Issaquah Schools Prep for Housing Plan That Reunites Jailed Parents, Children
By Rachel Tuinstra, Seattle Times
Jan. 23–The Issaquah School District is beginning to prepare for a housing project that, if all goes as planned, will reunite formerly incarcerated parents and their children.
Called Passage Point, the project would be near Maple Valley and would initially provide apartments for 46 families, along with counseling and help with education, job skills, parenting, and support for recovery from drugs and alcohol addictions. Eventually, the project could accommodate as many as 70 families.
The Issaquah district estimates roughly 50 children may live in the project when it opens in 2009 and expects those of school age to attend district schools, according to Connie Fletcher, a school-board member.
To help support these children in their new schools, the school district is asking the state Legislature for $250,000 to $270,000 to help offset the cost of hiring a social worker, a behavioral specialist, an additional teacher and an education assistant, Fletcher said.
In addition, Fletcher said, the district will need to put teachers through intensive training on how to interact with children who have experienced trauma.
Passage Point, a project of King County, the YWCA and the county Housing Authority, would occupy what is today a vacant rehabilitation facility known as Cedar Hills treatment center. It’s next to the county’s Cedar Hills Landfill.
The YWCA will hold a public meeting today to begin organizing a Community Advisory Group about the project. The group will represent area residents as the project is developed and relay to the YWCA the community’s concerns about security, environmental impacts and other issues, said YWCA’s South King County regional director, Linda Rasmussen.
Passage Point is slated to open in 2009, and will require converting the treatment center’s dormitory-style building into separate apartments. Most of the parents would likely be women, but there may also be a few men who would be reunited with their children through the program, Rasmussen said.
The school district is asking for the additional state funding so that teacher training and other preparations can begin before the project goes online next year, Fletcher said. The district will need ongoing funding to pay for the additional support that Passage Point students will need, she said.
The school district has an obligation to prepare for these students, many of whom will undoubtedly have experienced emotional trauma at being separated from their parents during their incarceration, Fletcher said.
“We educate all the students in our district; it’s our obligation to do so,” Fletcher said. “We want all the children to be successful in our district, and I know our community will embrace it [Passage Point] and rally around it.”
But not everyone in the community is embracing the project. An opposition group of residents, called the Cedar Hills Rural Preservation Alliance, filed a lawsuit in November, saying Passage Point should not be allowed under the area’s current rural zoning. The county has made a determination that Passage Point is allowable under the same nonconforming use given to Cedar Hills, the alcohol-treatment center that opened on the site in 1967 and closed in 2002 for budget reasons.
If the project goes through, the community will likely do everything it can to embrace and support the children living there, said Sean Kronberg, who along with his wife sits on the alliance’s board of directors.
As the parent of a 3-year-old who may one day be attending school with children from Passage Point, Kronberg said, he’d want to do whatever he could to make sure all the students do well in school.
“If any child were to move into a new school in the middle of the year, they would be behind and need extra help to get caught up,” Kronberg said. “I would imagine, if my kids were in schools, I would do everything in my power to help my kids’ teacher out.”
Rachel Tuinstra: 206-515-5637 or rtuinstra@seattletimes.com
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