Monday night I attended the emotional and informative town hall meeting at Aki Kurose Middle School, where schools slated for closure in the South East quadrant had the chance to air their grievances to the district’s Citizen Advisory Committee. Well over two hundred of my fellow members of the Graham Hill community marched down the hill to the meeting; you can see a clip of the coverage on KOMO TV.
I spent a lot of the night cornering CAC and school board members, and I intend to write up a bit of a report later on, but I wanted to briefly comment on an epiphany I had while rabble-rousing with parents from other schools slated for closure.
The CAC had belatedly suggested that Graham Hill’s Montessori program might be moved into another school if the parents wanted, but we all understand that this simply would not work. The Montessori program is a community, deeply tied to Graham Hill and its neighborhood. And it is a program that requires the active support of strongly involved parents to succeed.
For example, the school district requires that we waive our $290/month tuition to any applicant qualifying for free and reduced price lunch, but provides no additional money to cover its costs. Without the scholarship money raised by Montessori parents, we can’t keep the preschool open. I doubt half the families would stick with the program if moved outside our neighborhood, and without these families the program will fail. You might as well just start from scratch elsewhere.
And in talking to parents at other schools, I learned that this attitude was shared, particularly by the very passionate families at TOPS.
Possibly the most bewildering of the CAC’s recommendations was the decision to move the extremely popular, 530-strong TOPS program from the specially modified Seward building, into what is now Thurgood Marshal, a building with a capacity of only 420.
Of course, it makes absolutely no sense to recommend moving the TOPS program intact into a building with less than four-fifths the necessary capacity, unless…
Unless you don’t intend to move TOPS intact.
And that was my epiphany. In making this recommendation the CAC must have assumed that that Thurgood Marshal could accommodate TOPS, because in moving it, the program’s enrollment would dramatically decline. And more dramatically than the numbers at first suggest.
My understanding is that about a third of the students at TOPS come from the neighborhood, and choose it mostly because Seward is their neighborhood school. Seward is one of the nicest facilities in the city, and Montlake, the school proposed to take it over, has some of the district’s highest test scores. So we can assume that as much as a third of the students currently enrolled in TOPS will choose to remain at Seward. (It’s really the only way the 230-strong Montlake can even begin to take advantage of Seward’s 524-seat capacity.)
Likewise, we can assume that Thurgood Marshal is the reference school for a significant number of its students, and they too will choose to stay in large numbers, whatever prefix is slapped before the school’s name. So really, there’s probably only room for about half of TOPS students to move to Thurgood Marshal — which I’m guessing is about right, since many of its families will choose other, more stable options, within and without the district.
I personally had hoped to transfer my daughter into TOPS for middle school, but not anymore. I don’t want her to have her education disrupted by the transition years, in which the new, smaller TOPS gradually adapts to its new building and new community. It may be called “TOPS” but it won’t be the program we toured this winter.
The fact is, you can’t move a program like TOPS in this fashion, and expect to keep its community together. The CAC must have understood this, else they never would have believed they could fit the over-enrolled, long wait-listed program into a much small building. It just stands to reason.
Likewise, I take the belated offer to explore moving our Montessori program to another school as a nonstarter. If Graham Hill closes, so will its Montessori program, and neither its name nor its community will survive a move to a different school. The district will essentially be shutting down a program with some of the highest WASL scores in the city: 100% Reading, 83% Writing, 67% Math.
And I can only assume the CAC understands this too.
Equally valid comments can be made by any thoughtful parent.
Please, now, understand the difficulty in being a school adminstrator or board member trying to do the right thing.
I’m curious what the view of the teacher’s union is on all this. Have they been in on the discussions and decisions? I think I heard somewhere that the number of teachers will remain unchanged, which makes sense. So are they neutral on this?
It would also be interesting to see just how the district will save $5 million by closing these schools. It doesn’t seem to me that there is that much money tied up in the buildings themselves. Plus, unless the district sells the buildings, they will still have to pay for maintenance/utilities. Are the admin staffs at these schools really this expensive?
Goldy – I wouldn’t be surprised that one of the reasons montessori and TOPS have been targeted is that the district doesn’t like experimental programs that are outside their control. Is it really so hard to believe that this is precisely why these schools have been targeted?
