Supporters rally to save Rainier Beach High

Makela Steward's phone started ringing at 6:30 a.m. Thursday. The first caller was a friend and former Rainier Beach High classmate who's now a lawyer in New York.

She'd heard the news that Rainier Beach could close.

"What's going on?" she asked. "Do I need to fly out?"

In one of the newest twists in Seattle Public School's plans to shutter up to nine schools, Rainier Beach High could end up merged with Cleveland High.

No school closure is easy. As several School Board members noted Wednesday, no parent or teacher, as much as they sympathize with the district's financial problems, has offered up their school as a candidate for closure.

But the prospect of dissolving a comprehensive high school is particularly difficult, given how many people hold their alma maters dear.

"I'm a Viking and I'm a Viking through and through," said Steward, referring to Rainier Beach's mascot. "I bleed orange and blue."

The district hasn't closed a comprehensive high school for nearly 30 years.

Closing Rainier Beach, supporters say, would be a slap in the face to a school they say has succeeded against significant odds.

"Since our inception, we've had to fight for everything," said Steward, who graduated 10 years ago and now teaches language arts at the school.

Rainier Beach, often simply called "Beach," opened in 1960 as a junior and senior high school, and during its history it's also been a K-12 school.

In the '80s, it was home to a gifted program called Horizon and enrollment topped 1,000 students. But the student population started to decline in the late '80s, partly because the district, as part of desegregation efforts, capped the number of minority students who could attend. It also struggled in the '90s under a principal that the district eventually paid to retire early.

Many students who live close by choose to go elsewhere.

But the school has recently begun to make academic gains. Last spring, for example, 91 percent of students passed writing on the Washington Assessment of Student Learning.

That, plus a recent infusion of Advanced Placement courses, has added some academic heft to a place where sports had been the main source of pride.

Beach is the defending 3A state champion in boys basketball and has won five titles. Famous basketball alumni include Nate Robinson ('03, now a New York Knick), and Jamal Crawford ('99, recently traded from the Knicks to the Golden State Warriors). The boys and girls track teams also have won a number of state titles.

The school, under the district's Southeast Initiative, also has a burgeoning performing-arts program.

Staff members worry that Rainier Beach students would get lost if they become part of a larger school that might not be able to offer them the personal attention they receive at Beach.

Steward said that several Rainier Beach teachers, including herself, have opened their homes to students who've needed somewhere to live.

"That's where the family environment comes in," she said.

A Cleveland-Rainier Beach merger would combine the district's two high schools with the highest percentage of students from families who live in poverty.

The two schools also have the highest percentage of minority students among the district's comprehensive high schools.

The merger would "do nothing to promote an end to that segregation," said teacher Mark Epstein.

District staff members say they continue to evaluate the feasibility of combining the two schools, and haven't ruled out moving Cleveland to Rainier Beach instead of the other way around.

Still, Rainier Beach supporters, like parents in other schools on the closure list, are preparing to fight to save their school.

After her New York friend called, Steward said she received six more calls before she left for work, including one from her brother in Arizona.

"What do we have to do?" he asked. "This is not going to happen like this."

Seattle Times reporter Craig Smith contributed to this report.

Linda Shaw: 206-464-2359 or lshaw@seattletimes.com