By Tracy Record

West Seattle Blog editor

One day after news began to spread of a district-ordered teacher-reallocation move affecting two local elementary schools, one is launching a short-time, big-sum fundraising drive: $90,000 needed by Wednesday, to keep from losing a teacher.

We first reported Thursday afternoon on the situation that could result in one teacher being moved from Gatewood Elementary to newly reopened Fairmount Park Elementary. Fairmount has more students than planned for, the district says, while Gatewood has fewer first-graders than planned for.

While the district has not publicly identified the teacher that would be moved from Gatewood to Fairmount Park, Gatewood parents say the current version of the plan would move first-grade teacher Ms. Morgan. Parent Tracy Clarkson sent the photo at right, her twin daughter and son with Ms. Morgan, who is their teacher. Says Clarkson, “We are longtime West Seattlers, but new to Gatewood. We cannot lose this teacher!”

Another parent e-mailed more details about what will happen tomorrow, and beyond:

Gatewood is mobilizing. We need to raise $90,000 by Wednesday morning. We have about 10% thus far. Disbelievingly, our beloved teachers have each committed $500. The parents of Gatewood and their children are planning to hold the biggest bake sale imaginable tomorrow starting at 10 a.m. at California and Myrtle and going on throughout the day. We ask for any community support from everyone. Even if not a monetary donation, we appreciate moral support, too. The families and teachers could sure use it right now.

A donation account was set up late today at Chase Bank; you can donate at Chase and tell them it’s for “Friends of Gatewood.” Parents say online fundraising is not an option because they have to have the cash in hand by Wednesday morning, and online donations wouldn’t be disbursable that way.

They are hoping at least to get a time extension, and say that the district’s executive director of schools in this area, Israel Vela, indicated support for that in phone calls today to parents who had left him messages about this.

Meanwhile, the district responded to a followup question we had sent yesterday. At the ribbon-cutting for Fairmount Park on September 2nd, the day before the new school year began, it was announced they anticipated opening with 380 students. The current enrollment cited by the district is just below that. So why is an adjustment being made just now? District spokesperson Lesley Rogers replied with this backstory:

In August we decided to fund an additional teacher (the student projection [for Fairmount Park] went from 290 to 329, or 39 additional students). This was part of an overall district assessment that resulted in 26 schools having adds or pulls, with a net 2.0 addition. We also added in 2 schools based on high urgency (Arbor Heights and Alki Elementary). We decided to wait to address FTE [full-time-student equivalent] adjustments due to the traditional student movement, wait list, data cleanup, and no-shows that happens in the first 2-3 weeks of school. The student enrollment reached 368 at 9/22 (Fairmount Park). The other component was the budget situation. Our mitigation fund was depleted after the last 2 adds. We decided to wait to find out what schools have significantly lost student enrollment, as Gatewood, to transfer FTEs. Overall, we are waiting for the official 10/1 counts that will be reported on 10/12 to recommend more staffing adjustments. At the same time we are using the current student count to identify the hot spots adjustments and deploy/execute earlier.

We’ll continue to follow up.

ADDED 5:26 AM SATURDAY: Overnight, we received the letter to the community, drafted by organizers of the fundraising drive. Click (or scroll) ahead to read it:



Dear Gatewood Community and the West Seattle Region, After an intense past 48 hours of following updates from the district and Gatewood school administration, I am sharing dinner with my family at Zeeks Pizza and in a moment of reflection, comment that it has been tremendous to witness parents in our community being so proactive. I asked my kids if they knew what proactive meant; without missing a beat, my 4th grade daughter explains how she learned that word this week at school during her classroom’s Peace Circle time. She continued to explain quite eloquently how they are learning the 7 Habits of Happy Kids and that one in particular was very cool-the habit referred to as “Balance Feels Best.” She clarified how characters in a story represented the mind, spirit and body, and when you have those pieces in balance that one finds peace and happiness. You know that feeling when wisdom is spoken from a young child. This urgent call to action is to foster the momentum of learning for all our Gatewood Gators without interruption. In light of the recent proposed changes to staffing at Gatewood Elementary, this afternoon myself and Nicole Sipila, concerned and determined parents of Gatewood Gators, have created a direct drive fundraiser called Friends of Gatewood. The SPS district will remove 1.0 Seattle Public School Full Time Employee (FTE) driven by district enrollment criteria unless $90,000 is raised and delivered by Wednesday, October 8th. The Gatewood staff designed a learning system for this year that intentionally made a few classrooms smaller while sacrificing other classrooms to be at standard or at higher head counts. The next 4 days are critical. Act now! Start giving now and this is how: 1.Before closing time at 4 pm, on Saturday, visit our local Chase Bank, Thriftway Branch, at 4201 SW Morgan St, Seattle, WA 98136 (www.chase.com). A Friends of Gatewood bank account was created (Friday) afternoon: ◦The checking account number is: 459084948, the routing number is 325070760 ◦This account accepts cash and check donations. Deposit slips must be used to track transactions, particularly for cash donations. For cash deposits, please write “Friends of Gatewood” on the slip, and in addition, provide your name and phone number at the bottom of the slip (see attached Chase Deposit Slip for an example), ◦Donations are not tax deductible, ◦In the event that this direct drive falls short of our goal, we will communicate to all of our donors if you want a full refund, and if so, that will be done as promptly as possible. 2.Go to Saturday’s Bake Sale at California Ave SW and SW Myrtle at 10 am Saturday, October 4th (please note, that money raised from the baked sale will not be tracked and therefore not refundable), 3.Bring checks to Gatewood Elementary at the main office, ideally no later than end of day Monday, October 6 (Address: 4320 SW Myrtle St, Seattle 98136), 4.Bring cash – with your contact information and phone number- to Gatewood at the main office no later than Tuesday, October 7th, 5.In the event that you were not able to attend a community meeting held Thursday after school, or missed letters sent home with your student, attached are documents that describe the serious predicament that district budget shortfalls and enrollment mishaps have caused. Please read these for your information. 6.Lastly, reach out to your families, community business leaders and supporters of education. For further questions, contact Natasha Hissong at natashahissong@earthlink.com or Nicole Sipila at alipis@clearwire.net With gratitude, Gatewood Elementary Community

Editor’s note: The text refers to attachments which we have not (yet) received; we’ll add if and when we get them.