West Seattle, Washington
28 Monday
LAFAYETTE ELEMENTARY: No heat today, according to a note sent to parents, after an apparent boiler breakdown. They were planning to bring in 30 space heaters “for the coldest areas.” School’s out early today for parent/teacher conferences (1:05 pm). We’ll check later on how repairs are going.
CHIEF SEALTH HIGH SCHOOL: The music program is raising money with a poinsettia sale. $15 for a 12-inch plant, to be delivered Dec. 8th; call 206-243-4081 to order one (or more!).
WEST SEATTLE MONTESSORI SCHOOL: It’s still looking for donations for its December 5th fundraising auction, which is particularly crucial this year because WSMS is renovating its new White Center space (its landlord sold the site to Harbor Properties, which is building Link on that parcel and the ex-Huling site to the east) in hopes of making the move during winter break – read on to see what Sandra Kutz-Russell tells us they are looking for (including help with some of the move – they even need to move a special tree!):Read More
TONIGHT: Highland Park Action Committee meets for the first time since the new list of potential misdemeanor-jail sites was announced last Thursday (WSB coverage here), with the Highland Park Way/West Marginal Way site still on the list (though now it’s one of six possible locations). But that’s far from all that HPAC is up to; read this WSB Forums post for reasons why you should join in. 7 pm, Highland Park Improvement Club building (11th/Holden; here’s a map).
TOMORROW: Seattle Public Schools‘ preliminary list of proposed school closures will go public. We know for sure that they will be presented and discussed in detail at a School Board workshop tomorrow night (6 pm, district HQ: here’s a map) – but we’re still awaiting final word on whether any sort of media briefing will be held to make the list public earlier in the day. The chances at least one West Seattle school will be on the list are considered to be fairly high for a variety of reasons including “excess capacity” and building age/condition (here’s our most recent coverage, including dates for “workshops” to talk about the closures). The last round of building closures less than 2 years ago led to the shutdown of Fairmount Park Elementary.
WEDNESDAY: The closures – whichever schools are on the list – are likely to be a major topic as West Seattle’s school-board rep Steve Sundquist has his monthly “coffee hour,” open for anyone to drop in and discuss district/education issues, 9 am at Coffee to a Tea with Sugar in The Junction. (Added later Monday: We have word he also plans an extra community availability at the Delridge Library from 3-5 pm Saturday 12/6.)
As for the holiday – you’ll find lots of new information and events added to our Holiday Happenings page — including info we’ve compiled so far about what happens on Thanksgiving, from free morning workouts to grocery store/coffee shop hours – that info will be complete by tomorrow but we’re adding it to the list as we get it.
When WSB co-publisher Patrick Sand talked recently with students at Tilden School (WSB sponsor), he invited them to keep us posted on any other news they wanted to share. Tilden’s Julie Enevoldsen has just forwarded a writeup from Ahna, and a comment from Vivian, regarding a current project to help students in Uganda (map) through a program called Sister Schools:
From Ahna —
“We need to help Uganda. I’m a fourth grade student from Tilden School and we are trying to help the Sister Schools. We want to raise enough money to buy a roof for the girls’ shower and maybe even some lights.
The Sister Schools takes place in Uganda in Africa. It used to be the best place in Africa but a bad war came and ruined the place. Now they have to walk about three miles to get water and on bare feet! Some of the people in Uganda don’t have clothes, they have to wear rags or tie their left-over clothes. So we are sending donations like shirts, pants, toys, and things like that, but not stuffed animals because of lice.
Terry is the one who brings the donations to them and he is a very great person to do that because he has to go all the way to Africa and back. We are also doing a penny drive but we don’t have to bring just pennies; we can bring nickels, quarters, dollars, and dimes, along with pennies. We want to raise $500.00 and we are almost there. We have $447.58. We want to raise money so we can help them renew everything like the girls’ bedroom because the girls’ bedroom has a problem with the girls on the top bunk. The top bunk of the girls’ room has the most heat–and a lot of heat–because the metal on the roof makes it really hot. We have to save Uganda and they need more help.”
