Seattle Superintendent has little knowledge of charitable project done at district-owned school

Northwest Center was told in late December that they had six months to vacate their Queen Anne building which they lease from the Seattle School District. They say that’s not enough time to find a new location that fits the needs of their disabled children.

On Wednesday, Superintendent Jose Banda addressed emails KIRO Radio obtained dating back to October of 2012 between district employees that appeared to show them misleading Northwest Center about the status of the lease – one they’ve held for 28 years.

Northwest Center was given six months notice – the minimum notice according to the lease – but, according to the emails, the school could have been given nearly two years notice and that, they say, would have been ample time to find a new location for their disabled student population.

“There’s an assumption that all of this could be avoided. I mean, if they had a year’s time, would that have been sufficient to find a new location to get licensed and set up? You’re assuming that that would be the case,” Banda told KIRO Radio. “Sure, it would have been nice to have that decision made earlier to indicate to him (Northwest Center CEO Tom Everill) that yes we would be taking that building. But I don’t think we landed on that decision on that particular project until towards the very end.”

But internal emails we’ve read show the district was at least discussing taking over Northwest Center’s building nearly two years ago – while at the same time deciding to tell Northwest Center “we have no plan.”

This is doubly upsetting for administrators and parents at Northwest Center because a charitable group of builders and contractors, NAIOP, made a quarter-million dollars worth of renovations to their building a year ago.

NAIOP said they’ve done five project with Seattle Public Schools.

And, internal school district emails show they suggested the Northwest Center building to NAIOP for the charity project.

We asked Superintendent Banda why the district would allow these renovations for the benefit of Northwest Center when there were plans to take back the building:

“They would have benefited another few months, another 12 months,” said Banda.

But they believed Northwest Center would be the beneficiary from here on out?

“That’s where we’re not going to agree – because they are the beneficiary. They’ve been here for the past few months or a year to benefit. I don’t know when the (project) was completed.”

Banda didn’t know a lot about this quarter-million dollar charity project – done to a district-owned building – even though emails show the district worked closely with NAIOP.

“We don’t have any record that Northwest Center or NAIOP or anyone engaged the district in the self-help process. So we don’t even know to what extent what was done or what improvements was made to the school,” he said.

While Superintendent Banda, doesn’t know what improvements were made to the school, it was quite easy
for KIRO Radio to obtain a list of every single thing that was done by the construction company. A list that was sent to the school district and included the removal of lead-based paint at Northwest Center.