Several good questions, several answers:

1) Beacon Hill neighborhood is a mixed income residential neighborhood full of first-generation immigrants and young families. It is not a ghetto nor a particularly high-crime area. There are expensive view houses which will cost you the better part of a million dollars, and there are $600/month dive apartments. I have lived on Beacon Hill for nine years now, and while it's interesting, I've never had a minute that I've been concerned for the safety of myself or my children.

Also remember that SPS has schools in all sorts of neighborhoods. My daughter attends school at Lowell up on Capitol Hill, which has a fascinating and edgy street life. None of that gets into the walls of the school. The children are kept safe and the oddballs are moved along.

2) Does BH have bullies? Yes. Are they allowed free run of the school? No.

3) The teachers are fine. My wife is one of them, so my opinion is biased.

4) I have sort of a broken-record speech I do about schools, especially inner-city ones. The best predictor of academic success is the attitude of the parents towards their child's eduction. The test scores you see published (including the ones on this site) are, at the end of the day, a count of how many involved, middle-class parents are at the school. Teachers and environment do a little, but it's mostly the kids and their parents at the end of the day. You're involved and are asking good questions, so you're off to a good start.

There are a few "disaster area" schools in Seattle which are so swamped with problem kids that the teachers are spending all their time doing damage control and very little actual learning gets done. Beacon Hill is not in this group.

The school has a tour scheduled at 9 am on Wednesday, 18 March 2009. Come by and take a look at the school. It's really nice!