From Vivian —
“Last year we gave items to Sister Schools, and when they saw the items their faces lit up with joy, so we are trying to make that happen again.”
Julie adds —
The enormous heap of school materials, clothes, and sports equipment the Tilden students collected was sent off today, on its way to Uganda. We look forward to Terry’s return next spring; he’ll bring photos of those faces “lit up with joy” to share with our students. Seeing their own donations in the hands of the Ugandan children reinforces the Tilden students’ understanding that they can make a difference in the world. Tilden School would like to extend our thanks to Viking Bank for their very gracious support helping count all those pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters! (Our updated total, so far, is $710.86.)
We encourage anyone who’s inspired by Ahna’s and Vivian’s stories to visit
the Sister Schools website, sisterschools.org; there are many ways to help.
Seattle Lutheran High School‘s girls soccer team beat Ocosta today, 6-0, for 3rd place in the Washington State B Soccer Tournament. Bil Hood from SLHS adds: “Congratulations to players Ashley Shaw, Maddy Williams and Kendra Rancich, who were named to the First Team, Sea-Tac League All-Star Team; Kelsey Shaw was named Second Team; and Coach Jeff Norton was named Coach Of The Year.”
Next Tuesday, Seattle Public Schools leaders are scheduled to present their proposal for the next round of school closures. We’re watching this closely because South and West Seattle have the most likelihood of finding schools on this list, since the north end has been dealing with overcrowding, but these areas have not. We don’t know yet if a media briefing is planned earlier that day, but we do know the recommendations will be formally presented to the School Board at a 6 pm workshop at District HQ, and whichever buildings are scheduled for closure will get on-site public hearings during the week of 12/15. Before that, the district has just announced two “workshops” 12/4 and 12/6 to discuss the recommendations before those hearings – read on for full details:Read More
(photos removed 11/24 by request of the original provider)
Just in from Bil Hood at Seattle Lutheran High School, a followup to the story we brought you 2 weeks ago about the SLHS Key Club reaching out to Gulf-bound soldiers:
These photos are just in from Seattle Lutheran parent, Fabienne Zwerling (pictured in blue). She’s a parent of a SLHS sophomore and works in the airline industry; she took 400 soldiers to Kuwait.
The SLHS student body created care packages for the soldiers as well as writing thank-you notes to the soldiers and signed a banner that reads, “Seattle Lutheran High School supports our troops.” Some
students wrote short stories and jokes as well as thank you notes on their cards. “It feels good to know that we’re making a difference in a soldier’s life!” said senior Emily Meyer, Key Club president, as she
was writing a thank-you card.Last week the soldiers called the school on Fabienne’s cell phone. Their thank-you call was played for the students of the school’s p.a. system. These pictures were all taken on the plane ride over to Frankfurt. The Troops were then going to Kuwait and the a one year tour in Iraq.
The flip side of dry fall sunshine is the lack of snow – there’s still time, though, and the kids at Explorer West Middle School are getting ready for it. Amy French sent the above photo and this report on what it was all about:
Explorer West Middle School kicked off their winter outdoor program yesterday when the school’s 6th grade students had the opportunity to work on a snowshoe construction project with Lee Getzewich, MSR Snowshoe Product Manager for local outdoor gear manufacturer Cascade Designs, Inc.. This was the first step in designing and building the snowshoes that the students will use for several outings to Snoqualmie Pass this winter. Mr. Getzewich helped the students think about the design and then work out solutions with the materials. The 2008-09 snowshoe program has evolved to use local, native willow as the main framing material instead of PVC frames, so the students are now building snowshoes with even more natural materials.
We love school news, big and small – send yours any time to editor@westseattleblog.com! (WSB coverage of local schools and school-related issues is all archived here, newest to oldest.)
