Dropping Enrollment in Seattle Public Schools
The Seattle Times has yet another story about the southward enrollment numbers at Seattle Public Schools. It's a useful article more for what SPS says AND what is in the Comments section than the actual article.
What do we learn from this article?
- Seattle lost 3,238 students from the 2019-20 to 2021-22 school year. And in the fall SPS projects it will lose 812 more, dropping its total enrollment to 48,748 students.
- School districts receive funds from the state for every student enrolled. Dramatic enrollment losses create money worries for district officials, and in Seattle, officials aren’t counting on students returning. Okay, maybe SPS isn't "counting" on them coming back but, as many comments said, "Why doesn't SPS do exit interviews?" The interview would not have to be long, maybe three questions that might illuminate the issue. But, as other commenters say, SPS doesn't do exit interviews because they want to control the narrative. Having data that doesn't match that narrative wouldn't be good.
- The bulk of the enrollment decline was in the district’s 62 elementary schools. The elementary schools with higher enrollment losses were in the north part of the city, data shows. However, Rising Star Elementary School in the South Beacon Hill neighborhood was the exception.
- Out of the district’s 10 K-8 schools, Licton Springs had the highest enrollment drop, about 39 percent since the 2019-20 school year. Well, Licton Springs, now about 100(!) students is on life support and has been for probably a decade. That's not because it's a bad school; it is a school that has NOT been supported by this district. It's been moved around and pushed around and now is probably the time to pull the plug.
- Meanwhile, the Archdiocese of Seattle Catholic Schools saw about a 6% increase in enrollment — the largest enrollment uptick in more than a decade, said Kristin Moore, director of marketing and enrollment for the 72 Catholic schools in Western Washington. That may be true but previous to that, around the country, many Catholic schools were closing due to under enrollment. It would have been good to know if that 6% made up for past losses.
The upcoming school year the students taking online classes will be moved under the Cascade Parent Partnership Program.
- some parents can’t afford Seattle housing anymore
- others left to homeschool
- others left for education pods
- send their kids to private school
- new schools opening so there was a shift from one school to another
- parents not being satisfied with public schools
- tech companies not recruiting as much overseas, thus reducing the number of international students.
- Parents angry about the length of school closures during high-impact COVID time.
- Parents unhappy about curtailing of HCC.
- Parents unhappy about busing.
- Parents unhappy with "woke" culture.
- Parents unhappy with perceived lower academic standards.
- Parents unhappy with homeless encampments allowed near schools.
As a parent of SPS students, I'll tell you the primary culprits:- full year of remote learning- housing affordability decline over the last 2 years- the emphasis of identity polices in the classroomI can't count how many times I've had to have discussions with my kids about some identity-related issue they were taught at school. I don't avoid those topics and do think these conversations need to happen, but SPS definitely overemphasizes identify policies and deprioritizes academic rigor. Oh, and the demands and behavior of the teachers union makes things worse.
Most important factor was full year of remote learning - that's a killer in elementary school and the teachers union just didn't understand that.
Jones XVI
Wouldn't it be nice if reduced enrollment simply resulted in smaller class sizes, particularly for the younger students? There is no single factor that is more important interns of student success. Ideal class size is 17 students or fewer - not the 30+ kindergarten classrooms that we've seen over the years. That is the one thing that private schools have done a better job offering, for sure. Sadly, it's not even on the radar for SPS, it seems. The minute enrollment drops to reasonable levels where kids might have a fighting chance to learn, they just pull teachers until kids per classroom number is sufficiently high. If they are losing students, can't they ditch some of their central administration, instead of teachers?
Then we get to a very cogent issue of space which is one I need to write about because, I, too, have wondered about this.
Archilcholus
Looks like there are about 15-20% too many schools open to support the enrollment.
Terrance (in reply)
Excellent point. The question is: will SPS show fiscal responsibility and close these schools?
Well, as someone who worked intimately on the issue of closing schools the last time it happened, I do not like the idea of seeing it happen again.
