About 200 impassioned parents, teachers and students gathered at Pathfinder K-8 School last week to criticize Seattle Public Schools' plan to move Pathfinder's alternative approach to education to more-traditional Cooper Elementary School.

The driving force for the proposed merger is to save taxpayers' money. District officials want to cut costs by closing some public schools so the current plan is to move Pathfinder students and teachers out of the rundown former Genesee Hill School to newer Cooper School on Pigeon Point. But there was no talk of savings or budgets at the public meeting, where people were openly hostile to a merger of the two schools, mostly because of their different approaches to education.

Pathfinder School uses a teaching method called "expeditionary learning," which emphasizes projects that involve a variety of academic disciplines, field work and research based on Washington state academic requirements.

Cooper Elementary School teachers use a more structured, classroom-based approach. Cooper also offers a specialized and well-regarded program for students with autism.

Most people at last week's meeting doubted the likelihood of success for the proposed merger of the two schools' educational programs in one building. Speaker after speaker from both Pathfinder and Cooper School stood at the microphone to criticize the merger.

Listening in face-frozen silence were School Board directors Brita Butler-Wall, Cheryl Chow, Sally Soriano, Darlene Flynn, Michael DeBell and West Seattle's representative, Irene Stewart. Also attending and looking grim was Superintendent Raj Manhas, chief operating officer Mark Greene and other district officials.

Analogies ran wild during more than two hours of public comment on the proposed merger of Pathfinder and Cooper schools.

A grandmother who is raising a student at Pathfinder used a comparison as a warning against joining the two schools.

"When you take the heart out of something, it's dead," she said. "We've seen movies like this. It's called Frankenstein."

A teacher characterized the school district's proposal as "like asking Democrats and Republicans to form a new political party."

Another teacher relayed a colorful parallel from one of her students, who said combining the two schools would be like mixing blue and yellow to make green, when nobody wants green.

The mother of a Pathfinder kindergartener told school officials combining the two disparate educational programs "takes a magician and God on your side."

Combining the two schools programs will end up with "a bland version of each school," said a teacher.

A Pathfinder teacher expressed frustration that the public doesn't understand his school's educational philosophy incorporates science, world culture studies, math and other regular disciplines into its program.

Another teacher told of how Pathfinder students have taken field trips to see glaciers and ridden Metro buses to learn about Rosa Parks and the civil rights movement. They documented the history of Me-Kwa-Mooks Park.

A woman who attended High Point, Denny and Sealth is now a teacher at Highline Community College. She told the meeting that she sends college interns to study Pathfinder School.

Yet another Pathfinder School teacher accused School Board members and district officials of lacking foresight and proper planning before announcing the amalgamation of the Pathfinder and Cooper programs.

"You never asked us if this would work," he said. "Things just popped at us."

Another teacher said there is a perception in West Seattle that Pathfinder is a rich white school. About 40 percent of the Pathfinder student body is nonwhite, she said. Efforts to portray the differences between Pathfinder and Cooper elementary schools as rich versus poor "divides the West Seattle community," she said.

The father of a Cooper Elementary School student said the school-closure process has been "hurtful and unfair." He claimed it is "only creating hostility."

A Cooper teacher stood to say there is no animosity among the teachers at the two schools.

"We are not enemies of Pathfinder," he said. Nevertheless he asked district officials to reconsider and keep the two programs separate and intact.

Another Pathfinder parent said, "to combine the schools as some type of hybrid would not be responsible to alternative education or traditional education."

Some people criticized district officials for changing their minds about the future of the schools. Last year came word that Pathfinder School would leave its current home in the former Genesee Hill Elementary School to displace Cooper School. Later it was announced that Cooper students would be welcome to enroll in Pathfinder's alternative program. Now district officials want the two schools to combine their programs by next school year.

Another teacher said there's a lot of mistrust about the future of both schools' educational programs.

A woman questioned the wisdom of closing the schools while there are hundreds of new townhouses, apartment buildings, condos and homes under construction in the neighborhood.

"West Seattle is growing so why close either school?" she asked. "Don't overcrowd every school in this bloody neighborhood."

Another woman told district officials the proposal makes sense only in financial terms.

"This has not been done anywhere in the country," she said.

Superintendent Raj Manhas is scheduled to make his final recommendation about the proposed merger of Pathfinder and Cooper schools Oct. 18. A public hearing is set for 6 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 24 at the John Stanford Center auditorium.

The Seattle School Board will vote on the matter Nov. 1.

Tim St. Clair can be contacted at 932-0300 or tstclair@robinsonnews.com