Two state playoff games today for Seattle Lutheran, and Bil Hood just sent word of the scores: The football team lost to Naselle 34-7, so their season is over; the Lady Saints soccer team beat Liberty Bell 6-0 and are in the state tournament’s final 4 – next game, next weekend. SUNDAY MORNING UPDATE: Thanks to the fan who provided a link to the brackets with the next game – Noon Friday in Sumner. The Lady Saints are 13-3-3, opponent LaSalle (from Union Gap, WA) is 16-1; the winner advances to the championship game, same place, the following day.
That’s the final score, just in from WSB co-publisher Patrick Sand at Civic Stadium in Bellingham, covering the high-school-football playoff game in which the Wildcats (now 9-2) have just lost to the Ferndale Golden Eagles (now 11-0). Patrick says the stadium was jammed – more than 5,700 people (that’s about half the population of Ferndale, which is 11 miles north of Bellingham). Full report later.
Pathfinder K-8 PTSA folks say everybody’s welcome; it tackles one of the toughest topics a parent faces, in the relatively early going – when do you start talking to your kids about the “birds and the bees,” as the age-old euphemism puts it? 6:45 tonight at Pathfinder; more details online.
Photographed within the past hour, that’s West Seattle High School athletic director George Foster giving WSHS varsity football players the scouting report on tonight’s playoff opponent, the Ferndale Golden Eagles, before the Wildcats’ bus hit the road for Bellingham. Also handed out before the trip, lunches provided by the WSHS Foundation:
What’s the lunch of champions, you ask? We know it included peanut-butter bagels and Gatorade. Speaking of champions, check out the new patch:
As mentioned earlier, WSB will be in Bellingham tonight to cover the big game – short in-progress updates as they happen at twitter.com/wsbbizdev (which will display in a red box you’ll see on the sidebar here later) and the halftime/final scores here on the main page, also as they happen. ADDED 1:03 PM: We shot video of the team boarding the bus. Nothing dramatic but we like to share the unprocessed video when we can:Read More
One online writer calls it the “marquee matchup” of the playoffs’ 1st round: The West Seattle High School Wildcats (9-1) are in Bellingham tonight to face the Ferndale High School Golden Eagles (10-0). Here’s a fairly straightforward preview from the Bellingham paper; the P-I calls Ferndale “the best team nobody south of Everett has ever seen.” The game’s at 7:30 pm at Bellingham’s Civic Stadium; WSB co-publisher Patrick Sand will be there to continue his coverage of the Wildcats’ best season in decades (previous reports are in our WS & Sports archive), including Twitter updates during the game (twitter.com/wsbbizdev, or/and watch the extra Twitter box we’ll add to the sidebar here) and a full report afterward. (P.S. Seattle Lutheran‘s in the state playoffs too, playing Naselle at Sammamish on Saturday afternoon; more on that and other sports later.)
WSB welcomes another sponsor this morning: Tilden School, an independent K-5 school located north of The Junction, providing “a rich and rigorous program for the intellectual, artistic, social, and physical development of each student. Small classes and a low student/teacher ratio enable teachers to respond to the individual development needs—academic, social, and physical—of each student.” Tilden emphasizes cooperation and consideration of others.
Above, you see students from Tilden School‘s current 5th grade class, taught by Karin Beck; the school recently invited WSB co-publisher Patrick Sand to talk with the 5th grade students about evaluating sources of information when doing research. At the end of the talk, Patrick asked the class to tell him what they like about their school. Here are a few highlights:
SCIENCE: From Casey — The whole school does science, from K to 5th grade, beginner to advanced; starting in the earth, then sprouting up like a flower or a rocket shooting up, up, and out of the ground. Virgil, the science teacher, teaches it all.
MUSIC CLASS: From Owen — Tilden School has a very uplifting music class that is held every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. When I go to music, I always know that it will be a wonderful time.
K-BUDDIES: From Olivia — At Tilden School, the fifth graders and Kindergarteners get to have a special connection. Every year, fifth graders are paired up with Kindergarteners to do all sorts of activities throughout the school year, such as making Halloween bags, memorizing lines for poetry and plays, reading books, and much more.