I can certainly see that creating demographic projections for any given school district would be difficult especially when a district doesn't have control over many issues. However, SPS doesn't even try (the article implies they think it's because of lower birth rates).
And yet, this district has opened new schools (see Webster) and is renovating many more (Montlake Elementary is under 200 students and it will cost - checks SPS notes - over $64M. That's quite the monetary gamble to take.
Here's another good comment along these line (and I can verify the numbers presented are correct except for one):
Lily Wiles
I live in a neighborhood near Viewlands Elementary School in Broadview. The school building sat idle for four years because of low enrollment, during which time thieves ripped out all of the copper wiring in the building. SPS decided to then reopen the school and taxpayers spent $10M dollars to restore and upgrade the building, install rain gardens, construct a new playground (that parents and neighbors helped fund).
It was a small school with around 285 students. A good size for a small community in the middle of a neighborhood with no sidewalks with poor transportation access adjacent to an environmentally sensitive urban park.
SPS, flush with dollars from tax dollars(sic) from the good people of Seattle, decided that the building wasn't good enough. Now, despite the declining enrollment projections for Seattle Schools, the city is constructing a huge 650 student brand new school costing taxpayers another
$58M$88M that is wildly out of scale for both enrollment and the neighborhood.If SPS was so flush with cash, why didn't they elect to increase teacher salaries and benefits? Increase the number of teachers per student? Increase field trip and environmental education budgets? Increase school lunch programs budgets? Build accessible walkways? Subsidize additional transportation? Provide students with books and school supplies?
But no, I'm thinking there must be an education/construction complex that drives how our tax dollars are spent, regardless of what kids and teachers truly need. I have always happily elected to support school bonds. But now having seen how SPS misspends my hard-earned dollars, never again.
Now Lily doesn't quite understand that the building money and the state money are two different pots of cash and have restrictions on their use. But she is NOT wrong in wondering what the heck is going on with the construction dollars and the vision for SPS and its buildings.
Most districts would not be opening/reopening buildings AND renovating old ones at the pace SPS is especially with falling enrollment. It seems somewhat suspicious to me. I think there may be a long game to this and I think it may involve charter schools.
But like the Times, I need to do more of a deep dive AND investigating of my misgiving about SPS facilities and what they may be used for in the future.
Comments
I also read the reopening guidelines from the state and figured it would be possible to reopen schools safely, and a tiny Lutheran school in our neighborhood thought so too. Luckily they had a spot and both my kids started 20/21 in private schools. We didn’t get a close contact notification until the omicron wave (1.5 years into in-person pandemic schooling), so it seemed like all the mitigation worked.
It was far easier to withdraw my kids than it had been to enroll them in the first place. I was a public school teacher myself and anytime I consider returning to teaching, I get hung up on never wanting to work in SPS. I am also an SPS graduate and Seattle native so I’m not new to the dysfunction.
-waterlogged
Done and Done
I wrote a long letter to his school's principal about the reasons we were withdrawing, and offered to disucuss it with them any time. All I got back was "We understand and wish you the best."
To be fair, it was mid pandemic, deep into a year of entirely online learning, and I'm sure she was dealing with numerous crises more urgent than one more upset family. But the lack of curiosity of the district at large really ate at me. I went to public school and I value public education — but there's no partnership with parents when nobody's listening to them.
By my estimation, 3-4 elementaries, 1-2 middle schools, and at least 1 high school have to close by 2023-24, probably coinciding with the new assignment plan and school board districts. There just isn't the money to keep all the schools open. That means maybe 500 or more lost teaching/staff jobs, too. If I had to guess (and this is purely a guess), schools likely to close might be Sacajawea, McGilvra (merge with Montlake), Viewlands (probably can't open as an ES), and Rising Star; Licton Springs/Webster; Washington MS (lease out) and maybe Whitman MS (replace building, moving those students to Viewlands and/or Webster); and 1 high school. Maybe Center School, but from the numbers, it looks like they really ought to close either Rainier Beach or Franklin, so they could merge and use just one of the buildings, leasing out the other. The remodel would also be faster and maybe less expensive if the school were not in use.
