This fall students from Fairmount Park and High Point elementary schools will combine to form a new school with a new name, West Seattle Elementary, a name approved last week by the Seattle School Board.

A plan that would close Fairmount Park and merge its students with High Point Elementary was approved by the Seattle School Board and then superintendent Raj Manhas last summer, along with six other closures, four of which were mergers.

As other schools battled to save their programs, the school generated High Point/Fairmount merger moved along quietly and was fairly uncontroversial. While planning for the students to unite at High Point, the school communities began discussing a name change, said Gayle Everly, High Point's principal.

"It's like we are opening a new school together," Everly said. "We wanted it to feel very inclusive."

Last winter, a committee of staff and parents from both schools formed to gauge interest in the idea.

"There were enough reasons in the pro column, so we decided it was worth investigating," Everly said.

First, a letter introducing the idea and asking for suggestions was sent home with every student translated into their language. Leaving it High Point was always an option, Everly said.

More than 40 suggestions were collected from families. One student submitted the name Jonathan Elementary School, after himself of course.

Finally, this spring, the top five names were chosen, along with High Point, and ballots were sent home to every family at both schools.

Out of names like Seattle Heights and Sunrise Heights, the families and students overwhelming chose the name West Seattle Elementary. It was an "amazingly popular" choice at Fairmount, said Everly.

The School Board must approve any changing of school names. School and community input are also required, according to district policy. Factors like geographical location, community name and individuals who have served the community must be considered.

The motion was introduced by West Seattle's outgoing director Irene Stewart and the board unanimously approved the change at last week's meeing. Stewart was in support of the name change and said it was particularly important to her since Fairmount and High Point are her neighborhood schools.

"It's a very appropriate name for a school centrally located in West Seattle," said Stewart. "I'm excited about it. It will become my new neighborhood school."

Besides investigating a name change, much more was done to prepare for the joining of the schools. There were joint staff meetings and several collaborative community events.

Enrollment at the new school will be around 325 kindergarten-through-fifth-grade students, double the amount previously at each school. That doesn't include a YMCA childcare service and two special education pre-school sessions, said Everly.

Teaching staff will consist of about a 50-50 mix of Fairmount and High Point faculty. Everly expects class size to hold steady at around 26 students.

"We are running pretty full classes right now," she said. "It's a pretty good sized school."

But there's still work ahead to secure the vision and the philosophy of the new program among staff and students.

"Anytime you double your school size...you have to approach it like you are opening a new school," Everly said. "There is a lot of work but also a lot of opportunity ahead to create a strong program. The work to me is beforehand."

The schools, which are less than a mile away from each other, had already shared librarians, psychologists and buses. The student populations have similarities as well.

More than 90 percent of the students at High Point are on the free and reduced lunch program, typically an indicator of poverty, and nearly 80 percent of Fairmount Park students qualify for the federal program. Both schools are more than three-quarters African American, Hispanic and Asian. About 20 percent are bilingual.

But none of them will be roaming the halls of the Fairmount building come this fall. For now the school will sit "mothballed" with several others on the district's list of inventoried buildings, said Kathy Johnson, facilities planning manager for Seattle schools.

The School Board recently adopted an amendment to the district's facilities master plan that reclassified 19 buildings as either "inventory" or "surplus" based on building capacity and enrollment trends.

There are no immediate plans for Fairmount Park, said Johnson, while the district prepares a new facilities plan this fall that will analyze capacity district-wide and update demographic projections.

"Until I get the updated numbers, it's hard to say what the future of the building is," said Johnson.

Rebekah Schilperoort may be reached via rebekahs@robinsonnews.com