To find out more about the school, its people, and its philosophy, you can explore its website at tildenschool.org. Tilden is currently scheduling visits for interested parents on Wednesday mornings; please contact the school to reserve a time, or for more information. Welcome to Tilden School; we thank Tilden for supporting WSB along with our other sponsors — the current list is on this page along with information about how to become part of it!
We reported late Friday night that Ferndale was next up for West Seattle High School after the Wildcats’ playoff win against Enumclaw. Now we know the game’s set for 7:30 pm Friday in Bellingham, and we’ve just received an invitation to pass along for WSHS alums:
Hello Alums,
Okay…we’re getting another bus to go to the State Playoff game this coming Friday! WSHS plays Ferndale in Bellingham, 7:30 p.m.The price for bus (a coach bus – not a school bus) and ticket to the game will be $23 per person and leaves WSHS parking lot at 3 p.m. (traffic will not be fun!) But, what a great way to travel to the game! The bus to the Metro playoffs was filled and it was a great way to go to the game and support our
local high school football team.If you are interested, please email me or leave a voice mail by 3 p.m. Wednesday, November 12th to save your spot and I’ll put your name on the list.
Christy Rowe
206-932-6953
carowe@blarg.net
We reported Friday night on the plan for this Wednesday’s Seattle School Board meeting to include a vote on the proposal for changing the public-notice requirements when school closures are to be proposed; the district says it needs the changes because it must move quickly on the next round of closure proposals (the list is due out 11/25). Among other things, they’re cutting community newspapers out of the formal (paid) advance-notice-publication process and just including them on the “outreach” list (we can’t help but notice even the “revised” policy seems outdated because it has no mention of online-only local-news operations like WSB, and in fact doesn’t mention ANY websites aside from the SPS site; at least we are on the SPS media list so we get and publish these notices anyway). If you have anything to say about the changes, you should read the entire policy and send your thoughts to the board, or show up on Wednesday night. Meantime, the posted agenda for that same meeting (6 pm Wednesday, district HQ in Sodo) also includes a vote on the $1.8 million deal to sell the Fauntleroy schoolhouse to the Fauntleroy Community Service Agency (first reported here a month ago).
We caught that jubilant jump from someone on the sidelines just as the West Seattle High School Wildcats varsity football players were lining up on the Memorial Stadium field last night to exchange handshakes with the Enumclaw players they’d just beaten, 38 to 20. Their next playoff opponent: undefeated Ferndale. Read on for the story of the Saturday night win (which we covered “live” via Twitter) that brought the Wildcats to 9-1 on the year:Read More
38 to 20 over Enumclaw. Full report later. ADDED 11:02 PM: They’ll play Ferndale next weekend, up in Whatcom County according to what we were told at the game, since Ferndale beat Bonney Lake 56-6.
The West Seattle High School-Enumclaw game’s about to start at Memorial Stadium downtown (7:45), and WSB co-publisher Patrick Sand is there to cover it the same way he covered a couple of the big games toward season’s end – not only will he write up a full report later, but he’ll be posting short, frequent game updates via Twitter. If you use Twitter, just follow wsbbizdev – or you can check the updates on the Web at twitter.com/wsbbizdev – or here on the WSB home page, look for the red Twitter box in the sidebar, over the usual blue one – the red one will show his newest update any time you refresh this page (you can use the little arrow in the lower right corner of the box to click back through previous ones).
The Seattle Lutheran HS girls’ soccer team plays Life Christian at 2 pm today (at Sammamish), for the district championship. SLHS’s volleyball team is playing Rainier Christian this morning and a win would send them to the state tournament. In football, 7:45 tonight at Memorial Stadium downtown, the West Seattle High Wildcats face Enumclaw in a playoff game (WSB will be there to cover it, including live Twitter updates at twitter.com/wsbbizdev). Last night at SWAC, Chief Sealth lost to Lakeside, 20-7.