Goldy – If you give a fuck about your daughter, get her the hell out of Seattle public schools. If you want to make a political statement about public education go ahead, but don’t sacrifice an innocent life in the process. Move to a better school district or send her to private school.
Hey, here’s an idea. How ’bout you advocate for “choice” in education. How ’bout you get behind vouchers. Let’s let the invisible hand decide which schools survive and which ones don’t.
But please don’t use your daughter as a pawn. It’s just not fair to her…
No matter what the proposal from the district, there will always be parents who feel wronged (look at what happened last year).
I feel for you Goldy – I know that this is making your life difficult, but if this was going on elsewhere then it would be another parent making the same pleas.
This is a no-win for the district – no matter what they do they’ll end up pissing someone off.
“It would also be interesting to see just how the district will save $5 million by closing these schools. It doesn’t seem to me that there is that much money tied up in the buildings themselves.”
Commentby Janet S— 5/24/06@ 5:58 pm
You forget all the OVERHEAD involved in the operation of each school. Consolidating schools won’t reduce the number of classroom teachers, but it will cut the overhead quite dramatically.
For example, Graham Hill Elementary serves the Goldstein family. October 2005 enrollment is 325 students, and there are 25 certificated staff working there:
http://www.seattleschools.org/.....em/220.pdf
You might say — this is wonderful — a student/teacher ratio of only 13-to-1. But many of the “teachers” don’t actually teach, but are administrators.
I don’t know how many “teachers” at Graham Hill actually teach, and will defer to Goldy on that one. I don’t see that information readily available on the Seattle Schools website.
But a search of the website showed me schools with average classroom size ranging all the way from 19 to 29, with anecdotal evidence that the district average classroom size was something over 25.
If the average classroom size at Graham Hill is 25, that means 13 classroom teachers and 12 administrators. If it is 20, that is 16 classroom teachers and 9 administrators. And if the average size is 16, then 20 classroom teachers and 5 administrators.
Graham Hill also has 9 classified staff members. Presumably, there is a certain minimum number you have to have just to keep a building running, regardless of enrollment, while others (such as teacher’s aides) will vary by enrollment.
I can easily see how closing eight or so schools, eliminating 5 administrators and 5 staff at each one, and getting rid of the utilities and other non-personnel operating costs, could save something in the range of $5 million per year.
Maybe they could use SOME of those savings to fund Montessori pre-school programs for poorer students. It sure was nice of the PTA at Graham Hill to raise money to assist Goldy’s daughter.
But it would be much better for the district to take on that responsibility. Better pre-school programs for poorer students will save a much larger amount in special and remedial education costs later.
Thanks for posting the Montessori test scores. Comparing the scores you posted with those of Grahm Hill school as a whole (Reading: 100% Montessori vs. 73% Grahm Hill, Writing: 67% Montessori vs. 39% Grahm Hill, Math: 67% Montessori vs. 52% Grahm Hill) certainly belies your previous claim that the academic performance of the traditional and Montessori students is “about the same”. So much for an “integrated” school.
Commentby David Wright— 5/24/06@ 6:35 pm
Thanks for the link to the Seattle Times article, which contains the average class size for each school in Seattle.
http://schoolguide.seattletime.....ID=3378MLE
This says the average class size at Graham Hill Elementary is 30. That would mean only 11 classroom teachers for 325 students. So the other 14 certificated personnel are all administrators.
No wonder Seattle schools are so expensive to run and often produce such poor results.
7 – Doesn’t Graham Hill have an autism program? I think there’s something like 4 teachers for those classrooms.
With liberals running the schools you get the same result everytime. FAILURE School vouchers or no schools at all.
I certainly appreciate the above comment by Rufus (I refuse to call him by his full name). He has mastered what I think this crucial for the perpetuation of a one-party nation. You’ve got to blame liberals for everything. Everything.
It worked for me like a charm. I could have been dictator for life if the hired help hadn’t bungled things so badly.
Yawn. Goldy, got bit by your own dog so to speak. YOur utopian gov’t failed you.
Unclear why I should pay tax $$ to take care of your angst. Heck, i’m miffed that my neighbor obscures my view, but i don’t see government relief (aka socialism)
and re-reading the $$, teacher thing….man, go check out the budgets that non-Lakeside/bush private schools operate on. Gee, they scrape by and produce well educated kids… seriously…go find the nearest Catholic (economics slightly skewed cuz of church property, big assets) but heck, go down to the nearest Jewish school and you’ll also find dirt cheap overhead, good education.
