Seattle Schools Will Try Market Research about Declining Enrollment

Interesting story from The Seattle Times on Seattle Schools' declining enrollment. The article does include a questionnaire from the Times so do let them know your thoughts.

The Seattle school system lost nearly 4,000 students in about five school years, and the district’s most optimistic projections do not forecast a significant rebound in the next decade.

Now, SPS is hoping that a $100,000 state grant to conduct a survey and do other market research will help it understand why families are opting out — or not enrolling their children in its schools in the first place — and find ways to attract and keep families and students.

Oh so now, the district is actually trying to figure it out in a real way? 

And, they finally admit it's not just housing costs or lower birthrate:

Fred Podesta, the district’s chief operations officer, said SPS will likely use the grant, secured in this year’s legislative session, to understand why it was getting fewer kindergarten- and elementary-age kids.

While one factor is fewer births, it’s also the case that a smaller percentage of those children are enrolling in SPS than in the past, Podesta said. The biggest factor in the district’s enrollment decline is that the incoming kindergarten class is smaller than the outgoing 12th-grade class, he said.

“There’s just fewer kids in Seattle,” he said. “That’s why we’ve been forecasting this for a while. But the ratio of students who end up in our system to births in King County is not as tight as we used to be. Our market share of new kids is not the same as it used to be.”

There are lots of questions. A big one is whether the children are still in the city by the time they’re ready to attend school. 

 Sure, parents may move out by the time kids are old enough for elementary school but it seems like if Seattle is so expensive, why start living there first?

The district can and does track where students reenroll if they leave SPS for another district or academic option within the state, Podesta said.

Oh, really? The district has NEVER said this. Been asked and asked and never replied. Hmmmm. 

Last year, online schooling was the most common single reason students gave for transferring out of the system. Students also left for private schools.

There are currently 525 comments on this story and that's not typical at all. What are readers saying?

Bullying and violence, equity focus, social promotion, housing costs, "Getting rid of advanced math, getting rid of the highly capable programs, giving 50% credit for zero work, focusing on CRT rather than any useful knowledge, and on and on, drive parents who care about the education their kids get away."

And there was this:

The teachers are left-leaning, indoctrinating, marching, social justice zealots.  

That, of course, is simply not the case for the majority of Seattle Public Schools' teachers. However, it does seem that there are some of them who believe it is absolutely their right to tell kids how to think about social/political issues.  Then that gets out to the general public and they lose faith in public schools. 

The current example is Ian Love Golash who teaches at Chief Sealth.  I have mentioned him before in reference to a quiz where he said asked about biological "facts" about people.

Mr. Golash appears to be a progressive who supports trans people, as well as gender and sexuality studies, and "social identities." 

Mr. Golash has been taken out of the classroom and is on paid administrative leave after the district learned about some of his statements. SPS is not confirming this but Golash's father has.  

He is a blunt and plain speaker who chosen to answer reporter questions with his class present. That leads me to believe these students have heard what he has to say before on the Israel/Hamas situation.

Here's what he has said on social media:

Yes, I believe that conversations around controversial issues can sometimes be messy and even harmful but that they still need to be had. 

Yes, I believe that Palestinians are people that deserve to live free from an oppressive occupation. 

Yes, I believe that resistance against colonialism and all forms of oppression is justified. And yes, I believe that the people who are being oppressed get to decide what form of resistance works best for them, not me or anyone else, especially not the oppressors.

Yes, I believe that "all cops are bastards." This is a political statement. It makes no condemnation of any person that choose to be a police officers. It speaks to the institution of law enforcement. 

I'm editing for brevity but those last statements conclude:

Ultimately, it is a statement of the genuine goodness of humanity. We don't need police to protect us from one another. We need to build systems that provide for the needs of all of us so that we don't work to harm one another to get our needs met, or because our needs are not being met."