If the district wanted to increase enrollment, including encouraging enrollment from out of district, they could easily attract that with some affordable or no cost changes, including universal walk-to-math and walk-to-science, access to algebra 1 and chem/phys A in 7th or 8th grade to anyone, replace ELA curriculum with one using science of reading methods and that works for dyslexia, full IB(X) program at 4 high schools that anyone can opt into. Many other easy changes would cost a lot more money.
Magnet schools like Aviation High School and Tesla High School (both STEM) or Ruth Asawa School of the Arts in San Francisco (arts/media) could easily be replicated in Seattle, drawing enrollment state-wide if we had boarding options, which might be a good use for the RB or Franklin site if closed.
Planning
Who would lease the schools? A charter, a private, or someone else? Most likely this would amplify the enrollment drop.
I think SPS has too much ego invested in TAF to close Washington. Closing Rainier Beach or Franklin would likely not be politically feasible.
In years past, I looked into out of district enrollment into Seattle. Start times, distance, etc would have made it very hard for us. At one point, some students from Highline enrolled in West Seattle HS. They graduated around 2016. In later years, for class of 2019 for example, SPS said the only school with out of district space was Rainier Beach. Maybe at one point there was also space in Sealth.
I don't think most families south of Seattle will care about Alg 1 in 7th or 8th. To me it is a huge deal, it can open a lot of doors, and Highline is now mandating no Alg until 9th. However, I don't think many parents here care. There might be dozens, but not hundreds and certainly not thousands, who would go for that type of a setup.
The easiest way to stabilize enrollment would be to bring back students going to private schools, charters (my guess is 300+ / - from SPS), Vashon, or elsewhere. However, it would take a lot of guts from a lot of people in JSCEE to admit that ooops, our policies and programs are driving people away, please come back.
Planning, my puzzlement is over this renovating of schools even before COVID when they knew the enrollment was dropping. Plus now they say it's the birthrate which would indicate that it might stay that way longer. Why renovate Webster? And if they don't renovate RBHS, that community will go ballistic.
The district knows some of what is driving parents away. And they don't care. They WILL care when many schools collapse from PTA funding being driven away AND lower enrollment. They WILL care when charter schools - seeing empty buildings - will advocate for them. (I'd have to go back and look but I believe charter law allows that if a district isn't using a building.) Or maybe that's the plan - to become a district with charter schools in it.
Whatever it is, there is gonna be upheaval and I don't think the district will look good at the end of it. And, the majority of the Board seats will be up for election November 2024; that should be interesting in the face of all of this.
Rainier Beach High School is in an area that is hard for people not in SE Seattle to grasp the importance of. There is really a collection of schools and community facilities all within 8 blocks of each other between Cloverdale and Henderson: Dunlap Elementary, South Shore K-8, the Rainier Beach Pool, Rainier Beach Community Center (plus a public library two blocks south), Sugiyama aka South Lake High School, Rainier Beach Playfield/Park, a large track and football field for Rainier Beach High School as well as separate baseball/softball fields and training field also used for soccer and ultimate frisbee. Then there is Rainier Beach High School, whose performing arts center is the same size as the main part of the building with classrooms, followed to the east by Rainier Beach Urban Farm, Beer Sheva Park, and Lake Washington. It's actually an incredible pro-community zone unlike other areas of town. To shut down the school would have a negative impact on the whole community.
And yet, the district hasn't shown the commitment to that community that has been needed to stabilize and increase enrollment. The city plays a role in this neglect too, frankly. They've actually been delaying remodeling Rainier Beach for so long, the condition of the site has actually driven enrollment down even more.
I can't see how they can keep all 3 of Cleveland, Franklin and RB open without attracting significant new enrollment or finding a different pro-community use, though.
Planning
On Cleveland, my understanding is that the building could hold more students and, as the STEM high school, could attract them. But the district has refused to enroll it fully but I don't know why.
Theo M.
Credibility