A plan that would close Fairmount Park Elementary School and merge its students with High Point Elementary was approved by Seattle Public Schools Superintendent Raj Manhas last Friday. It's part of a new set of closure recommendations that could save the district more than $300 million in capital improvements.

Manhas approved all of the community advisory committee's final recommendations for the southwest quadrant of the city, including relocating the Pathfinder K-8 program to the Louisa Boren interim school site, closing the E.G. Hughes interim site and the Genesee Hill building that houses Pathfinder.

The superintendent made few alterations to the committee's final list. In all, 11 buildings would close; three in the southwest, three in the southeast, two in the northwest and one in the northeast. The district expects to save $3 million a year in day-to-day expenses for each school closed, and more than $300 million in potential capital improvements.

The Fairmount Park-High Point merger was a last-minute idea devised by the school's principals and staffs just days before the committee submitted its final recommendations to the superintendent, said Davy Muth, Fairmount Park's principal.

The committee said they wanted to honor school-generated solutions and that the merger would result in additional academic resources for all the students.

"It was like a miracle," said Muth about hearing the recommendations. "It's a plan that will move our children intact with their friends. We could not believe it."

The committee's preliminary recommendations would have closed both schools along with 10 other buildings. The Pathfinder program would have relocated to High Point.

Muth said moving her students to the bigger, newer High Point building makes more sense than consolidating at Fairmount Park School. High Point is 13,000 square feet larger and has the capacity to hold 70 more students. The schools, which are less than a mile away from each other, already share school librarians, psychologists and buses, said Muth.

But, she said, some parents are having a hard time accepting that Fairmount Park would close.

"My heart says I want Fairmount to stay just the way it is, but my brain says it makes sense to move to High Point," said Theresa Deegan, a Fairmount Park parent.

Deegan, who used to tutor at High Point, said the two schools are "fairly similar."

More than 90 percent of the students at High Point are on the free and reduced lunch program and nearly 80 percent of Fairmount Park students qualify for the federal program. Both schools are more than three-quarters nonwhite and about 20 percent are bilingual. Fairmount's Bilingual Orientation Center and special education program also would relocate to High Point.

"It's only going to open up more resources to the one big program," said Deegan. "It'll be like the Brady Bunch-they'll bring their kids and we'll bring ours-we'll all be one big happy family."

Elementary and alternative schools were evaluated based on a number of criteria, including academic achievement, family satisfaction and building condition. The committee found consistent declining enrollment at Fairmount Park and High Point and overall excess capacity in the southwest quadrant of the city.

Parents and staff at High Point think the school's declining enrollment has much to do with the demolition and reconstruction of the High Point housing community. The new High Point is replacing what used to be all public housing with a mixed neighborhood of privately owned homes and condos amid low-income units. The project is 30 percent complete and is expected to be finished at the end of 2009. The Seattle Housing Authority expects High Point's population to double by 2010.

But the committee reported that enrollment in the West Seattle cluster had been decreasing for several years before construction began in 2001. Expected are 602 more school-age children and 279 more elementary-age children between now and 2009, according to the committee's report.

George Nemeth, a housing developer with the Seattle Housing Authority, said the new High Point could slightly increase the number of school-age children in the area by 2010.

The increase isn't large because the number of low-income units will decrease by 116 with the new development, and "low income families tend to have more children than the average Seattle family," said Nemeth. But there are no waiting lists for the remaining 1,000 units, which are a combinaiton of senior housing, town homes and single-family homes, so it's difficult to predict who would move in and how many children they might have.

For instance, town homes aren't generally rented or sold to families with children, said Nemeth.

Manhas' preliminary recommendations are now in the hands of the School Board, and there will be several public hearings before the board's final vote on July 26. Manhas said the comprehensive evaluation has renewed the district's commitment to focus on investing in education and academic excellence.

"No catchy slogans, so spin," said Manhas last Friday. "Let's keep it simple and clean. We need to focus on three specific areas; academic excellence, accountability and family and community involvement. It's easy to say, but hard to do."

Other recommendations:

Northwest: Close Viewlands and move students to nearby schools. Close John Marshall building and move programs to other locations.

Northeast/Central: Close M.L. King Elementary. Students merge with T.T. Minor. Work with the community to determine how best to honor and retain Dr. King's name. Two additional schools could close in order to meet the board target.

Southeast: Merge Whitworth and Dearborn Park at Dearborn Park. Close Columbia building that houses Orca and relocate Orca to the Whitworth building. Close Emerson Elementary program. Close the South Shore building that houses The New School, and relocate that program at Emerson. Close the Graham Hill program and move students to nearby schools.