Good News/Bad News for Music in Seattle Public Schools
Good News
The Roosevelt Jazz Band and Garfield Jazz Band have both made it to the Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition & Festival. It's an annual high school jazz festival and competition that takes place every May at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City. Both Roosevelt and Garfield are long-time entrants and winners.
As well, on March 31st, there is the Starbucks Hot Java Cool Jazz concert at the Paramount Theater. Both Roosevelt and Garfield are in the concert with three other regional jazz bands.
Both bands saw their long-time directors depart in the last few years but have found great replacements. For Scott Brown at Roosevelt, it's Donna Mawry and for Clarence Acox at Garfield, it's Jared Sessink and Mike Sundt.
From a recent Times' story on Mawry:
Since lifting her baton, Mowry has not only swung the band into Hot Java, she has shepherded it into the May finals of this year’s highly competitive Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition and Festival, in New York. Not bad for a 26-year-old teacher in her first year at a big-city teaching post.
The district doesn't really financially support this program; that falls to the booster clubs that each school has. Over the DECADES, parents and others have stepped up to provide new instruments, music and travel expenses. What does the district get? The opportunity to tell the world that two of the finest high school jazz bands reside in Seattle Public Schools.
But the way the district can keep this pipeline of excellence is to have solid middle school programs from feeder schools which are Washington Middle School for Garfield and Eckstein Middle School for Roosevelt.
Bad News
I received this news today which I believe came from one of Garfield's band directors (bold mine):
This week we learned that Washington Middle School will be reducing music staffing from 2.0 to 1.0 FTE for 2023-24 for budget, which will result in the displacement of the band director position. All band and orchestra classes will be collapsed into fewer sections, which will be taught be one teacher. The daytime jazz band class will also be dropped.
I previously taught at Washington prior to TAF implementation around 2017when SPS began the transition out of the HCC pathway for WMS and GHS. This shift gave our music team an opportunity to lay groundwork for a neighborhood-based music program that was accessible and could be much more demographically representative of the school population.
In 2019, GHS and WMS music collaborated to raise over $40K in a single fundraising event for the purpose of purchasing dozens of high-quality school owned instruments so students at WMS could participate for free and have access to the highest quality equipment (the existing inventory was in terrible decline). This year alone, the Washington band serves nearly 80 beginning band students, majority students of color, which is a significant and beautiful data point given that just a few years ago the program was overwhelmingly white and centered around access to the HCC pathway.
There are thousands of people out in the world whose lives were fundamentally shaped by their music experience in this pipeline. I heard directly from many of them, spanning across many decades, when Garfield celebrated its Centennial last summer.
Right now, our enrollment in music at GHS is down significantly from previous years. With this change at WMS, which has been our primary feeder of music students along with Meany, Garfield will not be able to sustain its current offerings and will most likely see mirrored cuts in staffing as enrollment continues to decline in coming years. Music classrooms are a beautiful space at school where students find a sense of belonging, safety, joy, passion, and learn how to collaborate and cooperate in large group settings. Seeing these spaces be reduced to bare bones is devastating.
If you have a personal story about the impact music has had on your student, I urge you to share it with whoever will listen.
Given the realities of tough budgetary decisions, I don’t think it would be
productive to pressure the school or district to reverse the decision for next year unless there is a viable funding source presented to them.
What we need instead is a collaborative approach between community and school leaders to secure long-term funding that helps expand music at both Washington and Meany Middle Schools to at least two teachers, which is the standard at nearly all our middle schools across the district.
There also needs to be work done to shift the district-level funding model away from reliance on local parent non-profits for funding instruments, music, staffing, and other supplies, which has been centered in privilege and significantly problematic for decades.
I understand that last thought but what also needs to be said is that the DISTRICT did nothing about that situation.
I so appreciate the thought here NOT to go begging for changing the budget but asking for leadership on this issue. That would be Director Michelle Sarju's district so let's see what she does.