Seattle Public Schools has gone public tonight with its timeline for a new round of school closures; the proposed list of buildings to be closed will be released two days before Thanksgiving:
• November 12: School Board meeting, vote on motion to amend policy on notice for public hearings
• November 25: Superintendent’s preliminary recommendation
• December 3: School Board meeting – discussion of recommendation
• December 15, 16, 18: Public hearings at affected buildings
• December 17: School Board meeting
• January 6: Superintendent’s final recommendation
• January 7: Recommendation introduced at School Board meeting
• January 21: School Board meeting
• January 22: Final public hearing
• January 29: Board vote on recommendation
No specific schools anywhere in the city have been listed as likely candidates for closure so far, but West Seattleites are watching particularly warily for reasons including the fact the north end is struggling with overcrowding, and the fact a district manager has mentioned at meetings regarding the Denny Middle School site’s future that an elementary school might be built on that site in the future, as a replacement for “three closures.” Meantime, the news release in which this timeline is laid out also invites public comment on “capacity management,” which includes forthcoming closure proposals — e-mail schoolboard@seattleschools.org. Also: For more context, including some interpretation from citywide PTSA leaders, check out this post on the always-excellent saveseattleschools.blogspot.com site.
We first read about it on the Seattle Lutheran High School website this morning – students working on a tight deadline to put together care packages for troops, after finding out that an SLHS (civilian) mom was heading for Kuwait with deploying troops:
When we sent a note seeking more info, turned out Bil Hood at SLHS was already rustling up those photos and more information — and he subsequently sent us this article by Kayla, SLHS senior and Key Club vice president:
As Miss Sacha Mann, a Math Teacher and Key Club faculty advisor at Seattle Lutheran High School, was counting money for UNICEF, Mr. Adair Hinds, Head of Seattle Lutheran, approached her with a great opportunity for the school.
A parent of one of the sophomores, who works in the airline industry, will be taking 400 soldiers to Kuwait, and Miss Mann was asked that Key Club put together packages of items that would be donated by students and their families. “I was impressed with the overwhelming generosity and involvement by our students and their families to bring in the donations and write thoughtful cards in such short notice,” said Miss Mann, referring to the very short 2-day timeline the school was given. Key Club not only packaged these gift bags, but also supplied cellophane bags and granola bars for the packages.
The student body helped write thank-you notes to the soldiers and signed a banner that reads, “Seattle Lutheran High School supports our troops.” (top photo) Some students wrote short stories and jokes as well as thank you notes on their cards. “It feels good to know that we’re making a difference in a soldier’s life!” said senior Emily Meyer, Key Club president, as she was writing a thank-you card.
With a very short deadline from Tuesday to Thursday, the school was able to put together more than 350 packages. In an effort to continue to support our troops, we have a Soldier’s Angels Club that is sponsoring 2 Marines who have been deployed to Iraq, and anyone interested in donating items for the care packages can bring them to the school office with a note for the Soldier’s Angels Club. Your support is greatly appreciated.
Seattle Lutheran High School is on Genesee between 41st and 42nd; here’s a map.
Alki Elementary is having a Veterans Day assembly on Monday (no school Tuesday) and we just heard from Diane Fields, who is trying to find veterans to be part of the assembly. You’d have to be available in time to get to the school by 2 pm Monday. If you can do it – or if you have a question first – please e-mail or call Diane ASAP, dianefields47@comcast.net or 206/954-1505.
All those sticky notes, and dozens more, represent the latest progress toward figuring out what will happen at the Denny Middle School site after the new school opens on the Chief Sealth campus. Even though that’s more than two years away, Seattle Public Schools managers want a final design in place within the next few months, and that’s why Design Team meetings are under way. Last time, we reported on a meeting for which few showed up; tonight, a better turnout, and as SPS manager Don Gillmore put it, this was the end of the “abstract” part of the process — read on for more on what happened and what’s next:Read More
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