After several design meetings and a community survey on the future of Queen Anne Elementary, the QAE Design Team has come up with the focus for the neighborhood’s newest Option school: Technology. Its motto: “Nourishing a Solid Foundation for a Lifetime of Growth.”

Queen Anne’s Old Hay was renamed Queen Anne Elementary back in January, in preparation for its reopening for the 2010-2011 school year as part of the new district-wide Student Assignment Plan. QAE will spend its first year at the old Lincoln High School, located at 4400 Interlake Ave. N., while the Old Hay building is prepped to house the new Option School in the fall of 2011.

The QAE Design Team is encouraging parents interested in sending their kids to QAE to attend the school’s Open House this Saturday, March 6 from 10 a.m. to noon at Lincoln.

Because QAE is an Option School, it does not have an “attendance area” boundary. Students throughout the city may apply during Seattle Schools’ open enrollment period, which began on Monday, March 1 and continues until the 31st. For more information on the QAE, download the school’s brochure (.pdf) and contact the Design Team.

The Queen Anne Elementary Design Team has been tasked with the job of heading up the academic programming of the new option school in Queen Anne, formerly known as Old Hay.

In order to clarify some data, the design team has sent out a survey regarding QA Elementary programming that will begin at the new school, which will open in the Lincoln building for the 2010/2011 school year, moving to the Queen Anne building in 2011. They ask parents and community members invested in the development of the new school to take the quick survey online here.

The Seattle School Board finally decided on a name for Old John Hay – reopening as an option school in Queen Anne for the 2010-2011 school year – at last night’s meeting, approving the title Queen Anne Elementary by a 6-0 vote.

Old Hay was named after former Secretary of State John Hay, also the namesake for fellow Queen Anne school “new” John Hay Elementary, explaining why the school district opted to pick a brand new moniker for the school’s reopening. Our news partner, the Seattle Times, is reporting that the title Queen Anne Elementary was a second choice to renaming the school after Caspar Wistar Sharples, a former School Board member and physician who died in 1941.

Sharples had previously had another Seattle school named after him, which was then renamed in 1999 after someone else. At that time the school board promised to find another way to honor Sharples’ name in the future, offering up Old Hay for the occasion. According to the Times, Sharples family declined the offer earlier this month due to concerns that the city would be unable to remove the name John Hay from the building, which is a historic landmark and thus more difficult to rename. You can read the full story here. In the meantime, what do you think of the name picked for Queen Anne’s newest (old) elementary school?

Seattle Public Schools announced a handful of principal changes for the 2010-2011 school year yesterday evening, and Queen Anne is the neighborhood getting the most swaps. In a detailed letter announcing the assignments, Superintendent Maria L. Goodloe-Johnson explained the reasoning behind each move. One of the primary factors: finding good leadership for the three new schools opening up in the district next fall, including Old Hay, a new Montessori option school in the neighborhood, where Coe Elementary head David Elliott – after ten years as principal – will be taking up his new post. Reader Meg Ferris gave her thoughts on the change. She wrote,

While it is an incredible loss at Coe, it will be a wonderful thing for the new school community.

In addition to Elliott’s reassignment, the principal at John Hay (not to be confused with Old Hay), Dan Warren, will be moving to the new Sand Point Elementary after five years on the hill. Read principal Warren’s letter to John Hay families here (.pdf).

And on the high school level, The Center School principal Lisa Escobar will be moving to Rainier Beach, where she will become co-principal alongside current head Dr. Robert Gary. Meanwhile, Judy Peterson will serve as the interim principal at The Center School.

To read Goodloe-Johnson’s letter, check out the West Seattle Blog, who have posted it in its entirety.

Just after 11 p.m. last night, the Seattle School Board unanimously approved the new boundary maps which will change the way Seattle children are placed in schools. The vote stretched into the night as directors added amendments to the plan, slightly adjusting boundaries here and there. For Queen Anne, the boundaries remain the same from last round of changes. Under the new plan Queen Anne and Magnolia residents, who up until this point have not had a designated high school, will be within the Ballard High School assignment area, a point which has been controversial for many Ballard residents who live past the north boundary at 85th St. and will now be sent to Ingraham.

“Many families would’ve liked to have seen the boundary for Ballard to be further north than 85th St., especially those communities, North Beach, Blue Ridge, Olympic Manor, which now largely attend Ballard High School,” explained Seattle Schools Director Peter Maier. “I wish it would’ve been possible…but there simply isn’t the capacity at Ballard High School to do that while we’re serving the entire city.” The updated maps and address look-up tool will be available here by next week.