Music was a big part of my life in high school and I love being in the band and feeling part of something. I played the oboe.
Comments
Save Music
The entire Seattle delegation to the state legislature is complicit in the under-funding of schools, and this year they have no one to blame but themselves, and we the voters should blame them, too. It's a disgrace.
They failed to fund our schools even though Dems control the house and senate, the governor's office, and a left majority on the supreme court just upheld capital gains taxes. There is no political reason why education should have been so snubbed this year.
Between the special ed cap they failed to eliminate and the universal school lunch plan they watered down, as Seattle faces teacher and staff layoffs, student-facing program cuts, and likely building closures in the near future, every member of the Seattle delegation is guilty of neglecting our kids.
It's bad enough they failed to fund education, but they passed bills and started patting themselves on the back for a good job. The utter gall.
One challenge is a lot of voters in Seattle have no personal connection with the schools. Many are young, they don't have kids of their own, they only have The Stranger, the Seattle Times, and the leagues of Education Voters and Women Voters to go by. Parents need to start talking to members of their communities who vote but who don't have any idea about education issues, and we need to hold endorsing entities accountable for failure to do their homework.
We also have a lot of new parents in the district with young kids or who have just moved here who lack institutional and historical knowledge and context. Longtime families must engage with new families and get them up to speed.
Meanwhile, contact your reps today and tell them they dropped the ball on education, and they can't do that again and expect continued support from Democratic voters.
Contact your legislators: https://app.leg.wa.gov/MemberEmail/
32nd (Broadview, Bitter Lake)
Sen. Jesse Salomon, D
Rep. Lauren Davis, D
Rep. Cindy Ryu, D
46th (Lake City, Northgate, Greenlake, Wedgwood)
Sen. Javier Valdez, D
Rep. Darya Farivar, D
Rep. Gerry Pollet, D
36th (Greenwood, Ballard, Magnolia, Queen Anne)
Sen. Noel Frame, D
Rep. Liz Berry, D
Rep. Julia Reed, D
43rd (Wallingford, Montlake, East Lake, SLU, Belltown, Cap Hill)
Sen. Jamie Pedersen, D
Rep. Frank Chopp, D
Rep. Nicole Macri, D
37th (Central District, Mt Baker, Beacon Hill, Rainier Valley)
Sen. Rebecca Saldaña, D
Rep. Chipalo Street, D
Rep. Sharon Tomiko Santos, D
34th (West Seattle)
Sen. Joe Nguyen, D
Rep. Emily Alvarado, D
Rep. Joe Fitzgibbon, D
-Annoyed
Let’s see this situation by analyzing the cause and effect.
The cuts in programs merely followed the projection of huge deficits. Why are the huge deficits inevitable for Seattle Public Schools which is most handsomely funded by the state, the fed and the multiple local levies, manifolds?
Teachers authorized their union to strike at the beginning of the school year. The woke activist board gave up their duties, and the meekest superintendent ever gave in without much resistance. Here you are, the contract will be breaking their bank.
You may want to incite a rain dance to put pressure on the state (all the people) for more rainfalls which would bail out those annoying idiots. But enough is enough, the the people need a break from Seattle Public Schools that continue mismanagement.
Cause & Effect
Everyone is over SPSs antics. Keeping schools closed during COVID after other districts started reopening (unapologetically). Agreeing to a new teacher contract that put them further in the budget hole (after another prolonged strike). Lawsuit after lawsuit, Board dysfunction, Boardmembers suing the district. Dismantling low/no-cost programs in the name of class warfare, or who knows.
People tired of bailing Seattle out of Seattle problems. Legislators would be foolish to carry the banner of SPS with the state when 1) the votes aren’t there to fix the funding issue and 2) many more problems needing solved at the state level - housing and hospitals are big issues this year.
Read the Room
Yes, Seattle Public Schools is mismanaged, and that history of mismanagement is why the state legislature tends not to pay attention to the pleas from our administration and board. Absolutely no one thinks otherwise, including me.
