Madison Middle School has an acting principal as of today, according to a district memo sent to families (thanks for the forwards) and posted on the school website, signed by Superintendent Fred Podesta:

Dear Madison families and staff,

We are writing to inform you of a leadership update at Madison Middle School. Beginning Monday, Sept. 29, Dr. Gary will be on health leave.

During Dr. Gary’s absence, we are pleased to welcome Dr. Scott Pierce as the acting principal. Dr. Pierce has most recently been serving the past three years as an Assistant Principal at Rainier Beach High School. Dr. Pierce brings 15 years of leadership experience with a strong commitment to equity focused, inclusive, and rigorous learning environments.

Principal Pierce will begin his transition with staff and the school community during the week of Sept. 29 – Oct. 3 and is looking forward to supporting and working with the Madison community officially beginning Monday, Oct. 6.

To support a smooth transition, Regional Executive Directors Chris Carter and Katrina Hunt will provide oversight and guidance. Furthermore, assistant principals Dr. Elizabeth Allen and Ms. Trisha Pilapil will be instrumental in ensuring consistency and stability during this time.

As always, our top priority remains the academic success, safety, and well-being of every Madison student.

Thank you for your continued support.

Dr. Gary has been Madison’s principal for 12 years.

We don’t know who they are, but we do know eight candidates are moving to the “next stage of the process” in the search for a new Seattle Public Schools superintendent. We first reported last Tuesday night that School Board president Gina Topp, speaking to the Admiral Neighborhood Association, had revealed they had “41 qualified applicants” and would get a closer look at them on Friday. That afternoon/evening meeting to review applications was an executive (non-public) session, and resulted in the weekend announcement that they’d winnowed the field to eight. According to that announcement, “The applicant pool is diverse and includes leaders from across the country.” Here’s the timeline they’re working with:

Thursday, October 9, Finalist Interviews
Friday, October 10, Finalist Interviews
Wednesday, October 15, Board Discussion (tentative)
Wednesday, October 15 or 22, Selection of Candidate (tentative)

The district developed a “leadership profile” to guide the search; you can see it here.

By Torin Record-Sand
Reporting for West Seattle Blog

As we first reported earlier this month, Seattle Public Schools sparked controversy with an abrupt announced that all comprehensive high schools (including West Seattle and Chief Sealth) must have two separate lunch periods. The announcement made a week and a half into the school year led to a districtwide walkout protest at district HQ on September 15th. But the district is moving ahead with the change, it was clear after a short discussion at Wednesday night’s special meeting of the School Board, and all schools must have split lunches in place by October 6.

The justification was simple. “We serve more lunches if there are multiple lunch periods.” said superintendent Fred Podesta. He provided statistics such as a case study from Cleveland High School that showed splitting the lunch period led to 31 percent more lunches being served to students, addressing the district’s persistent concerns about ood access. Other justifications were reiterated, such as the need for staff to take their own breaks in accordance with contracts, which were noted in the slide deck posted beoore the meeting.

Nonetheless, acknowledging the community backlash, the district plans some “mitigations” and will seek community engagement. Many complaints were from students feeling that the change would split personal availability and time to use for either extracurricular or personal matters: the ability to schedule a club meeting, meet with a teacher, do homework in advance of a class, or to be able to see friends. Some possibilities include a scheduled advisory time between students and teachers, more flexible choices for students in the time of their lunch period, and shifting club meeting times

It was noted that meetings are under way with student leaders from affected schools to ask them for feedback. Coordination with school principals on the implementation of the plan was promised too. Here’s a slide showing the status of that:

Associate superintendent Dr. Rocky Torres-Morales noted there are many different approaches on how to deal with the change, and these will be left to each respective school implementing the change. “Each school is their own school, there is no one size fits all decision.” he said.

Also discussed: The school lunch change as part of thei overall plan to re-evaluate the high school day this year and next. A task force will be dedicated to the re-evaluation, working on options for equitable access to credit-earning opportunities, protecting time for extracurricular activities, and reviewing school start and end times, among other goals.

The school board’s hope is that this upcoming process will be more transparent than what led to the lunch announcement. “This [the upcoming changes] is a serious topic, we won’t unwrap it like a Christmas gift in April, people need to hear about it along the way.” said superintendent Podesta. The recommendations on revisions to the high school day will be due from the task force in spring 2026.

We’re at the Admiral Neighborhood Association‘s every-other-month meeting, where one of tonight’s guests was Seattle Public Schools board president Gina Topp (who also happens to be an Admiral entrepreneur, as co-proprietor of Mission Cantina). Among many other updates, Topp said that the application time for district superintendent closed September 15th, and as of right now, they have “41 qualified candidates” and she says “we are super excited about that number.” She says the board will start reviewing the candidates on Friday. (Previous superintendent Dr. Brent Jones has departed, and interim superintendent Fred Podesta has said he is not interested in the permanent job.) Lots of other news from the meeting too – we’ll have a full report later.

