Seattle Schools Backs Off on School Cuts

I have received word of the following:

The district is to recind the budget cuts to schools and add $1.8M to the budget to cover these cuts.

The union is urging members to still attend the School Board meeting on Wednesday to support later start times.

I'll be checking in with both groups tomorrow.

Update:  Banda's letter to school staff (which I find wordy and not entirely clear).   But, the upshot is that $1.8M will be "restored" to schools and "We intend to fully restore what was cut during the WSS allocation."  It is unclear to me when that might happen (meaning, is this aspirational or doable?)


 


Comments

Stephen said…
That's good news. "Doing more with less" is a hard way to educate our children.
3/17/14, 7:39 PM
Anonymous said…
Fantastic news.

-sleeper
3/17/14, 7:50 PM
Anonymous said…
Wow--this seems like almost momentous news for SPS. They actually seem to have listened….

-FedMomof2
3/17/14, 8:13 PM
Eric M said…
But, OMG, the agony of the budget meetings at all the schools. Way to waste everyone's time and energy.
3/17/14, 8:34 PM
Melissa Westbrook said…
And Eric is right.

Why do all these people who are working so hard have to worry like this?
3/17/14, 8:44 PM
Anonymous said…
I don't get this: in one moment, there is no money, SPS makes a decision: cuts needed in schools (while they raise salary for admin people at the same time!). After a few weeks, and protests, schools refusing the cuts and wow, miracle happens and the district finds the missing amount of money: $1.8M. No more, no less...
I wonder where was this money coming from and allocated to before and also, if they "found" this amount, maybe there is more...
- just wow
3/17/14, 10:07 PM
Sarah said…
Original cuts were $3M. How many millions will be spent on Common Spore?
3/17/14, 10:52 PM
Anonymous said…
It was probably their "conference travel" budget for April.

-- Audit Now
3/17/14, 10:58 PM
Anonymous said…
Maybe the many schools who had already voted down the budget convinced Central that it needed to rethink? If so, good. Will be interesting to hear the "official" rationale today -- which we can all agree is likely not to be the full story. Leopards and spots you know.

DistrictWatcher
3/18/14, 8:59 AM
Mr. IRS said…
Are we paying for school board members to travel around the country to look at preschool programs?
3/18/14, 9:18 AM
Anonymous said…
So they really didn't need to make these cuts after all. I think a bean counter with no direct school connection thought this would be a good idea. Oh how I wish schools could just run themselves and we didn't have to deal with this bloated district. Yea for staff and parents for not letting them get away with this!

parent

3/18/14, 11:38 AM
Anonymous said…
I thought this was related to the State coming up with a budget that gave more funds than the district expected, and now because of the increase of funds, these cuts don't have to happen. The timing of the school budget meetings just happened to happen prior to the State budget decision. Yes lots of stress, but the district was probably trying to prepare for the worst.

Just sayin'
3/18/14, 11:46 AM
RosieReader said…
While I agree with "just sayin" in terms of the timing of things, I remain skeptical that, wihtout the public outcry, that when those additional dollars came in, they would have been used to restore the admins. In support of my skepticism, I note that the proposed SPS budget cut $4 million from the schools, and today Banda restored only $1.8 million.
3/18/14, 11:55 AM
BlueGlass said…
His letter does say that they will be "working" to restore the rest of the money cut.

Fascinating
3/18/14, 12:26 PM
Supporter said…
The WSS Committee did not want cuts to buildings.
3/19/14, 8:36 AM
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