Northwest Center starts a new school year in its new home

As school starts across Washington, another year in the classroom is about to begin at Northwest Center, in its new home.

Northwest Center caters to disabled children and had been leasing a North Queen Anne building from the Seattle School district for the past 28 years. Based on emails obtained through a public records request, all indications were that the school would stay in that building for the years to come.

But in January, the district decided it would not renew the lease, leaving Northwest Center just a few months to figure out where to move its 180 students.

Northwest Center CEO Tom Everill is happy to report that the school has moved to their new Greenwood location and opens Wednesday morning.

“We chose the location because, as we told Seattle Public Schools at the beginning of the year, finding facilities that can house a licensed preschool and meet all the stringent licensing requirements is a very tricky matter. This facility was that rarest of things: an empty, fully licenseable preschool facility,” said Everill.

Unfortunately, the Greenwood building isn’t their permanent home. They have a lease with the Salvation Army to be in the building for three years. The charity group came to Northwest Center to offer their building when they heard of their struggles on the news.

Northwest Center would like a permanent home and attempted to bid on one, but realized they didn’t have the capitol to do so.

“We still feel that we want (and) we’re committed to finding a permanent home for Northwest Center kids. One that we can control and that we can commit to our families to have stability. But this gives us three years in a state of the art facility; a modern, bright comfortable facility,” said Everill.

Their new facility is smaller, only seven classrooms compared to the 10 they had in Queen Anne, so they will lose some of the families and children they’ve come to know and love.

As for their relationship with the Seattle School District, Everill said that he wishes them all the best as the district focuses on finding room for their growing student body.

“In hindsight, Northwest Center should have been more aggressive in trying to understand their issues. That said, as the public records show, we kept asking and kept getting answers that were, I’ll just say, not useful. That’s pretty tough to work with.”

Despite that now-departed Seattle Superintendent Jose Banda indicated he wanted to help Northwest Center find a new home, or take in some of their displaced kids, the last communication between Banda and Northwest Center was in May.

The relationship between the district and Northwest Center during the lease dispute was strained, but Everill said the meeting in May was a turnaround.

“That was a great meeting, we sat down and there was eye contact, there was sharing of information, there was a will to get together and get things done, I wish that could have started two years ago because we would have not had the mess, that sort of mutual mess, that we ended up with this year and all the wasted energy that goes into that,” Everill said.

Banda announced in June that he would be leaving the Seattle School District after a mere two years as Superintendent, with two more years left on his contract.

He went to Sacramento and in a letter to the district said that he’ll be closer to family there and will also be taking a pay cut.

According to state records, his salary at the Seattle School District was $280,000 in total compensation in the 2013-2014 school year. According to the Sacramento Bee, Banda is now making $290,000 in total compensation.

Also, the Bee reports that if he completes his new three-year employment contract, he will increase his annual pension benefit to about $223,300.