West Seattle, Washington
11 Thursday
From West Seattle High School girls’ basketball coach Sonya Elliott, news about one of her top players:
West Seattle girls basketball player Anna Hobby (has signed a) Letter of Intent to play basketball at Bellevue College. The 6’1” senior finished her final season averaging 8.4 points, 9.5 rebounds and 2 blocked shots per game, and was the team’s Co-MVP with teammate Ja’Narah McRae.
“I’m very excited for Anna,” said Sonya Elliott, the new head girls’ basketball coach at West Seattle, “It’s a great opportunity for her to continue her education and to grow as an athlete and as a person, which is what the athletic department emphasizes here at West Seattle High School.”
Story and photos by Stephanie Chacharon
Reporting for West Seattle Blog
Arbor Heights Elementary was a sea of lavender today as students, teachers, and volunteers gathered for their annual Young Authors Day. Students proudly wore this year’s event t-shirt, featuring vote-winning student designs (one from each grade level) on the front and a chaotic array of friends’ signatures on the back.
The day kicked off with a performance of “Henry’s Freedom Box” by Seattle’s Book-It Repertory Theatre. From there, students were assigned to small groups scattered throughout the school to read the book they’d authored. One student shared her creation with WSB — the story of an exciting taxi ride through New York City. The ultimate destination? Mary Poppins on Broadway. It was an excellent read.
(Ahead, the story continues – and you’re invited to an event tonight…)Read More
That photo is courtesy of Josh Sutton from the West Seattle Family YMCA (WSB sponsor), who says two local principals were in the spotlight downtown this morning at the Alliance for Education breakfast event in the Westin Hotel ballroom. In the photo onstage at left, that’s Denny International Middle School principal Jeff Clark officially accepting the Thomas B. Foster Award, announced in a surprise presentation at his school last month (WSB coverage here). This morning, Josh says, “Jeff wore his Denny Blue Suit and thanked the dedicated teachers & students of Denny for their dedication to education.” (Can’t miss the bright-blue suit!) He added that acting Superintendent Susan Enfield had a “big shoutout” for West Seattle Elementary‘s principal Vicki Sacco and her students for the big gains they’ve made year-to-year (as reported here in February).
Craig Seasholes is not only the new (as of about two months ago) school librarian at West Seattle’s Sanislo Elementary, he is also president of the Washington Library Media Association. Seasholes invited WSB to stop by the Sanislo library today, since it’s not just any old day in the school library – it’s Washington Library Snapshot Day, meant to capture one day in the life of libraries around the state. (Participants in West Seattle also include the Denny International Middle School and Chief Sealth International High School libraries.) Sanislo is uniquely laid out as an “open-concept” school, so the library, for example, shares the same large, airy space as the computer lab, where more than two dozen fifth-graders were working on a project during our visit, while a class of second-graders trooped in to browse and check out books. What’s the biggest challenge for school libraries right now? we asked Seasholes. Reply: Finding creative ways to maintain and grow their collections. He would also like to see more people come check out their school libraries (regardless of whether there’s a student in your family): “It’s not just the ‘book lady’ any more,” as he puts it.
(P.S. Sanislo, like many schools, is full of young writers as well as young readers – you’ll recall that along with Roxhill and Concord, they had a team in the recent Global Reading Challenge finals – and the writers “have a gig,” as Seasholes puts it, at Elliott Bay Books on June 4th.)
Two weeks after almost 30 local businesses joined together for the West Seattle for Japan fundraiser, we’re still getting word of more donations. WS4Japan organizer Dave Montoure of West 5 was invited to visit Pathfinder K-8 last week, as its students decided how to “spend” the $1,000 netted in their Penny Harvest efforts.
(Photo courtesy Amy Daly-Donovan and Jennifer Giomi)
Pathfinder’s volunteer Penny Harvest coaches Amy Daly-Donovan and Jennifer Giomi report:
Dave was very gracious, providing an overview of his experience and friendships in Japan and the tremendous generosity shown by the West Seattle community in raising money to support the citizens of Japan. He outlined the work of Peace Winds and KnK, and the Penny Harvest team was especially interested in the work of KnK as they focus their efforts on supporting children affected by these terrible natural disasters.