You’ve got to blame liberals for everything. Everything.
It worked for me like a charm. I could have been dictator for life if the hired help hadn’t bungled things so badly.
Commentby Richard Nixon— 5/24/06@ 8:48 pm
Richard is just pissed that he got caught but my brother didn’t.
Now, Rufus, stop playing with me. You know I’m right. By the same token, G. W. Bush got away with it until he overreached on Iraq.
The basic playbook is sound. What we need are more skilled tacticians. Karl Rove is almost as smart as me, but he let his successes go to his head. The administration’s current problems are almost entirely their own doing, and they ultimately reside in arrogance.
This is too bad. G. W. came much closer than I ever could to declaring martial law and putting away all of the traitors.
Righton @ 11
“Heck, i’m miffed that my neighbor obscures my view, but i don’t see government relief (aka socialism)”
What the fuck??? In a socialist state, why would anyone give a rat’s ass about YOUR view?
Umm…you don’t really understand much about government and politics, do you, righton?
7 – Doesn’t Graham Hill have an autism program? I think there’s something like 4 teachers for those classrooms.
Commentby For the Clueless— 5/24/06@ 7:43 pm
That would explain some of the numbers. Still, there have to be several administrators that aren’t classroom people whatsoever. That’s why I estimated somewhere around five certificated positions could be permanently eliminated and would not be needed to serve these same students at their new schools.
re 3: our preferences in economics are not a natural force of nature. You’ve been sold a bill of goods by a monied aristocracy that intends to keep its “invisible foot” planted firmly on your neck for eternity if you allow it — which I’m sure you will.
If these private schools can survive and thrive without “guvmint” money ( vouchers ) , then by your own philosophy they cannot help but prevail. Why the interest in substituting taxes for private schools as opposed to taxes for public schools AND once the “guvmint” — which you fear so much — makes private schools dependent on their handouts ( vouchers ) they will demand that the private schools conform to their “guvmint” standards. So, as usual, your ignorant howls are but another “igrint” redneck pigfart in the wind.
15
Richard the Dems biggest mistake was letting Regan pass the fairness doctrine. My brother walked right over you by stealing the 1960 election while you got tarred and feathered by the MSM doing Mickey Mouse stuff by comparison. We lost control of the press in the 80’s and whammo….Rathergate, Blairgate, Newsweek ect. Oh the shame.
Richard Pope @nauseam,
You don’t know what the fuck you are talking about. As I’ve stated before, the numbers are wrong. That 325 number is the projected enrollment for next year, and I’ve got no idea what they base it on, but it doesn’t include the 32 preschoolers. So at the very least our projected enrollment is really 357.
As for class size, the Montessori classes have 24 students in them, and are usually fully enrolled. The traditional classes vary from 17 to 28 students this year.
Your efforts to calculate class size our bullshit, because you know nothing about our school. Graham Hill is 20% ESL, which requires extra instructors. We have a special education program, which requires extra instructors. And this year we started phasing in a new autism program, that mainstreams 7 mildly autistic children into our classrooms, who come with three instructors.
Your idea of what goes on at an urban public school with population we serve is so mind-numbingly simplistic, that it’s laughable.
David Wright @6,
The school district never broke out the scores before until they tried to manipulate the data to shut us down. The parents saw the break down for the first time Sunday afternoon, and we were quite surprised the disparity was as large as it is.
Personally, I attribute much of the difference to the fact that the Montessori children receive two years of preschool and a year of full-day kindergarten.
But since the Montessori program appears to be so effective, you’d think the proper solution would be to expand the program and reproduce it, not shut down the entire school as punishment for its success.
Goldy @19,
Perhaps now that you know the extent of the disparity, you might re-consider what would be best for the majority of the students at Grahm Hill, who are apparently not getting such a great education there. For a school district strapped with cash, might it not make sense to close some of the poorly performing schools, transfering at least a few students into schools with better academic environments, and investing some of the money saved to improve their educations?
