Seattle’s school district has released what it is calling its “final recommendation” for school closures and program moves in the city. The announcement comes after weeks of public discussion regarding the district’s budget crisis.
The only Hill-area school slated for closure is T.T. Minor — closing down the Central District school has been part of the district’s proposals from the earliest stages. This post to CDNews captures some of the opposition to the move.
There are sure to be more attempts to stop these closures and changes including this online petition to stop the process.
Update: Comments below discuss the Lowell situation. Will be interesting to see how the transition of ‘general education’ students into Lowell will progress.
Previously 1/2 of Lowell APP was going to Thurgood Marshall and the other 1/2 to another south end school, and (as I recall) Montlake was moving to Lowell.
Now we have Montlake staying put, and only 1/2 of Lowell APP moving. That seems to leave Lowell 1/2 empty. Hardly seems an efficient plan, if closing buildings and saving money is the driving force. It would appear that they’re splitting up elementary school APP for political correctness.
There are good reasons for keeping all of APP at one site: with enough kids they can offer different levels of classes for subjects, such as math, where abilities may vary widely. (probably ditto for middle school APP).
They’re making room for “general” education along with the smart kids at Lowell
http://www.seattleschools.org/area/capacity/faq.pdf
They’re making room for “general” education along with the smart kids at Lowell
They don’t say where those kids are coming from! They were going to be Montlake kids but now they’re not.
J-Bird- Meany Middle School is also “closing.” The building will be used for a couple of other district alternative programs (NOVA and SBOC) but our only neighborhood middle school will be gone with this proposal.
point taken. At highest level, my concerns are mostly about whether the spaces are being utilized or not. Can’t imagine how ugly an abandoned Lowell would get in interim between closure and redevelopment
Not to call the closing of TT Minor, Mann and Van Asselt racist or race related, but they are all south of Madison which was the historic dividing line of rental properties that would rent to non whites, and clustered in such a way as to reflect those boundaries almost perfectly.
Now of course, those are the neighborhoods the young (mostly white) professionals have moved into, since the property is relatively and cheap, and as being young professionals, do not have the children to justify a school in their neighborhood. However it reflects the impact of historic racist policies, that have yet to ever be actively addressed or confronted. Most people don’t know it ever existed, and as such, just assumed for some other reason Seattle was mostly White.
UW has some interesting maps to consider:
http://depts.washington.edu/civilr/segregation_maps.htm
Most of which resulted from which buildings would allow non whites to rent, which you can read about here:
http://depts.washington.edu/civilr/covenants.htm
Remember, before you talk about how progressive Seattle is but yet still can’t explain why there aren’t any African American’s here, you might want to read up on the city’s segregated past:
http://depts.washington.edu/civilr/segregated.htm
It’s definitely good news for our neighborhood that Lowell is taken off the chopping block. By my math, if 1/2 of the APP program is moving elsewhere, and presumably the program for disabled kids will stay (1/2 of the current enrollment), then only 1/4 of the total will open up for other kids. It sure would be nice if this 1/4 is composed of mainly kids from Capitol Hill, because I think anything that encourages more families here is a positive development.