School closures strike Highline district, too

School closures strike Highline district, too

By Nick Perry
Seattle Times staff reporter

A school that opened in 1882 with 11 students studying in a log cabin is among four schools the Highline School District plans to close.

The School Board voted 3-2 Thursday night to close Olympic Intermediate, Salmon Creek Elementary and the historic Sunnydale Elementary in June. Valley View Elementary will close in 2007.

The closures come in response to years of declining enrollment and a budget squeeze, similar to the pressures in Seattle that led administrators to propose closing 10 schools there.

With redrawn school boundaries in Highline, the closures will affect a total of about 1,300 children.

The two dissenting board members wanted to keep Valley View open in order to preserve its alternative program, but were overruled by members who argued the program could be transferred to another school.

Most of the students will be moving into new buildings, thanks to a 2002 bond measure that funded new school construction. The bond does not pay for operating costs.

"We recognize it's a very difficult, emotional process to close schools," district spokeswoman Catherine Carbone Rogers said yesterday. "But we do believe the schools that the students are going to are better facilities."

The district's enrollment has declined from almost 19,000 students in 1997 to about 17,700 today, with further declines projected, Rogers said. The closures will save at least $1.2 million annually from the district's $138 million budget.

Sunnydale Elementary, in Burien, was the first school in the district to open.

The original log cabin was replaced with another building that, although renovated, is still in use more than 100 years later.

"Almost all of our buildings were old and needed replacing, and we are doing a lot of catch-up now," Rogers said.

Progress has caught up with Sunnydale in other ways — it is within a stone's throw of the construction of a third runway at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Sunnydale students will be reassigned to one of three elementary schools: Gregory Heights, Cedarhurst or Marvista.

Olympic Intermediate in Des Moines will merge with nearby North Hill Primary, which is being rebuilt and renamed North Hill Elementary.

The old Olympic school will temporarily house students from Mount Rainier High School while a new high school is built.

Students from Salmon Creek, in the White Center neighborhood, also will be relocated to one of three elementary schools: White Center Heights, Mount View or Hazel Valley.

Valley View in SeaTac will merge with Bow Lake Elementary. New buildings at Bow Lake are due to open in 2007.

The closures and most of the boundary changes were recommended by a citizens committee of 30 that was asked to recommend at least three schools for closure. Each of the committee members represented one of the schools in the district.

Parents of children affected by the closures and new boundaries will receive a letter outlining the changes next week.

Students have until May 13 to request a transfer to another school.

Nick Perry: 206-515-5639 or nperry@seattletimes.com