Heads Up!

I have written many posts where I express to readers my utter frustration, dismay, shock and anger over actions by various assemblages of the Seattle School Board and various superintendents over my decade+ of being a public education blogger. You'd think I'd be used to it. 

In my defense, nothing really surprises me anymore so there's that. But the sheer hubris of what comes out of the mouths of the directors and superintendent and senior staff is sometimes breathtaking.

But this post is really about giving you a heads up. As you may recall, the district seems bound and determined to change transportation from two-tiers to three-tiers ALL because of money. That would be bad enough. (I note that the petition against the change has over 800 signatures in 3 days.)

However, the Board had a Budget Work Session yesterday that was very disturbing. Details below but here's my big takeaway hunch:

The district is on a very steady downward enrollment trend, losing hundreds and hundreds of students and guess what? They care that they are losing money but they have no real desire to figure out why. 

I believe that the district is flirting with the idea of closing some schools, primarily in the north end. 

Work Session

I sat through an hour and a half of this Work Session but stopped when there was a lengthy discussion of the African American Male Achievement (AAMA) initiative in the middle of it. I didn't listen to the last 20+ minutes but I will today. They did not say anything about closing schools directly but it seemed fairly clear to me. 

The key issue - as always - is money. The documentation has several early slides on enrollment.

State enrollment has declined by 3.46% since October 2019.

SPS enrollment has declined 6.41% since October 2019, very particularly in K-5.

The slide on page 7 has the district's projections and they have not done well over the last 4 years.

2017-2018 - under by nearly 800 students. 2018-2019, under by over 700 students. 2019-2020 over by nearly 1400 students, 2020-21 under by over 1600 students. This year's projection was under by by nearly 2,000 students.

Enrollment head Ashley Davies had this to say:

- There was slowed growth through 2018-2019 BEFORE the pandemic began.

- No, they don't have a demographer any longer because "we have different people who do parts of that." Well, if your projections in normal years are off, maybe you need that person.

- They use cohort progression rates (how many students move to next grade), birth rates, long-range resident projections and annual school projections (where students enroll) for their projections.

- Seattle has experienced a decline in birth rates, housing costs and inflation (and these are nationwide trends). Also mentioned but not explained "other social issues." What's interesting is that during this time, Seattle continued to grow with more people moving here.

-They are projecting a very steady decline in enrollment thru 2025-2026. 

Director Liza Rankin asked an interesting question - "Does the district adjust and adapt or do their need to proactively retain or increase enrollment?" And, what will boundary changes mean (which are coming because of the dissolving of the current HCC model)? 

Plus, as one astute reader recently pointed out, doesn't the new Census data mean that the Board should be working on board district boundaries?

HOWEVER, the question was raised by Director Leslie Harris and Director Rivera Smith about finding out where these students all went and why. I note that this question has been asked, over and over, for more than a decade with the district saying, "We'll have to look into that" and they NEVER do. It was noted that there is kinda a way to do it, depending on whether the parent/guardian lets the school or the district know. Harris pointed out that it is likely that the district could glean some of this data from OSPI and the enrollment of Seattle private and charter schools. No takers on that.

HOWEVER, Ashley Davies says this is a cycle that happens so... If that's true, there's one GLARING problem.

Why, if enrollment comes and goes in cycles and the district was due for a down cycle, did the district invest MILLIONS in fixing up and reopening 8 schools AND adding capacity to several more? What was the point of that? (Sadly, no one asked this question while I was listening in.) Here's just the latest on that issue on Alki Elementary. To be clear, Alki is in bad shape so this makes sense. Adding on capacity does not.

It's pretty damn sad that there are buildings that continue to be in poor shape but the district just HAD to build new ones.

What was even more upsetting is that basically Directors Hersey and Hampson don't care where these students have gone. Almost like, "They are not our concern any longer." They said that they have to be directing the resources they do have to the African American Male Achievement Initiative.

There are two key slides in the documentation on pages 11 and 13. One is about enrollment and one is about capacity used at each school. To be clear, they don't name schools but you can pretty much figure it out if you use the OSPI website and the district's website. I will suss all that out later today. As well, some schools are not at capacity by the hand of the district, not because of enrollment. See Cleveland High School. 

But they state that there are seven elementary schools, not in "Equity Tiers 1 & 2" that have less than 200 students. There are 15 that have less than 250 and only three of those are in those equity tiers.

There are two K-8 with less than 200 students. I know for certain one is Licton Springs and there are many reasons - district-driven - why that is.

There are no middle schools with fewer than 200 students.

