Cleveland High plan for magnet school in Seattle draws interest, but is there enough money?

Plans to turn Seattle’s Cleveland High into a magnet school that focuses on math, science, engineering and technology drew hundreds of eighth-graders and their parents to an open house Saturday. But even as Seattle Public Schools recruits students for what it hopes will be a standout program, there are questions about where the district will find some of the money to get it started and whether it should proceed, given that other schools’ budgets may be cut next fall.

They included Sonja and Gerald Bradford, who said the new program put Cleveland on the list of prospective high schools for their daughter Brooke, now an eighth-grader at University Prep, a private school in North Seattle.

Yet even as the Seattle Public Schools recruits students for what it hopes will be a standout program, there are questions about where the district will find some of the money to get it started and whether it should proceed, given that other schools’ budgets may be cut next fall.

By Linda Shaw

Seattle Times education reporter

Full Story: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2010882968_stem25m.html