This Weekend: Good Plants, Bad Plants, Phamarcants

If you like to eat, tend or learn about plants, this weekend's Wallingford activities should be right up your alley! Invasive Plants Class 10 to 11:30 Saturday: The community gardeners at the Freeway Estates Community Orchard (FECO) invite you to participate in their invasive plants class on Saturday from 10:00- 11:30 am at the Freeway Estates Community Orchard: 6th Ave NE, just north of NE 60th St (on the west side of I-5, next to the sound wall).  This class will be taught by a representative…

Continue ReadingThis Weekend: Good Plants, Bad Plants, Phamarcants

Hamilton Wants to be Pesticide Free

A few weeks back, when I posted about pesticide use at Wallingford Park, I heard from several families at Hamilton International Middle School. As noted before on this blog, Seattle Public Schools routinely utilizes pesticides at public schools, because it is more cost-effective than hand-weeding. There are so many concerns about the use of pesticides around children and pregnant women that I don't even know where to begin my rant about this short-sighted behavior, so I will point you to the fact…

Continue ReadingHamilton Wants to be Pesticide Free

Elementary Open Enrollment at Seattle Public Schools

Wallingford is fortunate to have some excellent public elementary schools, although they are unfortunately fractured in their attendance areas. Just last year the decision was made to make both John Stanford and McDonald school "option schools", meaning nobody in Wallingford is guaranteed entrance. There's a complicated lottery system that assigns a certain number of slots to students in the walk zone and then to other buckets as well, so nobody is guaranteed a slot. The primary reason Sherry Carr (our school board…

Continue ReadingElementary Open Enrollment at Seattle Public Schools

New Option School: Pinehurst

(John Chapman sent along this announcement of a new Wallingford-based public option school.) There is a New Option Public School in Wallingford. Pinehurst K-8 in Partnership with Native Heritage AS-1, will be moving from their current location in the Pinehurst neighborhood to the South Wing of Lincoln for 3 years, starting in the fall of 2014. Pinehurst K-8, formerly known as Alternative School 1, is Seattle’s first and oldest alternative school, providing an experiential, project-based, social-justice curriculum since 1969. In the…

Continue ReadingNew Option School: Pinehurst

New Family Tours/Events at Local Public Schools

I am so confused about which part of the neighborhood is going to which school next year, and I am probably not alone.  But school tours are coming up! Not sure what your reference school is? Try the SPS address locator. B.F. Day Elementary is offering parent visitations/tours from 9:30-10:30 am on Thursdays January 23rd and February 13th. No RSVP is required, but you are requested to check-in at the office upon arrival. These will be the only tours. On January…

Continue ReadingNew Family Tours/Events at Local Public Schools

Seattle Schools Releases Draft of New Boundaries

On Tuesday afternoon, Seattle Public Schools (SPS) released a draft of the proposed new boundaries. You can read the draft in its entirety here. Here are the proposed changes for Wallingford: 1) John Stanford International School and McDonald International Elementary School would become Option Schools beginning in 2014, with small geozone boundaries for folks living nearby (those boundaries have not been drawn yet). 2) All kids living east of Stone Way and not within the JSIS/McDonald geozones would attend Green Lake…

Continue ReadingSeattle Schools Releases Draft of New Boundaries

Green Your School

Four years ago, my introduction into the world of public-school parenting was eased by finding my niche in the school early on. A personable woman – who turned out to be Wallywriter and waste-reducer extraordinaire, Barb – invited me to volunteer in the school lunchroom where I helped the student Green Team manage the sorting of compost, recycling and trash. The following year, my son changed schools to one that didn’t have a lunchroom recycling and composting program. I called on…

Continue ReadingGreen Your School