However, you're not taking the state funding context into account just to get a jab in at SPS. Understandable, but there is a real funding crisis here that falls squarely in the lap of the legislature. The shortfall in funding is being felt most acutely so far in Seattle just because our large urban context accelerates and exacerbates the legislature's negligence so that everyone can see it. But all districts are suffering from under-funding. Several districts, even well-run ones, are on the brink, and it has to do with the state funding model, the special education cap, and defects in the McCleary "fix".
-Everett is a generally well-run district but is losing 2% of its regionalization funds under McCleary, and the district is on the hook for $9 million in special education costs the state refuses to fund because they extend over the special ed cap. They can't use a levy to make it up because the state blocks that. They are already $28 million in deficit. And, yes, that's a generally well-run district.
-Mercer Island, one of the state's wealthiest, has a major budget shortfall and considered closing one school this year but put it off in the hopes the state steps up. Mercer Island itself points out it is not having a shortfall just because of declining enrollment but because the state is not funding the schools amply. So even for Mercer Island, the "prototypical school funding model" the state uses to fund schools isn't enough. And Mercer Island can't tax itself with levies to make up the difference because, like Seattle, they are blocked from doing this by state law. The legislature needs to lift the special education cap and/or allow local levies and/or revise the prototypical school model.
-Bellevue, also generally well run with proper community engagement on this issue, is already closing three schools next year because they couldn't put it off, but the budget numbers foretell much worse woes in the next two years. Again, Bellevue can't tax itself either to make up the state shortfall because the state prevents this.
-Marysville is precipitously close to a funding cliff and there is talk it may have to disincorporate itself.
I don't have room for details, but tiny Peninsula School District, Kitsap, Spokane and even happy-to-slash-any-budget Central Valley School District are all facing unexpected shortfalls even though they are generally well-run districts.
Sure, complain about Seattle Public Schools' mismanagement or the strike. We definitely need to clean house with new board members in November and somehow fell its silos of dysfunction. Let's have that conversation this spring and summer because new board members are critically important.
But do NOT confuse that valid issue for the actual state-wide school funding crisis created by the state legislature and perpetuated by the state legislature. And the Democrats running state government right now did not see fit to address this crisis this session, even though it was a top priority for most families. Washington state ranks about 30th in school funding per pupil, around the same level as West Virginia and Nebraska. That is on the state legislature. They have to step up and solve this problem.
-Annoyed
Wa. State Supreme Court foolishly redefined income; a job that belongs to the legislature. Ken Fisher thanked the Supreme Court and announced that his company will leave the state. Thus, legislators that tried to usher in a capital gains tax through the court can begin to reap their reward.
SEA decided to strike … did not consider them fact that kid’s lives were turned upside down by Covid. Jones and the board tossed the district into insolvency and allowed SEA to swipe rainy day funds and. Covid relief dollars etc. leaving the district dry. Now - the crisis.
1) financial crisis and program cuts
2) rescue with fresh money, either from tax increase, the state, etc.
3) teachers claim all the new money in their next round of contract negotiations
4) back to financial crisis and program cuts
SPS has already been through two full cycles since I have lived in the city, and will no doubt go through many more in the future. Just pointing it out won't change anything. System dynamics are beyond anyone's control. Education can never be "fully funded" so better get used to it.
I recall many years back, Seattle electeds to the legislature saying that other electeds didn't listen because of the many stories of how SPS fouls up the money they get. Many electeds, especially from Eastern Washington, are just not gonna listen.
I think the Sped issue is key frankly. If districts were funded via fed/state funds, it would be a big help.
But I also am VERY suspicious of the teacher strike and the raises that came with it. Not because I begrudge teachers but the district KNEW they did not have the funding to pay them. In fact, I wish they had been pressed to explain how that would happen.
I almost wonder if it was deliberate because the district wanted to be able to blame "greedy teachers" as things were going south financially.
