Seattle Public Schools will be renovating Lincoln High School and it will re-open as a permanent high school in September of 2019.
Construction Manager Mike Finnegan invites volunteers to join the School Design Advisory Team (SDAT) to work with the architects to craft concepts and specifications for the new program. There will be 6 formal meetings of the SDAT on Thursday afternoons, 3:30 – 5:30 PM, at Nathan Hale High School beginning in January and ending in March.
The SDAT will comprise about 20 people. Seattle Public Schools is seeking 2 nearby residents, and 1 or 2 Lincoln High School alumni.
You must apply to be considered for the SDAT. See the LHS School Design Advisory Team (SDAT) Application for details and the submission form. Applications must be submitted to Lucy Morello, Project Manager for Seattle Public Schools, by 3:00 PM on Monday November 30th.
The Wallingford Community Council (WCC) will separately designate 1 representative and 1 alternate representative to the SDAT. You may apply by email to [email protected] for the WCC positions.
Hopefully the WCC will perform better this time around than for the Hamilton project. The short notice by the School District (13 days) causing even shorter notice by the WCC (3 days) does not bode well. Our schools are a huge part of our community, but not every resident is a patron of the Seattle School District. The School District has been a bully in the past. Vigilance is required because they may elect to continue that behavior during the Lincoln project.
For the Hamilton project, we had 12 years of meetings with the School District to develop a plan and recommendations for future use that was folded into the School District Master Plan. We had the Wallingford Neighborhood Plan for guidance. We had 10 years of work at the park that followed those plans, but the WCC leadership instead tried to trade away part of the park in exchange for work at Gas Works Park, which is not legal. Despite the long history of plans, the WCC at the time did not establish a process to develop or revise an official position, yet some WCC leadership clearly took sides and actively worked behind the scenes to discredit residents that advocated for maintaining public access to the park. It was mind-boggling that the WCC did not mount a stronger defense of previous planning efforts or of our Neighborhood Plan.
Some items to consider from some of the previous planning processes:
1. The size of the Lincoln site is substandard for high school use per District standards. The size is ideal for use as a Middle School or K-8, as was originally planned since Lincoln closed in 1981 until 2008 when the Hamilton remodel inexplicably dumped all prior community planning without notice .
2. There will be no sports field for high school use because of the parking requirement.
3. The best longterm solution to capacity is to restore a high school for Queen Anne/Magnolia rather than busing students to Wallingford from those neighborhoods.
4. Wallingford Playfield is a community resource, expanded in the 1970’s to provide a place for ALL families to play after school, not just those attending Seattle Public Schools. The Joint Use Agreement states that school use may occur only after all public use has been satisfied. Be careful here… the School District is notorious for trying to gobble up public park property as their own and either bumping public use or rendering the facilities unsuitable due to overuse.
5. Use of Lincoln as a middle school or K-8 would allow the north parking lot to be replaced with an all-weather athletic field because parking impacts are less for a middle school.
6. The north wing of Lincoln could possibly be used as a new home for an expanded Wallingford Library.
7. Pay attention at community meetings. For the Hamilton project, School District representatives were notorious for misrepresentations and false claims. Ethics investigations after the process found that the public was misinformed, but we learned that lying is not considered a violation of City ethics standards.
8. The plan in place from 1981 to 2008 was modeled on a joint school/community use model, which included space for a new library and space for evening classes and community center.
Finally, be careful of School District claims about demographics. Since moving to Wallingford in 1987, the District has repeatedly exhibited an inability to “plan” more than 3 years out.
Helpful comments. I like the idea of moving the Wallingford library to a larger venue, and this could be it. The existing library borders on the ridiculous. It sounds like reopening Lincoln as a high school in the fall of 2019 is a done deal. True?
Greg,
I appreciate you sharing the history and your continued work in advocating for the neighborhood.
We live near Lincoln and have been in here almost 15 years and can attest to much of what you’ve shared. It can be beyond frustrating at times.
Yes, we are coming on 29 years. Please do not construe my initial post as suggesting that the WCC does not do good work. I strongly support participation in the WCC. However, our political process seems to rely on a lack of institutional memory and a lack of long-term memory in residents – i.e. just make stuff up like nothing came before; all opinions are equally informed.
The community had a plan that was developed with very strong community participation. It was silly to ignore thousands of hours of thoughtful hard work. In the case of the Hamilton project, the WCC ignored ten years of work on the Neighborhood Plan and 12 years invested in the Lincoln Liaison Committee, which was established by the School District and WCC to plan current and future use of the Lincoln site. It did not help that District representatives were not truthful, and that some pressured parents that a Hamilton remodel would never happen (not true, Hamilton was approved by voters in the first levy).
Be VERY careful as our community moves forward with yet more planning for the Lincoln site. Following Hamilton, the District dismissed some of the most egregious representatives, thankfully, but be aware in case the replacements adopt similar tactics. Old habits die hard.