Roxhill Elementary School is the sacrificial lamb no one wants to talk about. In its last gasping effort to save $1 million dollars, bringing them closer to eliminating its $2.5 million dollar budget gap, The Seattle Public Schools superintendent and School Board are losing sight of closing the Achievement Gap.

And yet, the city's major newspapers and West Seattle's own West Seattle Herald make no mention of Roxhill and the injustice the superintendent and the Seattle School Board are about to commit.

Why is this?

Roxhill Elementary has shown the kind of progress the superintendent and the School Board should celebrate and tout and not shut it down. It has improved its state standards (i.e. WASL scores) in reading by 24.3 percent in one year! This brings it to 7.4 percent less than 2005 statewide achievement; its 2004 WASL was 31.7 percent less than the 2005 statewide achievement. Arbor Heights meanwhile dropped in achievement by 0.4 percent. In mathematics Arbor Heights dropped by 4.1 percent even as Roxhill raised its math scores by 15.5 percent between 2004 and 2005.

These accomplishments are even more astounding when you consider that Roxhill is 83 percent students of color. Arbor Heights is 59 percent Caucasian and its percentage of families that qualify for free and reduced lunch, i.e. an income of less than $30,710 dollar per year or less is only 38 percent while those at Roxhill who qualify number 83 percent.

Is Roxhill a sacrificial lamb to the Seattle School District's efforts to hold on to middle class families who are opting out and sending their children to private schools because they can afford to? Is Roxhill a sacrificial lamb because so many of its families are immigrant and/or poor and cannot advocate as eloquently as families who have their children enrolled at Arbor Heights? But all that is putting it kindly.

In fact, it is the children who are being sacrificed. They have worked hard to improve. It is the teachers who are being sacrificed. They pulled together and succeeded in having children realize their potential. They have remained committed to their families by staying at Roxhill. This school has the lowest turnover in the district. It is the young families that live with walking distance who are being sacrificed.

They did what they were asked, they got involved and they spent countless hours working with their children. And now their children will be bused to a school that is primarily middle class in a neighborhood their parents could never afford to move to. The children at Roxhill are well on their way to closing the gap. They invented the flight school process. Buildings don't make a school.

Why is no-one speaking up to support Roxhill parents whose voice seems silenced by the force of educated middle-class political will?

We are asking Superintendent Raj Manhas and the School Board to take Roxhill Elementary off the list for closure and to let the West Seattle Community develop a process to identify a school for closure. We do not wish to pit school community against school community. We are asking for a fair and intelligent process.

Maria G. Ramirez

Adrian Moroles

Co-Chairs, Campan