Keeping People Happy

Manhas trims school-closure list to seven

By Emily Heffter
Seattle Times staff reporter

Parents who protested school closures the loudest got what they wanted Wednesday, but Seattle schools Superintendent Raj Manhas insisted his recommendations were about data, not emotion. With Manhas' recommendations, the original citizens-committee proposal to close 12 buildings has been cut almost in half. The district plans to tackle three or four more closures in the fall.

Graham Hill Elementary will remain open, and Manhas rejected moving Pathfinder K-8 into the Boren building in West Seattle.

Other changes include allowing Rainier View and Emerson elementary schools to merge in the Emerson building, and Viewlands and Greenwood elementaries to merge in the Greenwood building, in addition to three other mergers previously proposed.

Manhas also acknowledged that his recommendations to close seven school buildings — six of them occupied — violate the district's goal to spread the pain evenly among neighborhoods and ethnic and socioeconomic groups. The closures most heavily affect students of color, low-income and special-education students.

But he expressed hope that the five mergers will improve those schools because they would have more money to spend on teachers and special programs.

"Our system creates inequity when our schools don't have the resources to close the achievement gap and increase student performance," he said.

Upcoming meetings on school closures


6 p.m. Wednesday: Special School Board meeting to introduce the final recommendations. John Stanford Center auditorium, 2445 Third Ave. S.

6:30 p.m. July 18: Public hearing at Rainier View Elementary School, 11650 Beacon Ave. S.

6 p.m. July 19: Public hearing on final recommendations, John Stanford Center auditorium.

6 p.m. July 26: School Board votes on final recommendations, John Stanford Center auditorium

Manhas also set up an ambitious timeline for a second phase of school closures. He wants the board to have recommendations in September and vote Nov. 1 on as many as four more school closures — one in the north end, one in West Seattle, one in the Central Area, and possibly the Wilson Pacific multipurpose building.

Manhas said the district won't use the controversial system it has been using to divide the city into four "quadrants." Instead, it will take the second phase neighborhood by neighborhood.

Manhas' plan will likely dodge major public outcry before the School Board votes July 26. Of the seven buildings closing, Hughes is vacant, John Marshall Alternative School serves high-risk students, and the five mergers allow schools to move intact within their neighborhoods.

Manhas' final recommendations came after a series of community meetings. Parents of students at Pathfinder and of those in Graham Hill's popular Montessori program were the most vocal in that process, arriving in droves wearing matching shirts and even passing out water bottles emblazoned with slogans. But Manhas rejected the idea that he bowed to the pressure.

"It is not the squeaky wheel," he said. "It is not the people who spoke up. I had to look in every child's eyes as they walked through those doors at those schools."

Connie Thomas, who has taught fifth grade at Graham Hill for seven years, said she thinks parental pleas to save the school's programs made a difference. "I think that if those parents had not been very vocal, we might not have been able to get our point across as well as we did," she said.

The school closures are expected to save some money toward closing an approximately $20 million budget gap in 2007-08, though savings estimates have shrunk. Originally, the district said the closures would save $5 million. Now it projects savings of $2 million, half of which will go back into school programs the first year.

But the closures, Manhas has said, are really meant to help the district run more efficiently and improve schools. Seattle Public Schools' enrollment has fallen by about half since the 1960s, but the district has not closed a school in nearly 20 years.

Manhas' changes could put the district on the hook to build a new building. The district has a contract with The New School Foundation to provide an adequate building for The New School, which is housed temporarily in the South Shore Building. Manhas' original plan called for The New School to move into the Emerson building, but under the new plan, Emerson and Rainier View would share that building.

The superintendent also announced that a committee will be formed to help implement the closures.

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

Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company