(WSB photo outside SPS HQ, Monday)

Hours after high-school students from all over the city gathered at Seattle Public Schools HQ to protest the plan to split lunch period, West Seattle High School students got word of a three-week reprieve. We noted in earlier reporting that the district had posted an FAQ list which among other things said the deadline for split-lunch implementation was actually October 6, and the message sent to families by WSHS principal Brian Vance says that’s now what they’re aiming for, so they’re staying with one lunch at least until then. Meantime, school board president Gina Topp had told us she expected that tomorrow’s board meeting would include a briefing on the sudden schedule change, and indeed, that’s been added to the agenda, fairly early in the 4:15 pm Wednesday meeting. Nine of the 25 speakers signed up for the public-comment period later in the meeting are listed as planning to address the lunch topic.

7:31 PM: New developments since we first reported Tuesday on a sudden announcement from Seattle Public Schools that they’ll change multiple high schools’ schedules tomorrow – a week and a half into the new school year – so that all “comprehensive high schools” have two lunch periods (currently most have one). First, the district-wide student walkout that one West Seattle High School student mentioned has become a rally at district headquarters at noon Monday, after students walk out at 11 am. Second, School Board president Gina Topp – who is the West Seattle/South Park rep on the board – answered our original inquiry to her this weekend by saying she doesn’t “have more information than what the district has already shared” but expects a briefing at this Wednesday’s board meeting. Before then, Topp says, “I’ll be holding a listening session for students with some other board directors on Monday, and staff is coordinating one with ASB officers from all the schools.” The district did not answer our question about why the change is happening with the school year under way, nor did they explain the change beyond what was also in the original message to parents:

Seattle Public Schools (SPS) is implementing a two-lunch schedule across all comprehensive high school campuses for the 2025–26 school year. This reflects thoughtful planning to ensure compliance with applicable laws and policies while meeting the needs of students and staff.

This change ensures all students have adequate time for seated lunch while meeting Washington state’s required instructional minutes. Additionally, this schedule will support increased and equitable access to school meals, and ensure compliance with staffing, instructional time, and labor contract requirements.

A follow-up message to families, reported here, also cites safety.

8:21 PM: Just checked the district website and there’s now an FAQ posted about the change, dated today. Among other things, it says schools have until October 6 to implement this, while saying some will do so “as soon as (tomorrow).” It also cites specific policies behind the change.

Thanks to Don for the photo taken south and upslope from the new Alki Elementary School, expected to open next school year. Don reports, “Masons are working on exterior wall insulation and brick veneer at the third floor level of the south side. The contractor is using a mobile crane to fly HVAC equipment into the mechanical penthouse through the roof.” The district webpage about the project (which includes a live project-site webcam) hasn’t been updated lately, so we have an inquiry out to see if the project’s still on track. The school students and staff, meantime, have just started their third year at the former Schmitz Park Elementary campus.

We’ve heard tonight from multiple West Seattle High School students about an announcement that apparently affects most Seattle Public Schools high schools: Starting next Monday, less than two weeks into the new school year, high-school lunchtime will be split into two. Here’s a screenshot of the announcement sent to WSHS families. One WSHS student, Lemuel Turpaud, asked us to publish this message about it:

I am a member of West Seattle High School, their ASB, and many clubs, and I have an important message to share to the community. Seattle Public Schools will be requiring all high schools in the district to change from one unified lunch to two separate lunches on Monday.

This proposal will kill clubs at the high school. Last March the West Seattle Rocketry Club reached out to the West Seattle Blog, and from our amazing community received over $1,200 to fund our rocketry competition. This support from the community allowed for the team to continue their project, and have financial safety going into the next year. Now with the change of school lunch policy, the Rocketry Club and other student run clubs will be facing a much larger problem than funding. Splitting the lunch period divides students’ only shared free time to meet and join clubs. This decision will kill many clubs, specifically the smaller clubs that are created as passion projects by dedicated members of the school; Rocketry Club being one of those.

Students districtwide from almost ten schools are planning on walking out on Monday, September 15th ,if the policy is not reversed.

We ask the West Seattle community to stand with us. Please contact the school board and urge them to preserve a unified lunch period so student clubs, opportunities, and community can continue to thrive. Thank you.

– Lemuel Turpaud, Class of 2026

Another WSHS student sent the link to an online petition about this plan and other changes/problems in the district. We will be contacting the district first thing in the morning to find out more about this change (including why it, and the bell-time changes that will result, wasn’t implemented at the start of the year).

ADDED WEDNESDAY NIGHT: No explanation from the district. Our inquiry was answered with exactly the same verbiage used for last night’s announcement.