From here, a transitional plan will be developed, taking into consideration sibling grandfathering, transportation and educational programs for schools that will reopen, like Old Hay, which is slated to reopen as a K-5 Montessori option school in fall 2010 at Lincoln for an interim period while they prepare the school to reopen under a new name in 2011.

There are two public meetings tonight open to Queen Anne community members. The first is a Health Reform Town Hall with public officials from the 36th legislative delegation Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, Reps. Mary Lou Dickerson and Reuven Carlyle. The meeting will address current issues surrounding the health care debate with the chair of the Senate Health & Long-Term Care Committee, Sen. Karen Keiser, and the chair of the House Health Care & Wellness Committee, Rep. Eileen Cody, who will discuss the potential impact of federal health reform efforts on Washington residents. The meeting will be held at the Ballard Swedish Medical Center (5300 Tallman Ave.), Room A on the 1st Floor from 7-9 p.m. tonight.

The second meeting tonight is a Winter Weather Open House put on by the city and the Seattle Department of Transportation to discuss the new winter snow plan. The meeting will be held at the Queen Anne Community Center at 7 p.m. tonight, and is one of several open houses being held throughout the city. For details on tonight’s meeting click here. For a list of all the Winter Weather Open Houses in the area and further information on the new snow plan, click here. Download the Winter Weather snow map here (pdf).

Later this week there will be a meeting to discuss new plans for Queen Anne’s Old Hay, which will be reopening as part of the city’s new school attendance area boundary maps. Successful Schools in Action is hosting the meeting to discuss program options for Old Hay’s new K-5 programs (a Montessori “option school”), and a new name for the school on Thursday, October 29 from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. at Catharine Blaine Elementary Library, located at 2550 34th Ave. W.

Seattle School Board President Michael DeBell will be holding an informal meeting this Saturday, October 24 from 9 to 11 a.m. at Caffè Appassionato, located at 4001 21st Avenue West (next to Fisherman’s Terminal) in Magnolia.

The meet-up will give parents an opportunity to discuss their concerns and questions about the new student assignment plan and boundary map, and the plans to re-open Old Hay in Queen Anne as K-5 Montessori “option school.”

The new school attendance boundary maps released by the School District last week have sparked a lot of questions from the community, especially for Queen Anne, a neighborhood without enough schools to house all of its students. One major controversy has been the zoning of Queen Anne and Magnolia students to Ballard High School, while many Ballard students are slated to go to Ingraham. The new boundary maps also necessitate the reopening of several Seattle schools, including Old Hay at 411 Boston Street, which for ten years was the location of the Secondary Bilingual Orientation Center (SBOC) until it was moved to Capitol Hill in September.

The School District plans to renovate and reopen Old Hay as an “option school” to help ease overcrowding and meet enrollment projections for the Queen Anne and Magnolia neighborhoods. For the 2010-2011 school year, students in the program will be bused to Lincoln High School, and Old Hay would reopen on Queen Anne as a K-5 Montessori school in fall 2011.

Successful Schools in Action, an educational non-profit organization on Queen Anne that encompasses six schools on the hill and in Magnolia, will be hosting two collaborative community meetings to discuss program options for Old Hay’s new K-5 programs, and a new name for the school. The two meetings will be held on:

Wednesday, October 21 from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. at Coe Elementary Cafeteria, located at 2424 7th Ave. W. and Thursday, October 29 from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. at Catharine Blaine Elementary Library, located at 2550 34th Ave. W.

SSIA, which provides resources, tutoring and math programs for diverse groups of students citywide, received a $5,000 grant from Bank of America this summer for their work. According to the organization, Old Hay as an option school will “offer unique programs that are all-city draws, with attendance preference given to a small, local geographic area.”

“The District has proposed this school become a Montessori K-5 school, but they are asking for our feedback,” they wrote in an invitation to the community. “This is our opportunity to work together and provide input to the district on our newest neighborhood school.”

Seattle Public Schools is holding a community meeting tonight (Tuesday) to discuss the proposed closure of the Old Hay building. The plan is to move the Secondary Bilingual Orientation Center (SBOC) to Meany Middle School, leaving the old school building empty once again. The meeting is 6:30-8:30 p.m. at Old Hay at 411 Boston St.