After meeting with Dave and holding telephone interviews with two other organizations, the Pathfinder K-8 Penny Harvest team decided to grant $500 to West Seattle for Japan (which is being generously matched by an anonymous corporate sponsor). The remainder will go to the Seattle Humane Society ($300) and Children’s Hospital Foundation ($200).
Other schools participate in Penny Harvest as well, which the Pathfinder team describes as “a fantastic philanthropy curriculum/program.” It’s explained online at pennyharvest.org.
It’s the season for school auction/dinner events, including a few more this weekend. Among them, the Holy Rosary auction last night – which wound up raising money for another area school, too! The story is told by auction emcee and West Seattle journalist Gregg Hersholt, after the jump:Read More
That, we are told, is the Rolls-Royce of tricycles – a Kettler Air Navigator. When we stopped by the Lincoln Park Cooperative Preschool benefit multifamily sale a little while ago, it was still up for grabs, at a third the price. Volunteers including (from left) Jennifer, Tami, and Katie are ready to help point you to whatever you’re looking for:
Lots of clothes, too.
The sale’s on till 3 pm at Seaview United Methodist Church (where the preschool classes have long been held) – 47th and Graham (look for the signs on Graham pointing you to the entrance.
Fauntleroy Church‘s “Sweet, Sweet Music” series filled the church sanctuary last night with sweet, sweet voices – including those of the Chief Sealth International High School Honor Choir, now just two weeks away from their performance at Carnegie Hall (thanks in part to community fundraising for which they shared this recent thank-you note). Choir members produced part of last night’s program, not only including full-group songs like the one in our clip above, but also instrumental and solo/small-group numbers.
CONGRATULATIONS TO ARBOR HEIGHTS’ ALISA WEAVER! Thanks to several proud Arbor Heights Elementary community members who e-mailed with the news that kindergarten teacher Alisa Weaver got surprise visitors today from STAR 101.5 Radio, declaring her the station’s Teacher of the Week. The station’s announcement says she was nominated by a student. (Another student’s parent, among our tipsters, says “she very much deserves it!”) Prizes included a $100 check and an entry into a drawing for a new car.
ALKI ELEMENTARY’S KIDS HELPING KIDS: Check out what this club is up to – or down to:
Stevie Kramer is a kindergarten teacher and Kids Helping Kids Club coach at Alki. She shared the photo and explains:
On Tuesday, students in the KHK club came to school barefoot as a part of the TOMS organization annual event “One Day Without Shoes.” Students participated to raise awareness for kids that don’t have a choice, that go without shoes every day. This event was just one of many that students have participated in all year including bake sales, book drives, and creating an awareness video about child labor and poverty. They will be having a book sale during the Alki Arts and Culture Night this coming Thursday, April 14, from 5:30-7 pm, with all proceeds supporting the building of a school in Ecuador the club has adopted through the Free the Children organization.
‘EIGHT GOING ON EIGHTEEN’: Think kids these days are growing up too fast? Parent educator Amy Lang will be at Pathfinder K-8 in West Seattle tomorrow night at 6 pm to tackle the topic, and you’re invited. Here’s the official flyer; the talk is free, but they’re requesting that you RSVP, pathfinderk8rsvp@gmail.com.
HEAR CHIEF SEALTH’S HONOR CHOIR BEFORE CARNEGIE HALL TRIP: You’ve seen them wash cars, sell cupcakes, etc. – and now, see and hear them sing! Chief Sealth International High School‘s Carnegie Hall-bound Honor Choir sings as part of the next “Sweet, Sweet Music” show at Fauntleroy Church, 7:30 tomorrow night. (Full details on the show – which includes dessert! – can be found on the church website.)
