List released of Seattle schools recommended for closing

Seattle Public School officials unveiled recommendations Tuesday to mothball six buildings, close another for at least a few years, and move nine schools — or parts of schools — to different buildings.

The district is trying to save money by closing schools, but the staff also made recommendations it thinks will strengthen the district's academic offerings and give students in some neighborhoods better access to specialized programs.

The gifted program for the district's most capable elementary students, for example, would move from Lowell in Central Seattle to two schools — Thurgood Marshall Elementary near Interstate 90 and Hawthorne Elementary in South Seattle.

In addition, strong programs housed in buildings in poor condition, such as Pathfinder Elementary in West Seattle, would get new homes. Pathfinder would move to the building that now houses Arbor Heights Elementary, which would close.

"This is not fun," said Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson. "This is really difficult."

No one on the staff wants to close schools, she said, "but the brutal fact is that we don't have a choice."

The recommendations are preliminary, and the School Board Tuesday raised questions and concerns. Several worried about the number of changes proposed for the Central Area, about several of the school moves, and about why staffers didn't recommend closing a large high school. Goodloe-Johnson will make her final recommendations Jan. 6, and the district plans a series of public meetings and hearings over the next two months before the School Board takes a final vote Jan. 29. Under the recommendation, any closures or moves would take effect in fall 2009.

The closure discussion is part of the district's efforts to reduce expenses. They won't save enough to fill the anticipated budget gap, staffers say, but they would help. For this school year, district officials dipped into reserves to balance the budget, acknowledging that was only a short-term solution.

The district has estimated it would have to reduce its expenses by $24 million in costs for the 2009-10 school year. But the district's Chief Finance and Operations Officer Don Kennedy said Tuesday possible cuts in state funding could potentially double that.

Seattle closed seven schools in 2006 but that didn't take care of all of the district's excess capacity.

It's not clear whether this recommendation would do so either, although district spokeswoman Patti Spencer said she thought it would take care of "a lot of it."

The buildings recommended for closure are: Lowell, which now houses some special-education programs along with the gifted program; NOVA alternative high school; Pathfinder K-8; T.T. Minor Elementary in Central Seattle; Alternative School No. 1 in North Seattle; Van Asselt Elementary in Southeast Seattle; and the secondary Bilingual Orientation Program (BOC) on Queen Anne Hill. The building that houses the secondary BOC, however, might reopen as an elementary school because schools in its neighborhood are crowded.

Most of the schools in the buildings scheduled for closure would move to newer buildings in better condition, except part of T.T. Minor, and Alternative School No. 1, which would close.

Besides Arbor Heights, T.T. Minor and Alternative School No. 1, the other school programs that are recommended to close are the African American Academy in Southeast Seattle and Meany Middle in Central Seattle.

The district estimates it will save $300,000-$600,000 a year from closing an elementary school, and $600,000-$1.2 million from a middle school. More precise numbers are still in the works. One of the more interesting recommendations is for NOVA alternative school to share space with the secondary BOC in the building that now houses Meany Middle.

The hope is that the two programs would give the BOC's immigrant students more opportunity to talk to English-speaking peers, and give NOVA students, many of whom are interested in world affairs, the chance to interact with students from all over the world.

There also are plans to turn the secondary BOC into a school where students stay for their full high-school careers.

Another is the proposal to move Summit K-12 alternative school, with its strong arts program, to Rainier Beach High School, which is putting renewed focus on the arts under the district's Southeast Initiative. The two schools would remain separate but share the building.

Staffers also recommended opening a new, regular elementary school in Northeast Seattle to help ease overcrowding in that part of the city. That school would be where Thornton Creek Elementary is now. Thornton Creek, an alternative elementary school, would become a K-8 and move to Summit K-12's building.

Students in schools that close would be assigned to a different school close to home, but also could apply elsewhere. Students assigned to schools that move could apply to a different school as well.

The recommendations also include a number of changes for special-education programs at the affected schools.

The criteria used to choose which schools should be closed were similar to the ones used in 2006, with the condition of the building playing a big role, as well as how many students go to school in the surrounding neighborhoods.

But this time, said Spencer, staffers focused on using any decisions to close schools as a way to help strengthen the district's offerings.

That wasn't ignored in 2006, she said, "but it was not as intentional."

The academic performance of the schools was also a consideration, judged by whether a school was meeting the goals set out under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which sets test-score targets in reading and writing for a school's total population, plus a number of subgroups that include major ethnic groups, and students in special education and English-language programs.

The recommendations are sure to draw opposition. Parents with students in Lowell's gifted program, for example, have long been an organized and vocal group. And discontinuing the African American Academy is sure to be a blow to the people who fought to create that school two decades ago, and have done a lot to nurture and support it.