Parents Like Plan For Meany -- Magnet-School Idea Supported

It looks like Seattle Schools Superintendent John Stanford has a hit.

Nearly 400 people turned out last night for a look at Stanford's scheme for revitalizing Meany Middle School - a plan that turns the city's smallest school for sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders into a magnet school with a curriculum specializing in math, science and the arts to attract students citywide.

After years of decline due to a reputation - no longer true - as a dumping ground for kids with behavior problems, Meany today has only 541 students, less than half the enrollment of the city's two largest middle schools.

Stanford hopes to bring enrollment back to about 850, possibly 900. He wants a more integrated school, too. At present, enrollment is 75 percent minority.

To make those changes happen, Stanford and his staff have proposed a dramatic makeover for the school, including these details announced last night:

-- A switch to four 90-minute periods per day, instead of the usual six periods of 50 minutes each.

-- Assignment of students to the same teaching teams for language arts-social studies and science-math over two or three years to provide continuity and support for the youngsters.

-- A laptop computer available - possibly through a lease, with provisions made for families unable to afford it - for all entering sixth-graders as part of the school's emphasis on technology. Stanford acknowledges he is still working out the

funding for this part of the program, though he's mentioned the possibility of private grants.

-- Use of the so-called Spectrum curriculum, which has so far been offered almost exclusively to youngsters judged "academically talented," for every student at Meany.

"We have found that if given the opportunity, students will rise to the occasion," said Marella Francois-Griffen, who will be Meany's new principal next year. At West Seattle's Madison Middle School, where she has been for the past five years, Francois-Griffin pioneered using the more challenging Spectrum curriculum for all students, Stanford said.

Her announcement that every Meany student would get the tougher Spectrum work and that there would be no "tracking" of students according to their apparent ability brought loud applause from the audience of parents last night.

Meany's "high standard of expectation" will be an important factor in her choice of schools, said Kathleen Wilson of Fremont, who's looked at several middle schools over the past few weeks for her son, a fifth-grader at Graham Hill Elementary School who will enter middle school this fall.

Many parents came to "Discovery Night" after receiving a postcard from the school district advertising the event with dazzling full-color computer graphics. The card was sent to parents of fifth-graders and Capitol Hill ZIP codes surrounding the school, said Randy Carmical, school spokesman.

Such marketing is paid for by the $600,000 state magnet grant that the district is using to fund the Meany makeover. The money also allows Francois-Griffen to work full time planning the change and for her to pay her new staff of about 30 teachers for 10 days of training by the end of this school year. During the summer, they'll get another week of training so the whole school will be working together by fall, she said.

The changes at Meany are a promise Stanford has kept, said Andrea Bown, the school's PTA president, and Denise Wingo, chairwoman of the Meany site council. The two met with Stanford his first day on the job in September and asked him for help improving the school. Their pleas to the school board and former Superintendent Bill Kendrick had gone unheeded, they said.

But Stanford said, " `We're going to turn Meany around,' and six months later he has done that," Wingo said.