Music is getting cut at one school and suddenly we’re all supposed to be one issue voters - cutting in front of homelessness, public safety and a mountain of other problems facing our legislators? Do you hear how out of touch that sounds???
Minor Key
Also, Ken Fisher has been living in Texas for several years now already. He's conveniently talking about Fisher Investments now so he can blame it on the Supreme Court decision, but he was planning that all along. And the capital gains tax still applies to his customers in WA, so not sure there a there there.
@Outsider
You're leaving out the demographic factor, birth rates go up, birth rates go down. The state should be planning accordingly and not lurch us from crisis to crisis. Right now we still have a mini boom of kids in middle school, high school and college, but the dropped enrollment is mainly at the K-3 level. If you cut funding to the entire school system based on just the K-3 enrollment, high school kids can't take the classes they need and the district can't pay for enough high school teachers. It's not like UW is churning out tons of computer science and AP biology teachers. Also, I think @Annoyed is right that the caps need to go and would solve a lot of problem. Local levies should return, but sped should be funded in full by the state irregardless of the percentage of sped students in each district.
@Melissa
I agree about the "where was the teacher salary money supposed to come from" question. The board could have been proactive in communicating this, but they weren't. You mentioned the communication audit the other day. I read it and it has a lot of juicy tidbits in it but also good ideas how the district should be changing. That audit needs more daylight.
SE Momma
Who are underfunded, the kids or the teachers at Seattle Public Schools? It’s not the teachers for sure. Then, who are causing the kids to be underfunded while the teachers aren’t?
The highest paid teachers average salaries in the United States in 2021:
#1 Massachusetts, #2 Rhode Island, #3 Ny #4 Pennsylvania, #5 Connecticut, #6 California, #7 Washington, #8 Alaska, #9 New Jersey, #10 Wyoming, #11 Michigan, #12 Oregon, …
https://usafacts.org/articles/which-states-pay-teachers-the-most-and-least/
On top of that, whenever the meekest superintendent ever or the most unqualified superintendent ever approves 10% pay raises for the teachers, the central office does the same and grows in numbers. I recommend doing a rain dance only because that’s a good hobby for you. Thanks for kind of appreciating that we are pissed off at Seattle Public Schools that have been mismanaged through many levies and bailouts.
Cause & Effect
Election fraud
-Theo
Most workers are not getting a raise to cover all inflationary increases. And it did increase the deficit by tens of millions of dollars. It was extremely irresponsible of the union and district to agree to, why should the legislature/taxpayers bail them out?
Facts
And we're suing social media to get more dues paying counselors for our union.
I loved Danny Westneat's column on Wahkiakum too. I'm sure SPS was hoping the sob stories from the banks of the Columbia would get Bruce and Brent's stadium project a little cash. Danny scotched that deal by pointing out that people who won't pay their own bills shouldn't get money from a higher level of government.
And every raise we teachers get contributes to inflation because the government has to print more money to pay us because they aren't going to raise taxes. That lowers the purchasing power of other workers in the economy, but those workers don't work for the ruling party, do they?
So it goes.
SP
Because I still say, you fund athletics, you can fund music.
There's a lot of finger pointing to be had but yes, the WA Dems in the legislature seem to have looked the other way this year. But again, they probably don't need the lecture from other electeds on how poorly SPS is doing.
What I think needs to happen is for parents, school communities and others to rise up and pressure the City Council and the Mayor to get the Superintendent and the Board to commit to more transparency. Moving forward that IS the biggest need.
-Skeptical Parent
How is this turning for students?
Thanks
I wish it wasn't just one pet issue like this that got folks to pay attention. But here we are- multiple things can be true and in this case we are both experiencing the district disinvesting in a school that is in the CD and has a large BIPOC population AND there is a larger issue of state funding.
With COVID isolation and shut downs, kids need something to lift them up.
Music can do that. Save music for WMS and Seattle.