Encampment on Seattle Public Schools property will not be cleared before school starts

SEATTLE — Officials with Seattle Public Schools said an encampment on the district’s property will not be cleared before school starts. The camp is right next to Broadview-Thomson K-8 School.

A father whom KIRO 7 spoke with said the area has become a hot spot for crime and that clearing the camp out should be a priority.

KIRO 7 noticed, on Thursday, shopping carts and piles of garbage that peppered the waterfront at Bitter Lake and dozens of tents all across the ground.

“Really has become, um, the epicenter for crime in our community,” a concerned parent, Ryle Goodrich, said. “It was horrific to be there and to think that you’re sending your child to that school every day. And right behind the school, there is so much danger and awfulness.”

Goodrich said he watched the encampment evolve and grow over the last year.

“It’s really unbelievable; it’s worse than you can imagine,” Goodrich said.

Goodrich showed us a photo he had taken of a samurai sword leaning against a tent and another of a target, which he said a man used while throwing an ax.

A video of what sounded like a woman in distress was also captured.

“Have been on the playground and looked over, and I’ve seen open drug use 15 feet away. The school is completely an unsafe place,” Goodrich told KIRO 7.

In July, SPS sent out a plan to address concerns, partnering with the nonprofit organization Anything Helps. That was to have the area cleared by the next school year.

“We recognize that folks are concerned about this, and we are working very hard to do something about it,” said Tim Robinson with SPS.

However, the school year is here. And the encampment, with all 55 of its inhabitants, has not been removed.

“Because of the many layers of helping these folks that the pacing of it is not going as rapidly as we had hoped,” Robinson said.

The district maintained that the area is safe, but it is adding new safety measures.

“I’m (gonna) say that they were safe, but we have installed additional fencing, new gating, more security is going to be there moving forward. So there have been measures taken,” Robinson said.

But with no date for the encampment to be cleared, a fence does little to block out Goodrich’s concerns. “No child should have to endure what the children of Broadview-Thomson are enduring,” he said.

KIRO 7 has reached out to the mayor’s office to see if it plans to intervene.

SPS plans to hold a town hall on Thursday night to address any further concerns parents might have.

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