The West Seattle Montessori has found a new location in White Center, leaving many parents upset and considering pulling their children out to go to other schools.

Last February, Harbor Properties bought the property on 38th Avenue Southwest between Fauntleroy and Alaska Street, where the Montessori school has been for 28 years. The development, the third by the company going up in the Junction, will be five stories, 206 apartments on top of ground level retail.

The school was given until January 2009 to move out.

Ralph Clark, his wife Dorothy, and Darlene Rautio, the owner-directors of the school, scoured West Seattle for a new location. While considering places such as the Fauntleroy School House and the empty Fairmont Park, they found what they thought was the perfect location. They knew parents may not be happy.

"People are not vocal about the change," said Ralph Clark. "They know we have looked and looked, and there's no place else."

While most of the staff and parents were excited by the move, some complained the directors' decision was hasty, their plans overly optimistic. Many refused to speak on record.

"They made a half-hearted attempt at involving us," one parent said. Directors asked them to talk to Harbor Properties, to testify at a school board meeting.

"It was a royal waste of time," this parent said.

They new building is in Shorewood, on 16th Avenue Southwest, the four-lane arterial running through White Center. Burien city limits are four blocks to the south. The carved sign welcoming north-bound drivers to White Center is two blocks south.

"We'll keep the name of the school," said Clark. "We're not going to call it Unincorporated King County Montessori."

On the way out of the building are Crosswalk Ministries, "Worship Sundays 11:00 a.m." and Tienda Cuzcatlan, a distributor of products from Central America. The back half of the building looks empty.

Trimmed pink rhododendrons circle the building. So does a rusted chain link fence.

The building needs extensive remodeling. Small offices will be gutted. Six new preschool-through-kindergarten classes each need a bathroom. Three more elementary rooms and a middle school room each need a sink.

The school leaves behind three western red cedars and murals showing savannah, marine, desert and rain forest animals, signed in paint with students' handprints.

Clark wants to keep the huge tractor tire from the old playground. Six feet in diameter and weighing a ton, it has been a great for climbing. Wooden structures set in concrete must be abandoned and replaced. Rubber mats will replace wood chips.

Dorothy Clark will take the daffodils, tulips and heather the students planted.

The low estimate was $150,000. The high, over $400,000.

"I don't believe in either estimate," said Ralph Clark, hoping it will be in between.

They hope the first day in the new school will be the Wednesday after Labor Day. They'd don't want to upset students by moving in the middle of the school year.

But if renovation isn't complete, they'll move during Christmas break.

"I know it's not the way our staff would like to spend their holiday," said Rautio. "We are feeling really positive to open in September."

Parents complained about a lack of information. Since April, only two updates about the new building, promised weekly, have been distributed.

"They haven't actually signed a lease," one parent claimed. "They have yet to see how much the landlord is going to pay for changes. If they had signed a lease, they would have told us."

"The building is leased," said Rautio, when asked - for twenty years. "It's all buttoned up."

The architect is applying for permits. Contractors are being hired. The work still has to be done.

"I have low confidence the process will go as fast as they think it will," said one parent.

The directors said they had searched though everything in West Seattle.

Harbor Properties invited the school back, but to inadequate space and no outside playground.

The Old Fauntleroy School House wasn't big enough, the Montessori competing with the day care there.

Fairmont Park, less than one mile south, was attractive. The Seattle School District recently changed its rules, offering empty school buildings at discounted rent to educational organizations. But the building was twice what the school needed. Triple-net responsibility (all taxes, insurance and maintenance) plus an estimated $3 million for renovation, scared the directors off.

"I don't think they exhausted their options," one parent complained.

The new location is five miles south.

"We were told the priority was west of 35th and north of Roxbury," one parent said. "This new location is neither."

Though most live in West Seattle, some parents commute from Queen Anne, Kent, Des Moines. One family drives from Preston, near Issaquah. For some, the drive against the traffic to the new location may be quicker.

"It's bad for people if they work downtown and they live in the Admiral District," said Linda Lubow, a parent who carpools from Seward Park. "It wouldn't make any sense for them to stay."

Even while complaining, parents are quick to praise the teachers and the education.

"If they communicated with us as well as they communicate with our children," said one parent, "then we would have a better feeling about the move."

At least one family has pulled its children out because of the move.

"I'm going to give it one more year," said another parent. "My pro-list is still longer than the con-list, but it's getting shorter."

Parents have already paid the first two of 10 tuition payments for the next school year.

How many students return won't be clear until autumn. The directors admit numbers may be down. Usually word-of-mouth brings in new students.

"This might be the first time we have to have an advertising campaign," said Ralph.

Matthew G. Miller is a freelance writer living in the Admiral District. He can be contacted through wseditor@robinsonnews.com.