Seattle Public Schools

When the University of Washington was founded as the Territorial University in 1861, its initial class offerings were not at a level that would now be considered those of a college or university. Its first class offering was a primary school (elementary school) taught by Asa Mercer, and for some years it was jointly supervised by the newly formed Seattle School Board its own Board of Regents. It functioned as Seattle's first public school.[10]

In 1867, the public school moved to what was then the County Building on Third Avenue between James and Jefferson, the site of today's Prefontaine Fountain. A year later, the school moved to Yesler's Pavilion (later Yesler's Hall) at present-day First and Cherry. A year later the school moved again to a temporary building (called Bacon's Hall after its first teacher, Carrie Bacon) located at the site of the present King County Court House. In 1870 the first "permanent" school building, the Central School, opened on Third Avenue between Madison and Spring Streets. It originally had two classrooms; a third was built in its attic in 1881.[11]

Denny School, 1905

Meanwhile, in 1873 the two-room North School opened at Third and Pine,[12] and in 1875 the school district had purchased 1.4 acres (5,700 m²) at 6th and Madison, where the Sixth Street School, also known as Eastern School, opened promptly in a temporary building and grew into successively larger and better-built buildings in 1877 and 1883. The latter, an "elegant wooden building" with an imposing "French mansard roof, clock tower, and tall central belfry" superseded the old Central School as well as the North School. From 1884, it was known as the Central School. Classes extended through 12th grade, and the first class graduated from 12th grade in 1886. However the school burned in 1888.[13]

The district had, in this period, started a number of other schools, including the even more imposing Denny School on Battery Street between 5th and 6th Avenues in Belltown, opened 1884. Described as "an architectural jewel... the finest schoolhouse on the West Coast," it was demolished in 1928 as part of the Denny Regrade project.[14] When the Central School burned in 1888, its high school and first grade classes were parcelled out to the Denny School,[13] other classes to the former downtown building of the university,[10] with other classes going to temporary facilities, some of which also burned, in the Great Seattle Fire.[13]

A new brick Central School opened in 1889 at Seventh and Madison, and was repeatedly expanded with annexes and extensions. After Seattle High School opened in 1902, the Central School was briefly known in 1903 as the Washington School before returning to its older name. The Central School functioned as an elementary school until 1938, and then until 1949 as the Central Branch of the Edison Technical School. The building was fatally damaged by the 1949 earthquake and razed in 1953; its site is now under Interstate 5.[13]

In 1919 there were 64 grammar schools, six high schools, two parental schools (comparable to today's youth detention centers), a school for the deaf, and nine "special schools... for pupils who do not progress normally in regular classes."[15][16]

In the early 20th century, Seattle Public Schools were "exemplary"[17] under the leadership (1901–1922) of superintendent Frank B. Cooper and a series of "civic-minded progressives" who served on the Seattle school board.[17]

In 2005, it was revealed that a teacher at Broadview-Thomson Elementary had been serially molesting children at the school for a period spanning several years. The teacher, Laurence E. "Shayne" Hill, had been molesting children for at least four of the twelve years he worked at the school, according to the Seattle Weekly.[18] The article also said that several school officials had known of the inappropriate touching and did nothing to stop it, drawing outrage from concerned parents. Hill is serving his sentence as of December 2, 2005 and is facing anywhere from five years to life.

In June 2006, Andrew J. Coulson of the Cato Institute wrote a column in the Seattle Post Intelligencer taking the district to task for a page on "equity and race relations" on its website that indicated, in his words, that "only whites can be racist in America" and which, among other things, stated that "Emphasizing individualism as opposed to a more collective ideology" and that this and preferring a "future time orientation" were forms of "cultural racism."[19] The page[20] was removed from the site the same day.[21]

In June 2007, the United States Supreme Court decided the case of Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, where they rejected Seattle Public Schools longstanding use of "racial tie-breakers" in assigning students to schools. The decision prohibited assigning students to public schools solely for the purpose of achieving racial integration and declined to recognize racial balancing as a compelling state interest. In a fragmented opinion delivered by Chief Justice John Roberts, five justices held that the School Boards did not present any "compelling state interest" that would justify the assignment of school seats on the basis of race. Chief Justice Roberts wrote that "the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy filed a concurrence that presented a more narrow interpretation, stating that schools may use "race conscious" means to achieve diversity in schools but that the schools at issue in this case did not use a sufficient narrow tailoring of their plans to sustain their goals. Four justices dissented from the Court's conclusions.[22][23]

In January 2013, the entire teaching body of Garfield High School refused to administer the standardized Measures of Academic Progress, or MAP, which is administered system-wide, three times per year. The teachers called the tests useless and a waste of instructional time.[24] The American Federation of Teachers has endorsed the school's boycott of the tests.[25] Garfield's boycott of the test quickly expanded to other Seattle schools and drew national attention. In May 2013 Superintendent Jose Banda announced that the Seattle School District will no longer require MAP tests at city high schools.[26]

Several former Seattle Public Schools buildings are on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP):

• 
  Broadway High School, incorporated into Seattle Central Community College.
• 
  Old Frank B. Cooper Elementary School, now Youngstown Cultural Arts Center.
• 
  Interlake Public School, now Wallingford Center.
• 
  Queen Anne High School.
• 
  Queen Anne Public School, later West Queen Anne School
• 
  Old Summit School.