Is your local public school your first choice?
Wed, 06/07/2006
Let me preface this commentary by saying that Chief Sealth High School is a great school with great teachers and a great principal. I just happened to have graduated from another great high school-West Seattle-and so the following is based on my experience there as a student, alumnus, and volunteer...
In early May I joined some 150 students, teachers, and supporters of West Seattle High School for their Foundation dinner and student theater night, with this year's proceeds benefiting the school band. As always with a West Seattle High School event, the core of the audience was a loyal cadre of alumni there to support the school, its students, and their future.
In recent months readers of the West Seattle Herald have seen several stories about West Seattle High School, due to the recently-averted cancellation of its promised ninth-grade honors program, the ongoing debate over whether to continue its four-period day, and the implementation of new security measures.
Looking at the numbers, West Seattle High is in a good place right now. Since students returned to the renovated 1917 building in the fall of 2002, the new "Old Westside" has become a popular choice for incoming freshmen. In 2002 the school was the first choice of 253 students and had no need for a waiting list. In the three years since, more students have chosen the school than can be accommodated within the spots available-a good sign.
But these numbers beg an important question: Where do local kids go to school? How many of the students who live in the communities surrounding West Seattle High choose it as their school? And the same question applies to Chief Sealth, and to all our local public middle and elementary schools. Many-perhaps most-choose their local school. Many others do not. I want to know why, and what can be done about it.
Is your local school your first choice? If not, what could change to make it your first choice?
My question is about more than education. My experience growing up and living these 44 years in West Seattle has convinced me that the local school is the single greatest unifying force not just for the present students but for the entire community. It is the one thing that the most folks have in common. This effect is exaggerated in West Seattle as compared to other neighborhoods, but the principle could hold true in many places around Seattle.
If our community is a series of intertwined circles of relationships, having in common the shared geography of the Duwamish Peninsula, then the local public high schools are surely the circles of the greatest circumference. They connect the greatest number of us to one another, and to the community at large. Other institutions, such as local churches or youth sports leagues, contribute significant circles of relationships as well. And there are literally thousands of circles of all sizes generated by businesses, service clubs, political, social and cultural organizations, and just plain families and neighbors. But the local public high school is the greatest uniting force.
I believe, then, that the local public high school ought to be up to the task of serving every local student, whether they plan to continue on to college, to attend trade or vocational training or to go directly into the working world. It is not enough to say that there is a program across town that can serve your children adequately, or to argue that you can save a local school by creating a magnet program to draw kids from around the city to fill your empty desks.
Enrollment numbers and test scores are important, but I think the ultimate value of a school lies in how well and how appropriately it serves the families of its community.
So, what makes a school your first choice? Please add your comments to this discussion.