District plan to combine schools meets resistance

Rehashing the design of a combined Chief Sealth High School and Denny Middle School campus could cost Seattle Public Schools $25 million.

Changing the design could cost even more.

Seattle School Board members heard those warnings Wednesday night as they worked to defuse the first public conflict they've faced since a new board majority was elected in November.

Under the plan, Denny would be torn down and rebuilt across the street from Sealth. The two schools in Southwest Seattle would have separate principals and teaching staffs but would share some facilities, such as music classrooms, the health clinic and cafeteria.

Voters approved the $125 million project a year ago as part of a $490 million bond. The voters guide at the time made it clear the project was a combined campus, but now teachers and community members say they never got to weigh in on the project's design.

Now, some worry about mixing students of such a wide age range. And Sealth staff members say they want a more complete upgrade, such as renovations at Roosevelt and Cleveland high schools, which were completed in the past two years. Built in 1957, Sealth would get, among other things, classroom improvements, safety upgrades and modernized science and computer labs.

Eleanor Trainor, the district's community liaison for construction projects, said district officials came up with the combined-campus idea during the 2006 school-closure process. That timing made it hard to collect public opinion, she said.

"We absolutely did our best to tell people that that was the plan, but I think nobody's denying there wasn't community outreach in the conceptual part of combining the schools," she said. "This stuff came in the middle of closures."

Now the district is rushing a series of projects because of inflation in the construction industry; the district would start construction on the Denny and Sealth project this summer, a year ahead of schedule.

The pace is "uncomfortable," Trainor said, but ensures the best use of public money.

At a School Board workshop Wednesday, district staff members argued that Denny and Sealth were getting a good deal in the redesign, but board members appeared skeptical, and Chief Academic Officer Carla Santorno said there is no academic benefit to combining the two.

A citizen-oversight committee for the district's capital projects sent a memo to the School Board last month urging members not to try to change the project. It would take more than a year to put together another design, a delay that could cost more than $25 million.

District staff members told the School Board Wednesday the district could spend $5 million to $10 million to quell concerns at Sealth with a new gym floor, an improved auditorium and other cosmetic improvements.

Separating the schools would delay the project by two years and cost millions for additional facilities at Denny. Sealth would get minimal upgrades if that were done, said Don Gillmore, the district's capital-projects manager.

On Wednesday, board members Peter Maier and Harium Martin-Morris said they wanted to see a cost estimate for building Denny on its current site, but Michael DeBell and Sherry Carr said the district should try to find what DeBell called a "tipping point" — enough amenities to satisfy Sealth without having to overhaul the whole design.

Sealth teacher Delfino Muñoz was a member of the design committee that researched the idea of a combined campus. The committee was prepared to vote against it, but by the time it was ready to make its recommendation, the district had already decided on it, he said.

It would be an expensive hassle to make sure middle- and high-school students stay separate, Muñoz said. Some parts of Sealth — the lunchroom, for instance — would be used by Denny students for part of the day, and Sealth students at other times.

He wasn't convinced the design would work, even after visiting East Coast combined campuses on a district-sponsored trip, he said.

Board President Cheryl Chow suggested people who are concerned now might not have been paying attention during the district's community engagement.

"When I make the decision on this, I will not need 100 percent buy-in," she said.

Emily Heffter: 206-464-8246 or eheffter@seattletimes.com