Contact: Galen Motin Goff 206.972.8960
For immediate release: October 29, 2002
FACES RALLIES TO PROTECT
EQUAL ACCESS AND PREVENT RESEGREGATION OF SEATTLE’S SCHOOLS
FACES (Fair Assignment for
Children Everywhere in Seattle) rally 5 PM in front of John Stanford Center of
Education Excellence, 2445 3rd Ave S. (the new School District
Headquarters, 4th & Lander)
SEATTLE, WA – Armed with signs and dressed for
Halloween, families for Fair Assignment for Children Everywhere in Seattle
(FACES) rallies to protect the racial diversity and accessibility of TOPS, a
popular K-8 alternative public school. The rally takes place 5:00 p.m.,
Wednesday, October 30 at the new school district headquarters before the school
board’s last public hearing on the issue.
FACES is outraged by board and superintendent Joseph
Olchefske’s proposal to remedy a perceived shortage of kindergarten seats for
children from affluent North Capitol Hill by giving them half of the
kindergarten seats at TOPS – seats currently accessible on an equal basis to a
diverse population across the city.
John Dunn, president of Seattle Education Association says,
"SEA has been opposed to the re-segregation of Seattle's schools. We are
concerned that this is another step down that road."
The Seattle Public Schools' slogan is "Academic
Achievement for Every Child." With
high test scores, 51% minority enrollment, and a mission to eliminate the
achievement gap, TOPS is walking the District's talk. For students in
underserved neighborhoods and families who want their children to go to a
proven successful school where the population more accurately reflects the real
world, TOPS offers that choice.
"It is a travesty of public policy," wrote TOPS
parent Gretchen Chambers in a Seattle Post-Intelligencer letter to the editor
last Friday, "that the school district wants to sacrifice a school's
vision and success in providing an excellent education opportunity for many
varied communities in order to provide more service to one wealthy
community."
There is no shortage of kindergarten seats in central
Seattle, say school district demographers. However, there is a shortage of
seats deemed desirable by academic test scores and standards. Between North
Capitol Hill and Leschi, there are nine neighborhood elementary schools. Only
25% of the students in these schools are white, according to school district
data.* Three-quarters of the white students attend Montlake, Stevens and
McGilvra -- schools in which WASL test scores are above the Seattle school
district and Washington state average. Only 16% of the children of color (9%
African American) attend these successful schools. The "successful"
schools all lie north of Madison Street. The schools deemed undesirable due to
low test scores consist predominantly of children of color. All lie south of
Madison.
Supporters of families for Fair Assignment for Children
Everywhere in Seattle include Phyllis Beaumonte of the NAACP, James Kelly of
the Urban League; the ACLU; Pat Stanford (wife of the late Seattle school
superintendent John Stanford); and state legislators Frank Chopp, Kip Tokuda,
Sharon Tomiko Santos and Jeanne Kohl-Welles.
For more information about FACES
and the fight to maintain for all students equal access to an education at
TOPS, visit: http://oocities.com/tops_faces
*Data comes from Seattle Public
School 2001-02 Annual Report.