Breaking Up Is Hard To Do
In 1998, school officials in the Seattle suburb of Federal Way decided the time had come to build a new high school. The 22,000-student district had not constructed a new secondary school in more than 20 years, despite having grown by 5,000 students during that time. Federal Way's three high schools each served about 1,350 students, and they were bursting at the seams. At Federal Way High School, the city's oldest, things were so bad that four lunch periods—the first beginning at 10:30 a.m.—were needed just to feed everybody.
Tom Vander Ark, the district's reform-minded superintendent, had a plan. He proposed a $52 million bond issue to pay for additional classrooms at the three existing facilities so that each could accommodate 150 more students. But he also called for the creation of a brand-new, nontraditional high school. It would serve 1,100 students, and unlike the typical large high school, with its "shopping mall" approach to education, it would focus specifically on preparing students for careers in technology. The new building would be located in downtown Federal Way, on the site of an aging alternative school that was slated to be torn down. Instead of a high-priced gymnasium, it would include a recreation center that might be open to the public. And the cost would be just $20 million, half the price of a traditional school. Vander Ark called the proposed facility a "new high school for a new century."
To Vander Ark, a former businessman with a reputation for taking risks, comprehensive high schools were like dinosaurs, and their extinction was inevitable. The last thing Federal Way needed to build, he believed, was another one. But, as it turned out, that's what most folks wanted. His plan quickly came under fire from a number of parents and teachers who objected to the school's career-oriented focus and feared it wouldn't effectively solve the issue of overcrowding. Some felt his proposal was simply too radical. "Is our community ready to go with this part of education reform?" asked Ann Murphy, the school board president. Apparently,...
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