Van Asselt Elementary School staff and students are decorating their classrooms and hallways, getting ready for their upcoming centennial celebration. But emotions are bittersweet as this school year comes to an end.
Recent budget cuts have forced Seattle Public Schools to close buildings and reorganize programs, and on June 25, Van Asselt will move out of the 100-year-old building for good.
"We're lucky to be moving with our whole program intact," said math coach Lissa Munger, "but it's very emotional."
The program will move to the African American Academy, a newer building less than a mile down the road, but the longtime neighborhood fixture of South Beacon Hill will remain empty.
The current program at the African American Academy will disperse once the school year ends. It's possible a portion of staff and students could stay, but the majority of that program will disband.
"It's been tough on us because it's not something that we asked for - we feel like we're kicking them out," Munger said. "The 100-year celebration makes the move more bittersweet. The old building has a lot of memories for a lot of people."
THE REUNION
Just behind the newer, bigger building at 7201 Beacon Ave. S. sits the original Van Asselt wooden structure, built in 1909 and now referred to as "the old building." Though never fully remodeled, the old building still provides a vital learning environment amid creaky radiators and rattling windows. Alumni still come visit from all across Washington, and they find that classrooms still look somewhat familiar in the very recognizable building.
A June 12 reunion will bring the South Seattle community together with Van Asselt families and alumni paying tribute to the original wooden structure and celebrating its history. The event will start as an open house, where staff dressed in early 20th-century costumes will welcome visitors with guided tours. During these, current students will put on performances on the stairs of the old building as students did when it was originally built.
In preparation for the centennial celebration, the administration has been in contact with many former students, some going to Van Asselt as long as 60 years ago. Munger expects a good portion of the guests to include these older alumni, especially with the added issue of the school's closure.
'CAN'T TAKE IT WITH US'
Looking through a box of old black-and-white photos from the library, Munger could see how much the school has changed in the last 100 years, especially in the diversity of its students. One photo from 1949 shows a class of all white students sitting on the cement steps of the original building.
In more recent years, Van Asselt has become one of the most diverse K-5 public schools in the district. With 500 students speaking almost 20 languages, it is now recognized as a school for English Language Learners (ELL).
The current staff has put forward immense effort to create a curriculum that best serves its ELL students' needs, which uses the GLAD (Guided Language Acquisition Design) program to structure lessons.
And as recent test scores show, their efforts have paid off. In 2006 Van Asselt received the Apple Award and a $25,000 grant from the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction in recognition of its significant improvement in WASL percentages. The grant has been put into a few major projects, including a new playground and a new turf field with a track, making the relocation even more unfortunate for those who have that connection with the school.
Principal ElDoris Turner couldn't be more proud of her students, and she's disappointed they have to leave behind what they all worked so hard to put into place.
"We're just getting to that point where we have a safe environment for the kids and they're working with more viable equipment," Turner said, "but we can't take it with us."
LOOKING FORWARD
But the students seem to be more concerned about their new building and were eager to see where they are headed next school year. Munger planned an open house at the African American Academy last Thursday, May 28, and as she prepared she realized how many people and kids outside of current families are affected by the move.
"When I didn't make flyers to give to the fifth-graders - because they all move on to middle school next year - I found out that they were all still eager to check out the new building," she said.
Though they wouldn't be back next school year, the fifth-graders still knew the faculty and the students in grades below them who would be part of the new building. "I realized, of course, they'd want to come see the building," Munger explained, "because that's where their people are going to be."
"We've worked really hard to get a staff that works well together as a team and support each other," teacher JoAnn Kaneko said. "We're all working a lot closer together now - doing a lot of teaming with the academics and the curriculum."
Kaneko has been at Van Asselt longer than most of the current staff, but she shares their enthusiasm in making Van Asselt's next 100 years just as remarkable as the last.
"Every year is a new challenge," Munger said. "This year, our challenge is moving. We'll take on a new challenge next year."
For more information about Van Asselt Elementary School, go to www.seattleschools.org/schools/vanasselt/home.html.
