No Walls, So The Hum Never Fades

THE 1970s idea of an open-concept school, where the walls don't reach the ceiling, isn't working at South Shore Middle School. Neither is the Seattle School District's plan to move the students to a quieter location.

It's a hum that never fades entirely - it only rises and falls.

At 12:24 p.m., sixth-graders are studying in their classrooms at Seattle's South Shore Middle School, where there are no walls and where four-foot lockers are the only dividers between most classrooms.

A minute later, at 12:25, hundreds of seventh- and eighth-graders rush in from their lunch hour, open and close those lockers, and head to class.

Suddenly, there are a few minutes of quiet.

Well, sort of. It's not totally quiet. There's always that buzz. After all, there are more than 700 adolescents under one roof. What else would you expect?

The 1970s idea of an open-concept school, where the walls don't reach the ceiling, isn't working at South Shore. Something else that's not working is the Seattle School District's announced plan to move the students to a quieter location next fall.

The move to the former Sharples Junior High School building has been delayed at least until the 1999-2000 school year because the district couldn't find a place for programs now at Sharples, including an alternative school program, teenage parent program, bilingual-orientation center and a middle-school re-entry program.

South Shore Principal BiHoa Caldwell said she is "not overjoyed" by the delay, but understands it's important to find the right site for those programs.

Superintendent John Stanford proposed the move last fall after Caldwell issued a report concluding that the building, built in 1972, is unsuitable for a middle school.

Caldwell, who has been pushing for the move since the fall when she came to South Shore from Whitman Middle School, says open-concept schools don't work.

"If a kid loses it, it doesn't just impact one kid," she said. "It disrupts everyone."

Paul Purcell, president of the South Shore PTSA, agrees.

"We recognize the financial restraints of the district, but we feel these kids need an environment where one or two kids can't disrupt an entire school," he said.

To help with some of those disruptions, and to maintain more control over the classes, Jordan Gussin, an eighth-grade math teacher at South Shore, said if they're not moving to Sharples this year, they need to lower the student-teacher ratio by hiring at least five additional teachers.

"We can't control the fact that we don't have any walls, but we can control the teacher-student ratio," he said.

At the moment, considering that South Shore's enrollment is down for next fall, it is likely the school would lose about five teachers, Gussin said.

Gussin plans to address the Seattle School Board with these concerns at tomorrow's meeting.

As a short-term solution to some of the problems at the school, the district says it hopes to add a portable cafeteria (the school does not have a cafeteria), more security and a speaker-system setup in each classroom so the students in the back of the classroom can hear the teacher more easily. The estimated price tag would be more than $200,000, district spokeswoman Dorothy Dubia said.

"If there's money for that, we'd rather have the teachers," said Gussin, who is part of South Shore's Leadership Team, a group of staff members that acts as representatives of the school for these types of issues.

Gussin does believe there are some positives to an open-concept school.

"It imposes certain norms on students," he said. "Students must modify their behavior for the whole. It teaches them a good lesson.

"We don't all hate showing up for work, but we just have to work really hard because we don't have any walls."

Tomorrow's board meeting is at 2 p.m. at 815 Fourth Ave. N.

Tamra Fitzpatrick's phone message number is 206-464-8981. Her e-mail address is: tfit-new@seatimes.com