West Seattle, Washington
02 Wednesday
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.
Just happened to catch the school board meeting live on tv. Stopped to listen for Pathfinder testimony … after a couple of fairly mellow people from Pathfinder (and a West Seattle guy who sends his kids cross-town to another alternative school that’s threatened with “consolidation”), the public speakers turned to a more broad focus, including some quite incisive rabble-rousing, and a confrontation ensued. Something about a guy threatening one of the speakers. Hard to tell in those wide-angle public-access tv shots, but looked like someone might have gotten arrested or at least thrown out of the meeting. Wow. Will have to look for the online replay later.
The superintendent’s final recommendations just came out, and he’s not backing down from the Pathfinder/Cooper merger. But he did decide not to close Roxhill after all. The final word rests with the school board, in two weeks. UPDATE: Here’s the P-I story, with Roxhill reaction; there’s also some in the Times writeup.
By this time tomorrow night, we should know whether the intensely unpopular Pathfinder-Cooper takeover merger consolidation shotgun marriage WHATEVER will make it into School Boss Raj’s final “School Closures, Phase II” recommendation, or not. If I were a betting person, I’d say … not. Way too much heat. Even the teachers’ union is cranking up the heat. We predict Pathfinder will just wind up staying put on Genesee Hill a while longer and after all the drama of the past year-plus, being almost giddily happy about it. P.S. In tomorrow’s Herald, the editor tries again, mightily, to make up for the “huge egos” insult against the PF group two issues ago.
At least, it sounds like that’s what happened last night, per Save Seattle Public Schools. I can’t find a news story about the hearing online from either daily paper. Prior to the hearing, though, the WS Herald had comprehensive coverage, even including a new editorial sort of apologizing for the controversial “huge egos” comment in last week’s paper.
-The latest incarnation of the school-closure hearing roadshow is in West Seattle this week. As I write, the Roxhill hearing is under way; tomorrow night, I wouldn’t be surprised to see fireworks at the Pathfinder/Cooper hearing. You can track the developments more closely at the Save Seattle Public Schools blog (run by a Pathfinder mom).
-Speaking of closures, the viaduct will be out of commission 6 am-6 pm both days this weekend for its twice-yearly “is it REALLY still safe to drive on this thing?” checkup. And in The Junction, a closure related to the Cali Ave repaving is scheduled to continue for a few more days.
-Now, an opening: Sometime in the past few days, the GRAND OPENING banner went up at Kokoras Greek Grill in Morgan Junction, on the east side of Cali Ave, just north of Fauntleroy. We’ll run by in person as soon as we get a chance and report back on the menu offerings.
Today’s WS Herald editorial takes a sensible tack on one of the other hot issues Seattle Public Schools bosses are wrestling, school choice. (Although taking a detour early in the editorial accusing the Pathfinder K-8 community of having “huge egos” is a cheap shot; their only sin is that they care A LOT about what happens to their program, and if they didn’t fight ferociously for it, they would have been roadkill long ago. This page says they’re planning a show of force at tonight’s school board meeting, by the way.) Anyway, on school choice, the Herald suggests it stay just the way it is, with one big exception: Make parents who want their kids to go to non-neighborhood schools figure out how to get them there. Here in WS, we know a few families already traveling that path — driving their own kids from their home on the north end to their chosen school in the south end, or vice versa. They consider it their responsibility, and arrange their schedules to make it work.
–The Mars Hill-West Seattle blog puts turnout for Official WS Debut at 600 people, 90% adults, 10% kids. Can’t help but wonder how this will affect other evangelical Christian churches in WS, such as Calvary. And is everyone from the taken-over Doxa turning out for MH-WS? (Some interesting past posts from other bloggers with some sort of firsthand involvement: here, and here, and here.) UPDATE (10:17 pm): Tomorrow’s P-I covers the service and includes a mention of about 50 ex-Doxa people present.
–Speaking of assimilation … the Save Seattle Public Schools blog has been trying to unravel new confusion over what will really happen if and when, pending school-board approval, Pathfinder moves into Cooper. Maybe some light will be shone when the next round of public hearings starts this week. Or not.
Guess a billboard right over a school will naturally lend itself to more placement problems. Last time we mentioned the billboard over WS Montessori School, it was about a double-entendre; this time, it’s a business conflict … the billboard right over this private school is currently rotating an ad for a rival WS private school. Heh. (P.S. If you ever feel the need to know who owns a certain billboard, here’s another one of the city’s cool search tools.)
Just announced by Seattle Public Schools this morning ... now Roxhill is on the chopping block, and Pathfinder is poised for a move to Cooper. Here's coverage from the P-I, and from the Times.
