West Seattle, Washington
31 Sunday
… seems to be the message Seattle Public Schools can take away from the “special election.” Both props are passing in a big way.
Turnout at our precinct was pretty lousy by the time we voted at midday — only one other voter turning out for the school propositions. If you missed our thoughts on them a few days ago, just scroll down this page. Whether you vote no/yes, yes/yes, whatever, they do have “validation requirements,” which means TURNOUT. Only takes a minute. (Meantime, in a much less important but much more fun vote, thank you for helping us win our “bracket” in the Metroblogging Seattle blog-popularity contest — now we advance to the second round, so we’ll be begging you again Thursday to take a sec to vote, again, for WSB.)
Yard signs have finally popped up, but, especially if you don’t have a kid in Seattle Public Schools, you still might not be entirely aware there’s an election on Tuesday. Yes, there is — almost $900 million dollars worth. Here’s our 2 cents, if you haven’t already voted by mail, or haven’t really thought much about which way to go: Seattle School District Proposition 1 could be considered discretionary; it spends hundreds of millions on construction projects (including a new Denny Middle/Sealth HS campus here in WS) that some say don’t represent the most urgent needs for this kind of $. However, Seattle School District Proposition 2 is NOT discretionary. A “yes” vote on Prop 2 renews a levy (in other words, no change in tax rate) that provides a quarter of the district’s budget. If you vote no on Prop 2, students WILL be hurt. And unlike some of the people in this article, many local families don’t have the $ to just say “oh well, it’s off to private school then” (and trust us, even if they do, some private schools are startlingly overrated). No matter what you decide to do regarding school Prop 1, please vote yes Tuesday on school Prop 2.
Doesn’t appear to be on the Seattle Public Schools website yet, but the P-I says the dates are set for making up 4 of the 5 days SPS was closed because of bad weather (the district wants the state to waive the fifth): February 2, March 16, June 21-22.
Before we get to the 2-part (more like 4-option) viaduct vote in March, don’t forget the 2-part school vote next month, with a big West Seattle project on the ballot, as the Times reminds us again today. (Then if you’re still trying to sort out the viaduct conundrum, check out this excellent Slog breakdown, with reader comments that inspired us to suggest the slogan No/No, The Way to Go.)
The previously mentioned Seattle Public Schools “when do you want to make up snow days” survey is up (scroll to the bottom of this page). It asks participants to rank six options in order of preference — but murkily notes that some combination of the options will be required to make up all of the days missed so far this year (not to mention whatever’s yet to come). They’re laying pretty much everything on the table — “mid-winter” break, spring break, end of year. We’d just as soon get rid of “mid-winter” break — it’s so unnecessary, coming so close to Christmas vacation, and not that far ahead of spring break. But our opinion may not matter anywhere near as much as the teachers’ union’s opinion; here’s what you get on the “thank you” page after taking the survey:
The district will tally and consider the response, discuss and bargain the calendar with the Seattle Education Association, and announce the revised schedule as soon as possible.ÂÂÂ
In the middle of this article, Seattle Public Schools’ spokesperson says we may find out next week what the district plans to do about making up the days lost to snow, ice, wind, all that fun stuff that’s smacked us in the past couple months. We were going to suggest that SPS follow Issaquah’s lead and survey parents about their wishes … then we went to this page on the SPS site and discovered that the district plans to do exactly that. Says a survey will be linked from that page no later than 5 pm today (you can bet we’ll be checking). Can’t wait to see what the options are.
Now that the kids are back at school, let’s see what they’re up to. Took an unexpected turn around the web and found this feature about the West Seattle High Auto Shop. (And it’s not just a boy thing!)
Looks like Seattle Public Schools decided to open 2 hours late today. That may even have been overly cautious, since it hasn’t even dropped below freezing yet (we can hear the snow from the roof melting slowly through the rain-gutter drainpipe), but better safe than sorry. For next time (somehow you know there’ll be one), a city source tells us that whenever Seattle Public Schools has a weather closure, there are “snow camps” for child care at Hiawatha and Southwest Community Centers. We can’t find details online but you can check with the centers: here’s contact info for Hiawatha and Southwest.
It’s official … Seattle Public Schools are all closed today. Watch out for those snowballs!
If you haven’t already heard, Seattle Public Schools are open for business as usual today, says their website.
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.
Seattle Public Schools will reopen today, with a 2-hour delay, according to the site that lists major regional school changes.
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.
As of 10:45 pm, Seattle Public Schools have already decided tomorrow (Tuesday) will be a snow-closure day.
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).
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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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