Ballard High School, preschool partnership to end

When Casa Maria Montessori preschool moves out of Ballard High School at the end of June, it will mark the end to a learning partnership between Seattle high schools and preschools.

Advocates say these programs — there were once three partnerships — gave high-school students invaluable insight into child care and early-childhood education.

But the district has been hammered by budget cuts — the closure comes at a time when the school district is laying off 85 central-staff office employees this year in an effort to cut expenses. The state also has cut K-12 funding throughout Washington during the past two years, and the district's subsequent cuts have included laying off dozens of teachers, closing schools, using savings and streamlining transportation.

It's a matter of space, too, said Ballard High School Principal Phil Brockman. School-enrollment numbers haven't increased during the past few years, but the school has a new program for students with autism that needs the preschool space.

"We feel badly that the early-learning program will no longer be housed at Ballard, but we really do not have a choice," Brockman said.

For Gail Longo, the preschool's executive director, the change means her program will be leaving a classroom designed for young children.

"It's like buying a house and never painting it," she said. "Why do we create these structures and then never maintain them?"

The district had hosted the nonprofit preschool without charging rent for six years. During that time, Longo had partnered with Marcia Lalonde, who teaches a family and consumer-sciences class at Ballard. Their partnership allowed high-school students to observe the preschool students and learn firsthand about child development. Advanced students could intern at the preschool for one class period.

Longo hosted after-school programs in which the preschool children learned Chinese in an all-Chinese environment. Several weeks ago she hosted a symposium on early-childhood education that brought researchers from Seattle Children's and the University of Washington.

Trez Buckland, a UW professor from the School of Nursing, works on a committee that advises the school district about the direction of its health and human-services programs. She said the district is losing a valuable program.

"Gail's really a mover and a shaker," Buckland said. "She gives herself to these things because she knows it's the right thing to do."

This past December, Longo received a letter explaining she had to leave by June 30.

That's the same thing teachers Susan Grant and Cindy Kegley heard three years ago when the district closed preschools at Nathan Hale and Ingraham high schools. Grant and Kegley, family and consumer-sciences teachers at the two high schools, had partnered with preschools to give high-school students opportunities to learn directly at the early-learning centers. The district closed those preschools when it remodeled the two high schools.

By 2008, Ballard High School was the only high school still hosting a preschool. Now, Longo says parents of preschoolers and some high-school students are writing to Brockman, the principal, asking him not to close the preschool.

Andrew Doughman: 206-464-3195 or adoughman@seattletimes.com

Seattle Times education reporter Linda Shaw contributed to this report.