Superintendent identifies more schools to close, move

Four additional schools are proposed to close or move in 2007-08, Superintendent Raj Manhas announced this morning.

The schools­ are Alternative School No. 1 (Pinehurst), Pathfinder K-8 and Roxhill and Cooper elementaries.

Under Manhas' plan, Alternative School No. 1 shares space at Summit K-12; the Pathfinder building (Genessee Hill) closes, and students move to the Cooper building; Cooper students may enroll in the Pathfinder program or another elementary school; and Roxhill closes, and its students are dispersed to Gatewood and Arbor Heights elementaries.

Though Manhas was expected to announce a closure in the Central Area, he did not.

"There's still excess space, and we will work together again to look at the different possibilties," he said. The best option, he added, is T.T. Minor Elementary School, but because T.T. Minor is housing students from Martin Luther King Elementary this year, that school must remain open for the immediate future.

In addition, Viewlands Elementary — a school slated for the closure in the School Board's first round — will merge with Broadview-Thomson, and the district will create a K-8 there, Manhas said.

In July, the School Board voted to close seven schools next school year, including one — Martin Luther King — that did not reopen this fall. The process was so controversial that district officials postponed additional closures until now. In this round, Manhas aimed to close one school each in West Seattle, the North End and the Central Area.

The board is scheduled to vote on the new closures on Nov. 1.

Together, the two rounds of closures are expected to save $3.4 million a year starting in 2008-09. The first year the schools are closed, the savings will be less because of mothballing and moving costs. The district is closing schools in part because it's facing an expected $21 million shortfall in 2007-08.

Along with Viewlands and Martin Luther King, the plan previously approved by the board calls for:

* Rainier View and Emerson elementaries to merge in the Emerson building;

* Whitworth and Dearborn Park elementaries to merge in the Dearborn Park building;

* Orca Alternative K-5 to move into the Whitworth building;

* Fairmount Park and High Point to merge in the High Point building;

* Four programs at John Marshall Alternative School to move;

* and the vacant Hughes building, a former school, to close.

The second phase of the closure process has been a quiet one, with district officials meeting with individual school leaders and parents in small groups. The first phase lasted six months and spanned a series of community meetings; even so, two lawsuits are pending over whether the public was properly informed.