Gates Foundation to give Seattle schools $7.2 million

The grant is one of four the district plans to announce Tuesday, for a total of $9 million.

The Gates Foundation's contribution is its first major donation to the city's public schools since 2000, when it gave a five-year, $26 million grant, one of the first in its initial $350 million effort to improve the nation's schools.

The foundation did not renew the Seattle grant when it expired 3 ½ years ago. Tom Vander Ark, who then headed the foundation's education giving, said the school district didn't show the kind of improvement, leadership and planning the foundation was looking for.

Now the foundation is much more optimistic about where Seattle schools are headed under a new superintendent and School Board.

Vicki Phillips, who replaced Vander Ark, says the foundation has watched closely since Goodloe-Johnson became superintendent in July 2007, and thinks the district's five-year plan "has the potential to carry the district forward in some very powerful ways."