10:45 AM: Six days after a loud protest outside the Admiral Safeway construction site, the protesters are back, and Lafayette Elementary staffers across the street say the noise is “unbearable” – so they have called the police again. The protesters again carry signs saying they are from the Regional Carpenters’ Council, targeting Marquise Drywall for allegedly not paying the “area standard.” Last time they agreed to stop using drums as they marched; this morning, so far, no such deal. Here’s our coverage from last week; again, the school says they’re not opposed to protesting, but wishing for some consideration for their students and staff.
12:06 PM: Substituted video for the original cameraphone photo atop this story. You can’t hear drums in our clip but they were being used along with whistles and megaphones before our photographer crossed the street; school staff and parents in the office told us the protesters quieted down every time police showed up, then ramped it up again as soon as officers left.
Last week, we published West Seattle High School teacher Jennifer Hall‘s request for 5-gallon buckets to help with their food-recycling launch. She says they received plenty of buckets, and the program is launched! We stopped by for a photo at second lunch period today – note Jennifer’s big smile; later, she sent us the day’s toplines: :
Thanks very much … to generous West Seattle Blog readers! Crossfit Gym donated 10 beautiful black 5 gallon buckets. Junction True Value Hardware donated 10 white buckets, which say, fortuitously, “Start right. Start here!” — so applicable! A West Seattle High School parent who read about the effort on the blog also donated buckets. We made some excellent contacts from the blog post. A Master Composter from Seattle Tilth, and a representative of the “Urban Land Army” contacted us to volunteer.
Cedar Grove and the Seattle School District Sustainablity office are providing us with a new compost dumpster, compost cans and bags. Earth Service Corps students are committed to working hard to get the program going. Today alone, 98 gallons of compostable food and paper waste were diverted from the Arlington, Oregon landfill that receives Seattle trash! Earth Service Corps students and other interested students worked together in the West Seattle Commons to educate their peers and their teachers. More than 100 students composted (I was so busy with compost, it was difficult to count!) It was gratifying to see that at the end of two lunch periods, less than one third of a large trash can was filled with waste. At least two cans would have been collected, had we not composted today. We are excited about ‘Greening’ our school!
(The buckets also help with liquid collection to facilitate recycling of not-entirely-empty containers.)
At Arbor Heights Elementary, they don’t call it an assembly – they call it the “Monday Morning Meeting.” And this morning – after celebrations of recent classroom achievements (including preparations for the upcoming Young Authors Day as well as this week’s birthdays) – the meeting included a bonus celebration. Arbor Heights principal Dr. Carol Coram mused for a moment on the nature of “community service” before bringing up a guest who was there to thank AH students who, along with the PTSA, reached out to help Mary’s Place, a program for homeless and “formerly homeless” women and children. Take two minutes to watch our edited video highlights of the presentation that led to several hearty rounds of applause. (P.S. Mary’s Place needs non-monetary help too – donated health care, in particular.)
If you’re still looking for a place for your preschooler – you’ll want to check out the second annual West Seattle Preschool Fair tomorrow night. Organizer Renee Metty of The Cove School says they’ll have it in January in future years – closer to the time when families make decisions about the next school year – but the new West Seattle Preschool Association decided to go ahead with it now since many new families are moving here, and it’s been tough to find out about all the potential preschool choices. Admission is free, and they’ll also have a fundraising raffle ($2/ticket, 3 for $5) with prizes including a gift certificate to Proletariat Pizza, a Birthday Bash at The Little Gym, and a music basket including a year membership to Soundbridge. Renee adds that they’ll have the NCAA championship game on a TV set, too! The WS Preschool Fair is 5:30-7:30 pm tomorrow, St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church (3050 California SW).
(Photos by John McLellan for WSB)
The theme for last night’s annual Westside School (WSB sponsor) dinner and auction was “Rocketing to a Brilliant Future” – with a school year that’s already seen milestones achieved.
The brick walls inside Showbox SODO could have been seen as an echo of the year’s biggest milestone – Westside moved into its own building, the former E.C. Hughes Elementary in Sunrise Heights.
