Harbor Properties soon will raze the buildings that have housed the West Seattle Montessori School for 28 years and the preschool children, older students and their teachers have till the end of August to find another place for their school.

About a mile due south, Fairmont Park Elementary School stands empty, closed by the Seattle Public School District in June 2007.

At the school board meeting last week, parents, teachers and volunteers asked - if not begged - the district to lease them the property.

A yellow land use action placard at the Montessori front door describes a new five-story, mixed-use building, with 200 residential units and ground floor retail. It will face 38th Avenue between a dry cleaner on Fauntleroy and the fire station across Alaska Street.

A design review meeting will be held next Thursday to review the new building.

Harbor Properties, which is also building the 130-unit Mural development on 42nd across from Jefferson Square, told the school it must vacate by January, less than four months after the school year begins.

"Families want to know where they're going to be next year," said Colleen Lenihan, a teacher at the Montessori school and a mother to two graduates.

The Junction neighborhood has few options for a school, with developers building over a thousand condominiums and apartments there before 2011, said Ralph Clark, another parent.

The school district closed Fairmont Park, and its students merged into what was then called High Point Elementary, now West Seattle Elementary School.

The school is not surplus, but "inventoried." Though closed and unused, the school district plans to keep it for future use.

West Seattle Montessori does not want to buy it.

"Selling Fairmont would bring in dollars in the short run," Clark said. "But when the district needs the building again, where will it be?"

They prefer to sign a long term lease, 10 or 20 years, and take advantage of a reduction in rent the school district now allows groups that provide "youth education." Parents cited the proposed revisions to the Procedure for Sales and Rentals of Closed School Facilities - passed unanimously by the board later the same meeting - emphasizing how West Seattle Montessori fits with the school district's stricter focus.

The Montessori program includes day care, before- and after-school childcare, preschool, and elementary and middle school classes for 175 students.

Fairmont Park is more than seven times larger than their current building. Parents testified this would allow their school to expand its music, drama, visual arts, sports and day care programs.

The Montessori already uses the playfields at Fairmount Park. Catherine Bogdon, whose oldest has been at the Montessori for eight years, said the move would eliminate a dangerous crossing at Alaska Street by students going to their PE classes.

Meara Clark, whose son is in the program, told the school board, "I ask, cajole, beg, plead and urge you to grant West Seattle Montessori School a long term lease at Fairmont Park. Give us a chance.

"Give us a lease."

The design review meeting will be at 8 p.m., Thursday, April 10, in the library at Chief Sealth High School.

Matthew G. Miller may be reached via wseditor@robinsonnews.com.