What’s with the disrespect for West Seattle in Times articles these days — particularly with regard to our high schools? First, the tale of the disgruntled house-hunters … now, the tale of the ferry-riding school-district jumpers, which begins with this passage:
West Seattle High School seemed too violent, and private school seemed too elitist, so Barbara Tippett looked across the water to find the right school for her son, Sky.
Too violent? What have I missed? Has something gone horribly wrong since this report showing two weapons expulsions in a school year? (Even one is too many, of course, but sadly I suspect a completely clean campus is impossible to find.) Exactly the same number as Vashon High that same year, by the way.
The howls of protest are echoing across West Seattle (and other city neighborhoods) tonight … for tomorrow is the first day of school. (Yeah, yeah, I know, some kids are excited to be going back. Very long ago and very far away, I was one of those odd ducks.) If this does not affect you for parental (or school employment) reasons, it still will affect you on the road … remember the school buses and school zones, and please keep your feet heavier on the brake pedal and lighter on the gas pedal.
If you’re not entirely sure where the WS public schools are, check out the maps of the “north cluster” and the “south cluster.” And think tender thoughts for the folks at Fairmount Park Elementary, which shuts down after this year.
In honor of the impending new school year … a shoutout to Arbor Heights Elementary teacher Mark Ahlness. I bumped into his “edtechblog” just now, after a few hops from the Arbor Heights PTSA blog, which I (in turn) happened onto while continuing the search for West Seattle-based blogs to link to. But I’d “heard” about him before — discovering some years back that because of him, Arbor Heights was something of a Web pioneer. (I’ve got a soft spot for 1994 too … that’s when West Seattle Blog World HQ got online, with a good old fashioned 14.4-if-you-were-lucky dial-up account that used the Lynx text browser to “surf” the early Web … oh, stop me before I get geekier.)
The two most powerful West Seattleites in city government — the mayor and city attorney — have just won a round in their perplexing fight to keep citizens from taxing themselves to give more money to Seattle Public Schools.
I really don’t get it. Yeah, sure, I agree with Hizzoner’s contention that state legislators should allot more $ for education. But will they? Not in my lifetime, I’m afraid. So if they won’t do it, why can’t we? How come these guys want to hold our kids hostage? Let’s see if we can come up with some tortured analogy here. So there’s a starving kid on a streetcorner, and I want to give the poor kid some food. Oh no no, says Hizzoner, you can’t do that, it’s the parents’ responsibility to feed their kid. And while he saunters off to try to find said parents and make them feed the kid – the waif collapses from malnutrition. Listen, mal-education may be less visible than malnutrition, but it’s just as dangerous. And don’t give me the ol’ “Seattle Public Schools mismanages the $ it has now” song and dance … that’s no reason to say we’re going to starve the district and therefore our kids.
If you don’t have kids in local public schools, drop into one someday soon, and get a reality check. If you happen to see new desks or new books, chances are that came from a PTA fundraiser, not tax dollars. $ may not be the solution but it’s a hell of a start. What’s the real agenda behind the mayor’s push here? Does he want things to get worse so he can pull a stunt like LA’s mayor and ride in to try to “save” the district once it’s in flames?
Anyway, the I-87/88 folks say they won’t give up the fight. We gotta go figure out where to send them a check.
-Not only is West Seattle home to the mayor, we’re also now home to Miss Seafair! (Official coverage and photo on the Seafair home page, here.) So now if you’re joining us at the Torchlight Parade downtown on Saturday night, you can cheer crazily for her as well as for the fine folks on the Hi-Yu float.
-Haven’t heard a lot of noise on the school-closure issue lately, but the final School Board vote is set for tonight. There’s been a lot of excellent, thought-provoking discussion for the past few months — including issues beyond the closures/consolidations — on the “Saving Seattle Public Schools” blog, whose main contributor will be a Pathfinder parent next year.
-Lost/found dog/cat notices are sadly common on poles and windows — but last night while out and about, we spotted a “found rabbit” notice. It’s in the window of Pet Elements on the south end of Morgan Junction, and pretty vague, mentioning only that a “small domestic rabbit” was found “on California Avenue” and suggesting a call to the Seattle Animal Shelter if it might be yours.
With the next Big Announcement in the Seattle school-closure scuffle coming up on Wednesday, it’s always interesting to dredge this up. Funny thing is that the Times did a very similar story (different writer) last year — and that one pointed out that Jefferson Square here in West Seattle is one of the district properties bringing in pathetically low returns. Why not just dare to sell whatever they close? Here in WS, Genesee Hill and Fairmount Park, both slated for shutdown (pending Superintendent Raj’s recommendations Wednesday), are in residential areas where I’m sure developers will be thrilled to pay big bucks to get their hands on some land.
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