There are 2 high schools with fewer than 200 students. However, as Director Leslie Harris aptly pointed out (I paraphrase), "How do you put a price on schools that save lives?" These two high schools are Sugiyama High School for teen parents and Middle College which is a last resort for students who have issues that cannot be met in a comprehensive high school. Both serve largely Black and brown students. However, two high schools that have just over 200 students are Nova High School (229) and The Center School (268) serving mostly white students (albeit many LGBTQ students).

Hampson asked if the student outcomes at smaller schools different than larger ones? I would say that depends on if you are speaking of purely academic outcomes or outcomes that keep kids in schools. I'll break down the four smallest high schools:

                           size   cost per pupil   graduation rate   attendance rate

Nova                  229   20K.                 52%                     99%

Center                268.  18K                  87%                     92.6%

Middle College  94.    32K                  82%                     85%

Sugiyama           25     39K                  61%                     17.3%

I'll just note that Middle College and Sugiyama deal with students in crisis, hence the higher costs.

To contrast:

Roosevelt.       1580   15.5K.                94%                     93.5%

Cleveland         980.   17.3K.                97%.                    94.6%

West Seattle.    908.    17.3K                97%.                     94,6%

Harris had several questions but only three got answered. What about families with IEPs who left? Ukrainian refugee children coming in?

Superintendent Jones asked, "How do we hold on to current students, recapture those we lost (disgruntled about services?)" and how to show "we are the best thing in town?" He said they would look at the data and understand projections and be realistic about using space.

But then Hampson and Hersey both chimed in about "not being economists" but Song Maritz who actually does have a background in economics, asked about "a pattern of underestimating and do we need to reexamine the model?" Budget head JoLynn Berge said that Seattle is "so complicated and it's tough." A bullshit answer if ever there was one.

There was discussion that perhaps kindergarten was so underenrolled because of parents' fears about COVID and that the district will see a bigger 1st grade the next school year. Director Hersey said "Yo, as a former 2nd grade teacher, he saw more kids start in 1st and 2nd." That may be true but for many working parents, they need their student in kindergarten. Not all parents have the choice to keep their child at home (if indeed, that's where those kids are).

He continued on, "I'm not sold on exit surveys or what is causing to leave will impact our ability to serve black boys and teens. Are they the ones leaving?" Kind of breathtaking in its myopic viewpoint but wait, it continues.

He said they need "a clear understanding of how all schools are and their outcomes." We should "tie this back to our Strategic Plan and see what is working and what is not." "There is no guarantee we can convince anyone to come back and we should focus resources on who is here."

Hampson said that Hersey's statements were an "excellent refocusing of comments." She said they need to be proactive, not reactive.

Harris came back, saying that asking where students are going doesn't preclude working on the Strategic Plan.

Jones said he liked Harris and Hersey's framing and "where we need to start the analysis." BUT IT'S ALMOST MAY? NOW YOU'LL START THIS WORK?

Then, for whatever reason there was a lengthy discussion of the work and the money being spent on the AAMA initiative.

Interestingly, Hampson says, "I just received this info yesterday so I apologize for not having questions ready." What?! Why should Board members apologize when staff gets info to them very late? It's disturbing to hear Hampson bow to district staff like that.

She asked if "continuous improvement costs money" and the answer was yes. She then said that she wanted Berge to let her know if additional resources are being used "for goals and guardrails." (See the slides in the documentation.)

She also referenced "spending extra money" to learn to be a Board that frames everything through student focused outcomes governance and that "they made it cheap for us." I assume she means the Council on Great City Schools" and it's $45K a year just to be a member. How much is being spent on consultants is unknown.

Hersey said he was going to take the budget "to community" and "ID the thru-line to our goals."

I gave up at an hour and 40 minutes (for a two-hour meeting) because the discussion on the Strategic Plan was very long. No talk about transportation and the last section had a single page for Special Education. 

There's a slide in that section on page 25 labelled Department and Program Budgets. One section is "districtwide leadership" and I'll be darned if I know what that means.

Also, on page 26 there is a slide that shows for the "Schools and Continuous Improvement" portion of the budget with $122M+ in "reserves." The next slide states:

School reserves includes capacity for fundraising, annual underspend, potential new grants received during the year and start of school adjustments.

I will have to ask exactly what that all means but it sure sounds like a very slushy reserve of dollars.

Key dates:

June 6 - BAR(Board Action Report) to Audit&Finance Committee

June 15 - Introduce Budget to board at Board meeting

June 22 - Budget work session

July 6 - Public hearing on the budget

July 6 - Board adoption

Lastly, I don't know what was up with Director Michelle Sarju but she declined to ask any question and spend a great deal of time, stretching and pacing in the background. I have no idea why but she clearly wasn't taking any notes.