West Seattle, Washington
03 Sunday
As mentioned in our weekend-events list, tonight is the fundraising dinner and auction for, and at (map), the Community School of West Seattle (photo right). As we reported 6 weeks ago, they are trying to raise enough money to buy their building, which otherwise will go to a developer, and they only have another month and a half. Here’s what one organizer writes about the event (6:30 pm tonight):
This will be a spectacular evening, with live entertainment by local performers and delicious food from local eateries. Some of the items available for auction include: a cruise to the Galapagos Islands, a week at Whistler, Botox cosmetic treatment, art from local artists, and exquisite jewelry.
If you can’t go but you still would like to help CSWS, donation information is on its website.
Dr. Maria Goodloe-Johnson (official district photo at right) has started work as Seattle Public Schools superintendent, and the P-I and the Times both note that she stopped at two schools on day 1, including West Seattle HS. (The writeup starts with a great aside about what was apparently her first trip on The Viaduct — which by the way got a status update in this Times article, in case you haven’t seen it already.)
The (unofficial) Seattle Public Schools Blog points out that the agenda for this Wednesday’s school board meeting includes a proposal to rename High Point Elementary (photo below) “West Seattle Elementary.” According to the agenda item, this name-changing is by “request of the High Point and Fairmount Park merged elementary schools.” (If you’re just coming in on this saga, the district closed several schools at the end of this past school year, including Fairmount Park, to save $; the students of FP are “merging” into HP.) Historical datapoint: This won’t be the first “West Seattle Elementary School”; the district’s thumbnail history of Lafayette Elementary says it briefly held that name about 90 years ago!
-Bald eagles fly off the endangered species list. WS has regular sightings.
-Seattle Public Schools’ race-based tiebreaker, long on hold, is officially dead.
That’s what the current state of things boils down to, regarding the school district’s plan to build a new Denny Middle School on the Chief Sealth High School campus, with some shared facilities — or so it sounded when district reps made their case during a semi-contentious community meeting tonight (called by the Westwood Neighborhood Council). Click for more:Read More
First, the light stuff: Semi-rare midweek in-store live @ Easy Street; Marissa Nadler, 6 pm.
Now, serious business: King County hosts a community meeting for south West Seattle folks (others welcome too, of course) to find out more about the improvements in the works for the Barton (near the Fauntleroy ferry dock) and Murray (at Lowman Beach) pump stations, all in the interest of avoiding future CSOs (combined sewer overflows) which now total 14 million gallons a year just at those two stations. Learn more @ 6 pm, The Hall at Fauntleroy.
Last but by no means least, the Westwood Neighborhood Council summons all who are interested in the huge upcoming (right after next school year) Sealth HS/Denny MS project — 6:30 pm, SW Community Center.
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Two schools here on the south side of WS may soon share a campus, and their neighbors want to hear more about what’s planned. So the Westwood Neighborhood Council is organizing a meeting about the Sealth HS/Denny Middle School project for this Wednesday, 6:30 pm @ Southwest Community Center.
-In less than an hour, the final bell will ring at Fairmount Park Elementary, one of the Seattle Public Schools buildings that are being closed to save $. The kids who go there are “merging” into High Point Elementary . (FP’s half-century history is detailed here.)
-Speaking of closed school buildings: This week’s WS Herald has an update on the future of the Fauntleroy Schoolhouse; next week, the city Parks Board will talk about its possible role in that future.
-In the mood to feel elegant? Just found out about High Tea on Saturday at Village Green Perennial Nursery, a hidden treasure for gardeners in WS (and beyond).-This Sunday, the Washington State Ferries summer schedule kicks in, which means more weekend service to/from Fauntleroy.
Congratulations to Lafayette Elementary on the launch of its long-awaited playground renovation, with this morning’s groundbreaking ceremony. On a school day that wouldn’t have existed if not for one of this past winter’s snow days, early overcast gave way to brilliant sunshine by the time the festivities started. We’ve got a few pix. First — the reason a new playground is needed (the entire 2-acre blacktop looks like this, or worse):
Here’s the groundbreaking lineup (note they couldn’t really smash shovels through the tough old blacktop, so look close and you’ll see a ceremonial pile of sand to be overturned) — participants included parent volunteers and student councilmembers as well as King County Councilmember Dow Constantine (center) and Lafayette Principal Virginia Turner (right):
And one more photo of Dow C for good measure – he drew goodnatured boos by admitting he had attended Schmitz Park Elementary, not Lafayette. He got to read the long list of major project contributors — and there are many; more help still needed — info on how to do that is in our previous post on the topic.
Following in the pixelsteps of Dan Dempsey and Edwin Fruit, two more candidates for our open school board seat are taking their “guest blogger” turns at Educating Mom today: Maria Ramirez and Steve Sundquist.
First Dan Dempsey; now Edwin Fruit, another of the 5 candidates for the WS-centered open school board seat in the Aug. 21 primary, takes his “guest blogger” turn at Educating Mom.
Its immediate past — the 100-plus Class of ’07 grads who gathered at SW Athletic Complex across the street this afternoon to celebrate the successful end of their pre-college educational careers:
Present/future, change is ahead for Sealth and its neighborhood. As we have mentioned previously, it is working to boost its academic image (which may factor into its underenrollment) by offering the International Baccalaureate program, one of only two high schools in Seattle Public Schools — only 14 in the entire state — with IB. And its future holds a big construction project (page 4 in this doc; approved by voters last February), in tandem with nearby Denny Middle School, set to start immediately after next school year. The Westwood Neighborhood Council has questions and concerns (as do people at both schools; see page 3 of this) and is hosting a community meeting one week from Wednesday (June 27) to talk about the project.
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.
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