Fort Lawton Community Meeting Tuesday January 9!

We will see many of you tomorrow at the Fort Lawton community meeting. I was advised that much of this meeting will be dedicated to public testimony, though I imagine there will not be enough time for all of us to speak. **If you do not get the opportunity to speak, please do send in a comment, many ideas are below** The City's support of SPS being allowed to utilize 6 acres of the site for school use (not a school facility to begin with, thus an ammended alternative was not required at this stage) is very beneficial. We feel that in order for up to 150 family units to be successful at this site, we must also improve educational infrastructure as this site is being developed in the most rapidly rising sector of the city's student population and that the local schools- at all levels- are near and projected to soon be beyond operational capacity. We must also approach this land with long-range consideration-- we must determine its best use over the next centuries because it would be our gift to the next generations to provide a location for an educational facility on the doorstep to one of the regions premiere parks that develops our next stewards of the Puget Sound, and caretakers of our environment. What better place for such an educational institution? Seattle the progressive hotbed of innovation and environmental leaders should entirely house an entity like this. We had wished for several more acres which would have allowed both a school facility to address local capacity needs as well as an environmental education center that would serve the entire school district, but we are also grateful that SPS was brought into the redevelopment process and 6 acres is very beneficial. And if the City determines that more acres would work for this combined campus, that would be wonderful (though we are not actively seeking additional acres) In my public comments tomorrow, I will address the need for a wholistic approach to development that evaluates the educational impact to any area where additional housing is being created. I will thank the City and SPS for working together on this site, but I will emphasize that our work is not yet done. I advocate that this DEIS could have gone farther to specifically address educational impact. In section 3.14 (Environmental Justice, specifically 3.14.1 Affected Environment Elementary School Characteristics), would have benefited from the inclusion of current student population trends and specifically how the proposed new units will impact the local school capacity issues. My goal through all of this Fort Lawton advocacy, and in learning that Fort Lawton is a microcosm of development and densification across the city, is that we change the conversations across city agencies toward collaboration. I wish to see full consideration of the downstream effects of City decisions on the educational programming and infrastructure, and I want to see an end to our city entities functioning within their own silos. We must think beyond our own jurisdictions. We will only thrive as a city if we have strong education principles woven through the fabric of our city's culture. -Valerie Cooper Founding member Fort Lawton School Coalition In case you missed the last update, here are some clarifications about the current process, along with some changed information, namely point 4) that the SPS use of the land is included in the DEIS in Chapter 2 and our goals and intents in points 4) and 5) 1) the school district was required to work with the city as the master redeveloper if they wished to be included for land per US DEPT of Education guidelines 2) In November 2017 a Memorandum of Understanding was created between the City and SPS which states that if all goes forward with the EIS, 6 acres of Fort Lawton (the proposed soccer fields at the south end of the land) will be designated for SPS to control- They will still have to apply to the US DOE for the land and they will get it at 70% discount. SPS will develop and utilize the site *likely soccer fields* until which time they have enough money to build educational infrastructure at this site-- it could be an elementary or k-8 on this size of land, and likely a capacity relieving school may be required within a few years, or it could be utilized as day-use environmental education center that serves the entire district as many schools cannot afford to go to Islandwood on Bainbridge. This process will take years 3) the school land will not displace any of the City's proposed housing 4) SPS having ownership of 6 acres is not specifically on the alternatives of this Draft EIS. It is listed in Chapter 2 of the DEIS, though I have proposed changes to the language as SPS does 100% qualify to apply for the land, they just don't qualify to apply to build a school there *at this time, because they do not have the funding *at this time. We as the Fort Lawton Coalition plan no further intervention of the process under the current proposals, and believe that the arrangements with SPS will be honored in good faith as the Memorandum of Understanding was a very significant moment between the city and district. 5) Fort Lawton School Coalition is housing neutral. We do not exist to prevent affordable housing at Fort Lawton. We do support the varied opportunities for affordable housing at this site, and appreciate suggestions (though not from the city... yet;)) to consider subsidized teacher housing here. 6) it is imperative that we realize that any new construction, up-zoning or other densification of our neighborhoods will further strain our schools which are already at max capacity-- even with the opening of Magnolia Elementary in 2019, as long as SPS keeps Magnolia and Queen Anne as one cluster. FYI, I ran the numbers, and Mc Clure Middle school will have between 300-400 students over operational capacity within just a few years! That would require a 40% attrition rate... ARE YOU GOING TO BE THE ONE WHO HAS TO MOVE OR TO LEAVE PUBLIC EDUCATION? If you care about this, I suggest that you become involved in local conversations with the school district and our City Council TODAY. This is not just a school district problem, this is our whole CITY's problem. So many more things I have to say regarding the benefits of Cross-Agency Collaboration in our city to save our schools and allow families to remain in Seattle... but until then, the more we talk about it and demand that our elected officials talk about this and strategize for the future, the more this city's youngest citizen's education will become a part of this city's collective conscience.