Parent says not at Tyee

As a parent of an entering junior at Tyee High School, I would like to comment on a statement made by John Welch in your interview with him printed in the August 24 Times/News.

Your question was, "When you talk about high schools not working for some kids, then you run into a problem with the parents of students who school is working for. People worry about academic rigor and they worry that resources are being taken away from programs that are working for their kids. How do you address that?"

Mr. Welch's ending response to you was that, "I envision strengthening our advanced placement courses that are often looked at by colleges and universities as important courses to take. We are offering more than we have ever offered."

You may be interested to know that Tyee High School is not offering any AP or Honors classes this year. For the past year they have been planning the switch to small schools on the main campus, and apparently they decided to omit these programs entirely from their curriculum.

These changes have made us very concerned about Tyee's ability to prepare the students for college. Maybe Mr. Welch was referring to the other three high schools in the district as "Offering more than we have ever offered," because he obviously didn't mean Tyee.

Kathy Reyes

SeaTac