Your recent editorial (Oct. 4) describing Pathfinder K-8 School as needing to set aside "huge egos" in order to make a school with Cooper School was unreflective and inaccurate.

Pathfinder K-8 parents and staff are working untold hours to preserve alternative education, not out of arrogance but out of a passion for retaining the single alternative school as an option for families in West Seattle.

In late September, Pathfinder K-8 School was informed by Seattle Schools Superintendent Manhas that our program would move to Cooper School. Cooper students would be welcome to join Pathfinder or have first choice at other schools. A few days later we were told, instead, that the two schools would be merged as part of an "exciting opportunity" to make a new school. We are now told that the two schools will merge, but remain an alternative K-8, but can the same leaders who suggested a "50/50 merge" between a very traditional school and an alternative school be trusted to preserve alternative education in West Seattle?

Pathfinder K-8 is the only alternative public school in West Seattle. In June, the Seattle School board ratified the Alternative Education Policy. Pathfinder is the embodiment of that policy. Merging elements of Cooper and Pathfinder K-8 will necessarily result in a less alternative school.

Pathfinder K-8, as it now exists, is a vibrant, culturally diverse school. The vast majority of our students are here by choice, not by assignment. Our program utilizes expeditionary learning, multiple intelligence approaches, outdoor education, and cultural studies.

Last spring, the school board described Pathfinder K-8 as a successful program in need of an improved facility, not as a program in need of merging.

Over the past 15 years, we've been housed in three different buildings. In the past 16 months, the school district has proposed we move to three different improved facilities - and then withdrawn the proposals.

Pathfinder has transitioned from an elementary school to a K-8 with minimal support from the school district (a few portables on our black top). We have functioned successfully for years in a 1940's building with a leaking roof, dry rotting floors and unsafe, undrinkable water. We're not about having to have fancy buildings or make other people do it our way. We are about providing, in whatever facility is workable, a first rate alternative education to children.

We have demonstrated thoughtfulness in not speaking ill of another school but in speaking about our own program, a response that is absolutely free of "huge egos."

We urge the Seattle School Superintendent and School Board to not "fix" or merge a program that is successful, beloved and anything but broken. Pathfinder is already an "exciting opportunity" for education. And we urge the West Seattle Herald to take a moment for thought before wrongly characterizing a hard working, flexible and unique local school.

Pathfinder staff