As for the Montessori program, I have no doubt that it is quite good, and benefits from the support of many loyal parents. For precisely that reason, I am willing to bet you a nice ($50+) bottle of wine that, if it is shut down at all, it or a similiar program will be running again within 2 years.
I can’t believe you didn’t do a post backing me up on my baby killing in Iraq Goldy. C’mon, show a brother some love. I’m just down the road in Lakewood, we’re practically from the same hood. Go Netroots. Down with Bushitler. Praise Mother Sheehan.
Richard Pope, I am just curious. What is your estimation of the age of the universe?
No need to be precise. A back of the envelope number will suffice.
Give or take a few thousand years or a few billions.
Just a rough estimate.
BISHOP USSHER DATES THE WORLD: 4004 BC
James Ussher (1581-1656), Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of All Ireland, and Vice-Chancellor of Trinity College in Dublin was highly regarded in his day as a churchman and as a scholar. Of his many works, his treatise on chronology has proved the most durable. Based on an intricate correlation of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean histories and Holy writ, it was incorporated into an authorized version of the Bible printed in 1701, and thus came to be regarded with almost as much unquestioning reverence as the Bible itself. Having established the first day of creation as Sunday 23 October 4004 BC, by the arguments set forth in the passage below, Ussher calculated the dates of other biblical events, concluding, for example, that Adam and Eve were driven from Paradise on Monday 10 November 4004 BC, and that the ark touched down on Mt Ararat on 5 May 2348 BC `on a Wednesday’.
http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/ussher.htm
Is that your belief, Richard?
The universe was created Sunday 23 October 4004 BC?
Richard, this is just person to person, I am trying to understand your positions, and you can ask me what I believe.
There is a whole lot I don’t know. And I will admit to it.
But we need to have a baseline, so we can enrich each other.
Bishop Ussher did come up with an estimate …
Nowadays, we have the Big Bang Theory and the Inflation Theory. Which say that the universe went from nothing at all to something large and substantial in an indescribably short instant of time. And there is scientific evidence that tends to support this proposition.
If something as large and massive as the universe can be created from nothing in an instant, it is also possible to create an entire universe that APPEARS to be billions of years old in an instant as well.
Most everything in the known universe — even the nearest star! — is so far away that it can never be reached by any mortal human being at any time during the span in which our species may continue to exist in its mortal form.
Unless, of course, we invent warp drive and perform other magic tricks.
OK, Richard. I think I understand.
You have no opinion on when the universe was created.
That is a starting point.
Some questions for our posters so that we make sure we understand reality the same way:
1) The Seattle School District:
a) Receives a subsidy from the rest of the State, because we liberals feel we are entitled and then blows the money on coke and whores.
b) Is largely revenue-neutral.
c) Takes in more in property taxes than is paid by the schools, which is then distributed to property-poor districts in other parts of the state through equalization funding.
2) The potential remedies for the Seattle funding gap are:
a) Shoot the leaders of the teacher’s union, privitize the school system, and establish vouchers to go to the school of the parents choice.
b) Raise taxes
c) Cut spending
3) Low school test scores can be attributed to:
a) Stupid liberal parents.
b) Inadequate school funding.
c) A bad reading of statistics. Schools don’t take tests. Children do. White, middle-class kids in Seattle schools have test scores that are as good as anywhere else in the state [witness the Montessori program at Graham Hill and dramatically higher scores in the city’s affluent North end]. Unfortunately, despite our best efforts at gentrifying immigrants, poor people, and poor immigrants out of our city, some of them just won’t leave. African-Americans, low-income students, and ESL students have lower test scores than their Caucasian counterparts. Schools where these students make up a large percentage of the student body reflect this in the form of low aggregate (important word here kids) standardized test scores.
p.s. goldy, one (perceived) factual error about TOPS.
TOPS’s administration swears up and down that selection to the school is purely by lottery. Living in the Eastlake area has no bearing on your ability to get into TOPS. I remember doing the school scrum a few years ago and listening to some young parents from Eastlake saying “well, we live in the neighboorhood. Does that help our chances?”. They rephraased the question several different ways, and the answer was always “nope. It’s a lottery.”
Donn, I’m glad to see that you and Richard Pope are bonding. It would seem from his frequent posts here that he needs friend.
Perhaps you could give him some gentle training in logic.
re 18: Your non-grasp of reality is astounding, and intentional.