally lend itself to more placement problems. Last time we mentioned the billboard over WS Montessori School, it was about a double-entendre; this time, it’s a business conflict … the billboard right over this private school is currently rotating an ad for a rival WS private school. Heh. (P.S. If you ever feel the need to know who owns a certain billboard, here’s another one of the city’s cool search tools.)

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New twist in West Seattle school-closure plan
September 18, 2006 11:30 am
|      1 COMMENT
 |   West Seattle schools | Westwood | WS breaking news 
Just announced by Seattle Public Schools this morning ... now Roxhill is on
the chopping block, and Pathfinder is poised for a move to Cooper. Here's
coverage from the P-I, and from the Times.
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