Under head of school Jo Ann Yockey, Westside also is expanding into middle school; she is at left in the photo above as Westside’s board president Mollie Jensen. More photos ahead:Read More
Just in from Seattle Lutheran High School principal Mark Henderson: A new football coach is on board for SLHS. Jim Wright most recently was on the coaching staff at Eastside Catholic High School. Read on for Seattle Lutheran’s full announcement:Read More
If you have a 5-gallon bucket (or more than one!) to spare, West Seattle High School can use it. Jennifer Hall explains why:
Our YMCA Earth Service Corps has been getting West Seattle High School students and staff ready for a “Compost Test Drive” to be held on Tuesday, April 5. Cedar Grove Composting will be partnering with us, as we get our program up and running. They are helping us out by delivering a trial compost dumpster on Monday. We are also looking for donations of five gallon buckets to be used for food scraps and napkins in classrooms, in offices, and in our staff lounge. We are also going to be using the buckets as liquids buckets, and encouraging better recycling of milk cartons and cans at our school. Students will be able to earn community service hours by helping us out at lunch times, before and after school.
We are a little apprehensive; food composting at WSHS is going to be a big undertaking. But we are also excited, and feel that food composting is the right thing to do for our school environment, for our community, and for our future.
If readers would like more information about food composting at West Seattle High School, or if anyone would like to help us out by donating a bucket or volunteering, please e-mail or call Jennifer Hall, West Seattle High School Earth Service Corps Advisor – jlhall@seattleschools.org, 206-252-8845.
It’s a West Seattle High School tradition to have a safe/sober “Grad Night” celebration – and this year Chief Sealth International High School is having a “Grad Night” too. Tickets are on sale, $50 through April 15th, then $60 after spring break, but the school notes that the actual cost is more like $150 per student. All the same, in recognition that $50 is still steep for some, the Chief Sealth PTSA has set up a way to “sponsor a senior” by donating all or part of the cost of a ticket through an online purchase. If you’d like to be a sponsor, here’s where to go.
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.)
It was way back in November when we first mentioned the Chief Sealth International High School Honor Choir‘s quest to raise money for a trip to sing at Carnegie Hall – here’s our photo of choir members selling cupcakes at the Southwest Community Center Holiday Bazaar – then, four months later, they were still at it, as shown above in our photo from last Sunday, with their second “rain or shine” car wash on Alki. Tonight they’ve shared an update on those car washes, and their upcoming Eastertime trip of a lifetime:
Dear WSB and West Seattle Community
We wanted to give you an update as to how our fundraising carwashes went. With the community’s support, we raised approximately $2,200. This would not have been possible if John Frank at Alki Auto Repair had not graciously allowed our group to use his location for our events, and if generous people had not shown up and supported us. The excellent coverage from the West Seattle Blog was “game-changing” and certainly had much to do with our success.
The saying “How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice” is certainly true. When we sent in our application, we had high hopes of getting selected to perform. Once invited, choir groups must coordinate everything through the official travel agency for Carnegie Hall and there is no negotiating travel costs. At $1,800 per performer and chaperone, the total seemed insurmountable. So in some ways the route to Carnegie Hall became “fundraise, fundraise, fundraise” for us. Our students determined that they did not want anyone prevented from participating due to cost. Each family would commit what they could pay and then the group would fundraise together to pay the remaining balance. No members knew how much any of the other members were paying, we just knew the total we needed to raise.
Thinking back to our first meeting for this trip, there was a real sense of dread at the sum we were committing to raise. Fundraising is difficult, and with a fragile economy it is even more so. Thankfully, this is a very motivated group, and their enthusiasm has been infectious especially at times where it would have been easier to give up.
We wanted you to know how much your support has meant to us. Every dollar and kind word given to us has been very much appreciated. Over six months of work, we have had hundreds of people behind us, telling us we could do it and wishing success for us. This kind of experience is life-altering and greatly empowering. Certainly the full weight of this will hit each of us when we are on stage at Carnegie Hall. Thank you for your role in this.
With Gratitude,
The Chief Sealth Honor Choir
(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!)
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