LICTON SPRINGS COMMUNITY SCHOOLS

“The school is not just a school. School becomes a center for supporting and nurturing the future generation. School becomes a hub resource for the whole community.”

– Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of England

“Schools that are open 6 hours a day, 5 days a week, 9 months a year don’t meet anyone’s needs.” –Arne Duncan, Secretary U.S. Department of Education

Preface

We’re need strong cross boundary leadership and collaboration to make our schools all that our country, our state and our city needs them to be now and in the future. Our capital and operations dollars and those of our partners need to work harder and smarter all day and year round to reap greater rewards for the students and families we serve.

Here in Seattle, we are going to build a brand new elementary school and a brand new middle school on one of Seattle’s biggest school sites - the site of the old Wilson-Pacific junior high in Licton Springs, the heart of the Aurora Corridor. With this kind of tabla raza, we have an opportunity to design a new classic. Let’s not just build a couple of schools, let’s build a community hub that strengthens families and communities and supports the complete personal development of students all year round.

In Portland, Tukwila, Cincinnati and 5,000 other places in the US and Europe people are choosing to build the “Community Schools” model to achieve those goals. http://www.communityschools.org/assets/1/AssetManager/Community%20School%20Models2009.pdf

President Obama has directed the Department of Education to prioritize and incentivize community school development. Many large American universities and non-profit think tanks are also promoting community schools.

Community schools are something everyone agrees on.

What is a Community School?

http://www.communityschools.org/aboutschools/faqs.aspx

A Community School is both a place and a set of partnerships between the school and other community resources. Its integrated focus on academics, health and social services, youth and community development and community engagement leads to improved student learning, stronger families and healthier communities. Schools become centers of the community and are open to everyone – all day, every day, evenings and weekends. Using public schools as hubs, community schools bring together many partners to offer a range of supports and opportunities to children, youth, families and communities.

Why should we create a Licton Springs Community Schools Campus at the Wilson-Pacific site?

A unique campus planning opportunity exists at this particularly large and under-utilized Wilson-Pacific site. The seven 1950s buildings which once enrolled 1,600 middle schools students will be torn down. That clean slate will allow considerable latitude to be deliberate and intentional about creating an optimal community schools campus configuration.

Since both a 750 student elementary school and a 1000 student middle school are planned for this site, a nexus of opportunities exists. A beautiful beacon of a green campus could be developed that would be sustainable environmentally, socio-culturally and economically at a time of high needs and scarce resources. It could be a central place where students, their families, the greater community, the schools, the city, businesses, organizations, support service providers, and others can come together on the same page with the same goal.

How would this be funded?

There are many public and private funding opportunities to help establish and operate community schools. As a school district we bring the site, the two schools and the operational dollars for those schools to the table. Our partners also bring their resources in the way of capital and operations dollars to the table. Some of the beauty of it is that by getting out of our planning silos, we can work with others to plan and create a project that will be much greater than the sum of the parts had we all worked apart creating our own iceberg programs and facilities. Guidance to explore this concept is available from many organizations including The Coalition for Community Schools.

How can SPS help? In order to get traction, we need SPS to support a feasibility study for Licton Springs Community Schools Campus. Once we have the study organized, we need SPS to participate in the study as a partner.

Contact: Kate Martin, Organizer for Licton Springs Community Schools kate@katemartindesign.com 206-579-3703 412 NW 73rd St Seattle, WA 98117-4927