Robin Laananen
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"WE NEED BOOKS!"
That was the startling chant of some 300 protesters outside Rainier Beach High School late last month. A coalition called Save Our Schools, made up of community activists, parents, and students who had walked out of classes, staged the demonstration to call attention to the plight of South End schools.
The protest turned ugly, as some teens stormed a nearby Rite Aid, causing several thousand dollars worth of damage. The reputation of South End schools suffered an equal blow. Although the protesters had several complaints—among them, the displacement of a high school for troubled kids by a new privately endowed school and the Seattle School District's failure to consult the community on choosing a particular principal—it was the lack of books that made people sit up and take notice.
Here was a claim that went beyond the usual hand-wringing over academic "disproportionality," the district's polite term for the difference in achievement between whites and minorities— a complex phenomenon that invites many sociological explanations. The protesters seemed to offer evidence that the district was guilty of outright neglect, depriving kids in the poorer, more racially diverse part of town of the most basic of resources.
"I keep hearing the superintendent saying things like, 'You're in a low- income area,'" says Wilma Miller White, a Save Our Schools participant who has a son at Dunlap Elementary School and a live-in niece at Rainier Beach. "I don't care. My children have a right to a good education."
Yet the insinuation of bias is unfounded. The district does not provide fewer resources to South End schools than those in the North End. It provides more. Since 1997, the district has used a "weighted student formula" that allocates money to each student based on need, with more going for special ed and immigrant kids. District superintendent Joseph Olchefske, who was the chief financial officer when the formula was implemented under previous superintendent John Stanford, says its effect has been clear: "a distribution of resources from the North End to the South, from the white population to minorities, from an upper-income population to a lower-income population."
Rainier Beach, in fact, has the highest per-pupil allocation of all the (nonalternative) high schools, at $5,003 a student. The allocation for Ballard High, a school that many protesters look to as an example of privilege, is just $3,653.
A deeper look at Rainier Beach's financial situation reveals even more unexpected numbers. Last year, Rainier Beach set aside $20,000 for textbooks, according to the district, which delved into the school's budget after the protest. But the school spent only $7,000.
More astonishing still, as of the first week of June, Rainier Beach had $369,000 leftover from last year's budget. That's a huge chunk of change that could have been used for thousands and thousands of books. Or for a performing arts program, the lack of which was another beef of last month's protesters.
"This is not a resource issue," stresses district spokesperson Lynn Steinberg. So why isn't the money being spent? And if it's not about resources, why are people so upset about conditions at Rainier Beach, as well as at other South End schools, that they have taken to the streets? Unfortunately, "accountability," a favorite buzzword of the district borrowed from the business world, is in short supply among those who should be in a position to explain.
A SIMPLE DRIVE across town to Ballard High School helps explain why protesters perceive huge differences between North and South End schools. From first sight, the school makes a dazzling impression. It's in a soaring brick building, only three years old, that was built with money from the district's 1995 capital levy. Inside, it's all space and light, graced with abundant windows, several "wings" lined with classrooms, and striking, original art on the walls; a large charcoal design by famed Seattle artist Richard Gilkey hangs over the library entrance. One teacher fittingly calls it a "cathedral" of a school.
The district has spent capital money in the South End, too, and is slated to spend more, rebuilding Beacon Hill's Cleveland High School, for example. But for now, the new Ballard building stands out, and it has had a dramatic effect on appearances and on the quality and environment of the school.
"One thing that has really struck me is the morale change of the students," says Japanese language teacher Alex Alexander, taking a moment to talk while her students work in groups. In the old building, so decrepit that Alexander says you could literally see a wall crumbling when you touched it, students would spit on the floor. Now, she says, students take care of the building, and the school has become so popular it is already at its capacity of 1,600.
The building has excited adults, too. Outgoing principal David Engle says that a few years ago, alumni formed a fund-raising foundation because of their desire to support the new facility at a level it deserves. The foundation raised about $200,000 last year, adding to the $80,000 raised by the PTSA, which goes toward lots of the extras that can be seen at Ballard. The foundation buys the art, for example. It also paid for a weight room, band uniforms, a computer lab for musical composing, and software for the school's video editing lab.
