The Seattle School Board erased the proposed merger of Pathfinder K-8 School with Cooper Elementary School as well as the recommended closure of Roxhill Elementary last week by a vote of 5 to 2.

Several West Seattle schools then participated in a Saturday morning parade with Roxhill Elementary thanking the powers that be for sparing their school, but several others joined in not because of the flap, but spontaneous.

"The purpose of the parade is to celebrate our focus on literacy and the many wonderful things happening in our schools," said Jeff Clark, Denny Middle School principal.

Earlier a class at spared Roxhill sang "We all in this together" to the school board and superintendent, and made a banner thanking them for being left to remain open.

At the board meeting, Irene Stewart, West Seattle's elected director, made a motion to stop the second round of school closures and mergers when she realized a majority of the directors did not support the plan.

"There weren't the four votes to pass it," Stewart said. "I didn't see anything changing minds. I thought, we don't need to continue this."

In Stewart's opinion, the latest phase of school closures didn't include enough information for either the School Board or the public. It wasn't as smooth as the first phase conducted earlier this year, when there were more public meetings and additional time for residents to comment on the proposed closures, she said. However, things have been different in the second round of school closures.

"It was not the right package and it was not done in the right way," Stewart said.

The closure-merger issue provoked much heartburn in West Seattle in recent months, what with the future uncertain for about half the community's public elementary schools.

During phase one of the school-closure process, officials decided to combine High Point and Fairmount Park elementary schools in the newer High Point building. That recommendation has been largely supported.

In the second and most recent phase of school closures, Superintendent Raj Manhas recommended Pathfinder K-8 School merge with Cooper Elementary School in a new, undefined alternative education program at Cooper. That caused an uproar from both schools.

Manhas also stirred controversy when he proposed closure of Roxhill Elementary School.

Roxhill School was recommended for closure partly because its building is in comparatively poorer shape than other schools and its campus is small.

Last week, the staff at Roxhill School fully expected to hear their building would be closed as recommended. But Superintendent Manhas took Roxhill off the closure list before presenting his final recommendations to the School Board last week.

"We're thrilled," said Roxhill School Principal Katie Cryan as teachers and staff celebrated by toasting each other with apple juice.

The principal credited the parents of Roxhill students with helping to change the minds of Seattle Public Schools staff as well as the School Board.

"Our school community stepped forward," Cryan said. "They showed how integral the school is to the community."

A recent demographic report on Roxhill School shows the largest ethnic group is Latino students, who comprise about 30 percent of the student body. The second-largest group is blacks with 26 percent, then 24 percent are Asian, 16 percent are white and about 3 percent are American Indian.

More than 82 percent of Roxhill students qualify for reduced price or free lunch, which means that many are from low-income households.

Nevertheless Roxhill School has a recent record of academic improvement. During the 2004-2005 school year, Roxhill's reading scores on the Washington Assessment of Student Learning improved from 48 percent to 72 percent. Writing scores went up from 28 percent to almost 40 percent. Math scores rose from about 22 to 37 percent.

Manhas also was impressed by the longevity and experience of Roxhill's faculty, 90 percent of whom have master's degrees.

Many Roxhill parents are immigrants for whom speaking English can be a daunting challenge. Nor are they fully knowledgeable about the ways of American local government. But they turned out for a public hearing Oct. 9 to save their school. That had an impact on school district officials.

"The weight of public testimony coupled with our understanding of the growing effectiveness of the Roxhill learning community simply cannot be ignored," stated the superintendent's final recommendations.

Stewart still opposes the idea of combining Pathfinder's alternative approach to education with Cooper School's traditional classroom approach.

Stewart suggests studying all West Seattle public schools to figure out what kind of educational programs work best in each school and then instituting them to attract more students.

Cooper Elementary School, for example, might benefit from having a dual-language or language-immersion program, she said. Or perhaps Cooper School's campus, with its wetlands and forest, would make a good laboratory for an environmental studies program. Maybe an arts-oriented curriculum could attract more students. Or maybe a Montessori program would be best.

"We have to figure out what kind of program placement will encourage families to choose that school," Stewart said. "We can attract students if we have programs that people want."

Tim St. Clair can be contacted at tstclair@robinsonnews.com or 932-0300.