West Seattle, Washington
24 Sunday
Congrats to the grads from Seattle Lutheran HS who got their diplomas last night — to the grads from Chief Sealth HS, who will celebrate at SW Athletic Complex @ 1 pm tomorrow — and to the grads from West Seattle HS, whose ceremony is 8 pm Monday @ Benaroya Hall.
Yet another event on the WS docket tonight: Fairmount Park Elementary‘s big goodbye bash. You may recall, it’s one of about half a dozen schools that Seattle Public Schools leaders decided to close after this school year. Tonight, 6:30-8 pm, Fairmount Park puts a brave face on the whole thing with a closure celebration featuring food, music, and a look back at the school’s history. (The official last day for most SPS schools, however, isn’t till next Friday.)
After we posted about the award-winning wine made at SSCC, we got some questions about where to buy it. We checked with the college, and here’s the scoop: Nothing left from the first release of white wine, but a big party coming up in October will debut their first red wines — plus two chardonnays and one “late-harvest” sauvignon blanc. You can get your name on the list for an invitation to the Oct. 15 party by clicking here to e-mail SSCC’s wine-technology coordinator Regina Daigneault.
Educating Mom has offered space to all school-board candidates to post “guest blog entries” making their pitches for the job. One of the first, just up today, is Dan Dempsey, WSHS teacher who’s one of the five people in the Aug. 21 primary for the school-board job that Irene Stewart is leaving.
If your familiarity with Lafayette Elementary goes no further than having seen its brick exterior along the busy block of Cali (photo below) just south of Admiral, across from Safeway — you probably don’t know about the sad shape of its playground — cracked old blacktop, no grass except for the weedy kind poking through those cracks.
All that’s about to change; the city’s just issued a permit for replacing some of that blacktop with grass, part of a playground renovation project that’s been years in the making, and the groundbreaking celebration is set for one week from Thursday — the Lafayette PTA wrote us to say everyone’s invited (9:30 am June 21). They’re still collecting $ for future phases of the playground; click this e-mail link to contact someone for more on that; click ahead to see the official invitation for next week’s event:Read More
Last weekend, we mentioned the jump-started campaign of Steve Sundquist for the WS-district Seattle School Board seat that Irene Stewart is relinquishing. The online campaign-filings list (which will be updated all week till the filing deadline Friday afternoon) now shows Sundquist has a challenger, Dan Dempsey. Can’t find an official campaign site for him but this appears to be a site he maintains. Meantime, the other WS-centered political position we’ll be voting for this year is King County Council District 8; incumbent Dow Constantine appears not to have filed papers as of this evening but had a campaign kickoff lunch today, so it’s a good bet he’ll be back on the ballot.
As the Times points out this morning, election season is about to begin. You’ve probably already noticed 
that one candidate has gotten a jump on things by blanketing West Seattle with yard signs (photo at right) even before officially filing to run. Steve Sundquist is the first declared candidate for the WS (District 6) school board seat that Irene Stewart is giving up. We don’t know much about him yet (here’s his site if you want to peruse for yourself), but we’ll miss Stewart, who we thought was doing a decent job in a difficult (to say the least) situation. As for when we’ll start voting – the primary is now earlier than ever – August 21.
Fired assistant coaches are suing parents who spoke to the Times, says the paper.
Parents from the nonprofit Community School of West Seattle, which offers preschool through 2nd grade, say their little school is in danger of losing its building at 22nd/Roxbury (photo below). CSWS has been renting there since 2004 and has been raising money to try to buy the building since, according to one parent, the owner indicated last year it could be theirs for a reasonable price. Now, suddenly, events have accelerated — a developer has reportedly made an offer, and parents say that’s pushed the owner to set a deadline for the school to come up with the $. They have till August 31st to raise $88,000 more. They’re planning an intensive slate of summer fundraising events, including an auction, but also are hoping community donations (which are tax-deductible) will help save the day.
Two big events of note for our neighborhood high schools:
-Tomorrow night is the annual West Seattle High School Foundation spring dinner/play event, starting with a 5:15 reception at the church next door, dinner in the WSHS Commons @ 6:30, and the WSHS performance of “Carousel” @ 8. Click here to RSVP, get more info, or find out how to donate to WSHSF even if you can’t go tomorrow.
-Further out, Chief Sealth HS is planning a party @ Camp Long Lodge, 7 pm June 5, to celebrate the school’s International Baccalaureate accreditation. All welcome for tunes & treats, organizers say.
Seattle Public Schools just announced principal appointments including a handful in WS.
–Tonight, Cafe Rozella continues its 2nd-anniversary celebration with Show Brazil performing @ 7 pm.
–Tomorrow night, the Junction Art Walk (second Thursday of each month) is back. And now it’s got its own blogsite, with a list of who and what you’ll see.
–Also tomorrow night, “Carousel” opens at West Seattle High School (7:30 Thurs-Fri-Sat this week and next; advance tickets are half-price @ Square One).
West Seattle HS is in the baseball playoffs — and won its first-round game today.
As mentioned in the city’s latest neighborhoods newsletter (page 4), the Delridge Neighborhoods Development Association is hoping to eventually buy the former Boren Junior High — now used as interim home to schools under renovation, Cleveland HS at the moment. It’s doing an architectural study to look at the 14-acre site‘s potential, with the thought that it could hold more than 400 housing units and tens of thousands of square foot of commercial space. (The Boren building doesn’t seem to have much preservation value, unlike the Fauntleroy Schoolhouse, but you can read about its history here.)
Crosscut says West Seattle’s rep on the Seattle School Board, Irene Stewart, has decided not to run for re-election. UPDATE: Since our original mention, we have been forwarded the press release she sent out. Click ahead if you would like to see it:
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Local public school athletic programs get 15% of whatever you spend at Tully’s today.
Times says police were looking for a possible armed student near Cleveland HS (which is housed at Boren on Delridge) earlier this afternoon.
Charleston, S.C., superintendent Dr. Maria Goodloe-Johnson will take the top spot here. It’s on all the newspaper sites but the most interesting coverage is liveblogging of the meeting, announcement, and ensuing questions on the unofficial SPS/Save Seattle Schools blog.
If you’re not a parent or school worker, it might not be on your radar, so a friendly reminder, Seattle public schools (and most if not all private schools in the city) are out all week for spring break.
Both finalists for the Seattle Public Schools superintendent job were in town this week, and both visited four schools including Chief Sealth HS here in WS. If you’re interested in more on the finalists and what district-watchers think of them, there’s excellent coverage on the unofficial Seattle Public Schools (formerly Save Seattle Schools) blog.
Getting a jump on our weekly “what’s happening this weekend,” which will be up tomorrow as usual — we wanted to give you 24 (or so) hours notice about two benefit events, both happening tomorrow (Friday) night. #1 — From 6 till 8 pm in the West Seattle High School commons, it’s the annual chowder cookoff, with chowders from local restaurants offered in what the school calls a “blind taste test.” More info a ways down the school’s home page. #2 — The West Seattle Big Band is playing @ Evergreen HS (between White Center and Burien) as part of an “Evening of Swing,” 6:30-9:30 pm, benefitting the school music program.
A WSB reader with kids @ Lafayette Elementary across from the store’s south lot forwarded us this e-mail bulletin from the school, complete with handy phone number if anyone wants to call the store’s manager to ask whassup with all this. Full e-mail text, plus a photo of something interesting we spotted in that same lot this morning, after the jump:Read More
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