According to a recent PI article Lowell Elementary will be spared from the chopping block.
Lowell would continue to enroll about half the elementary APP students; the other half would move to Thurgood Marshall Elementary…
…Montlake Elementary’s building is in poor condition, so Goodloe-Johnson proposes moving those students to Lowell. The move also would let special-education students currently at Lowell attend school with general-education students.
Good news for the Capitol Hill neighborhood. With the apparent influx of families moving to the hill, these kids need somewhere close to attend school. Though North Seattle is fighting overcrowding and South Seattle is seeing under-enrollment, we’ve been stuck slightly in the middle. Remember though, people still need to give their input and be active in this great debate. Details, of course, in this CHS thread.
Closing Montlake Elementary would not be something to cheer about. There are a lot of reasons that combining the Montlake kids with the Lowell kids, as proposed, might not be in everyone’s best interest, but I’ll leave that to the school-policy geeks/parents/lawyers who are actively freaking out over this latest closure news. From my simplistic view: Montlake Elementary is an adorable neighborhood school straight out of your kids picture book. The school is full with a crazy mix of happy kids and teachers. Everyone knows each other. Academically, the school is doing very well. It’s exactly the place you imagine your kids would go. I have no idea how keeping this school open would pencil out economically over decades, but aside from the crucial numbers, closing a school like this would be admitting spiritual defeat. The net cost in hopes, dreams and memories would be huge. Many of the parents went to kindergarten there themselves. I’ll admit I can’t see the big picture. But from up close, the soul of a city weakens when a public treasure like this is lost.
but don’t forget you have to test into Lowell. It’s for the gifted kiddies only.
Looks like they suggest combining schools, so half would be the tested-into portion while half would be regular kids.
My understanding from the article is that the physical school needs work and they don’t have the funds to pay for it, thus combining with the “better” of the two schools. *Better meaning more modern? Lowell seems pretty run down to me.
First try: close Lowell because the school is falling down.
Second iteration: Close Montlake, because it’s falling down and move the kids to Lowell (which seems to be miraculously healed) to share with the APP kids from the North End.
APP is a test-in program (top 2%) and, this not being Lake Wobegon, all the children can’t be above average.
Montlake does seem to be all that Juan says it is, and so will be very hard for newcomers/outsiders to get into. Certainly preference for siblings, probably for families from its present area. I recall fussing a couple of years ago when Madrona was officially a “failing” school and parents there wanted to exercise their “no child left behind” rights to transfer to Montlake.
Unfortunately all the APP kids who live in the central cluster (where lowell is located) will be shipped down to Thurgood Marshall. The Montlake reference area is going to have to be re-drawn, but no matter how you draw it, the kids in Montlake are geographically distant from Lowell which will put them at a disadvantage to getting in (distance is a tiebreaker in school assignment). Kids in Montlake are closer to Stevens than Lowell, some say that Stevens kids should be moved to Lowell and Montlake to Stevens. The tangled mess just keeps growing. For years the kids in the central cluster have been getting the short end of the stick and there appear to be no changes in that pattern.
Currently and for some years, Lowell is not a “neighborhood school.” Half of it is the Advanced Placement Program (APP) and the other half is for kids with physical and developmental disabilities, so all of the kids now are bussed in from all over the city. There are very few Capitol Hill kids there.
The most recent plan (it seems to change every week!) is to not change the special ed program, but to move half of the APP kids elsewhere, close Montlake and move them to Lowell…so this means there will still be almost no places for Capitol Hill kids, and it will still not be a neighborhood school. But you can bet that the plans will change again…I cannot imagine that the Montlake parents will stand by and let that school close without a huge fight.
There really DOES seem to be more young children and babies being raised on Capitol Hill these days, and I see this as a very positive thing. It sure would be nice if they all had Lowell School to attend, but the true neighborhood school seems to be a thing of the past…unfortunately!
And it is not just busing. A lot of these kids are driven to Lowell by parents who tend to be manic drivers w/little regard for their surroundings or pedestrians or school zones. Also, heaven help anyone trying to drive on 11th and vicinity when the pick up / drop off parking cavalcade ensues most days.
PS: Of course, I have also seen some truly disturbing driving behavior by parents heading to pick up kids at St. Joe’s on 19th so it’s not just a problem at Lowell.