Danny Westneat Nails It on Closing Seattle Schools

Here's what Danny Westneat of the Seattle Times says in his latest column:

Closing schools, Seattle? Don’t forget what happened last time 

We went down this exact road in Seattle about 15 years ago. It turned out to be an own goal policy snafu that had to be reversed almost immediately.

Correct.

From 2007 to 2009, Seattle closed 11 schools. The theory then — as today — was that enrollment was shrinking and there were too many classroom seats for too few kids. It was presented as tough medicine to the city, as well as to roomfuls of shouting parents so angry that at times they were restrained by security. It was a way, we were told, to show we were serious adults who could run government with the efficiency of a business.

“We don’t need 70 elementary schools anymore, and it’s (the board’s) responsibility to face that fact,” the Seattle School Board president said back then.

Exactly what is happening now - this is the vibe I get from both Superintendent Brent Jones AND School Board President Liza Rankin. 

 I regret that I was persuaded, by a slew of state legislators, that Seattle had to close schools back then to prove to lawmakers it had its budget act together. The district had been through some accounting scandals and cost overruns, so the message was: Show us you can cut some fat.

The trouble is, the “fat” you’re cutting, when it comes to schools, is often the heart of a neighborhood.

And then?

That fall, the same year they’d closed schools, the School Board was forced to do an expensive about-face, with a $50 million plan to instead open five schools. Three of those were the same schools they’d just closed.

I think this is one thing that Danny gets wrong:

Ironically Viewlands turned out to be so needed that the district has since spent another $90 million to remodel it into a much larger facility for 650 students — triple what it was when they voted to close it.

For those in THE BACK, the district has been planning FOR YEARS to close some schools. This is why Viewlands, Alki, Montlake, John Rogers have been or are being built to be larger, even as they are not filled today. 

Those kids from the closed schools have to go someplace, right? 

The district did study the immediate effects on students from the first round of school closures. Twenty percent of the students left the district entirely, rather than transfer to another district school.

One can only imagine what might happen if the district closes 20 schools at once. Even announcing that they’re thinking about such an extreme move could further depress enrollment. Who buys a ticket to get on a sinking ship?

And Westneat offers some valid ideas which, of course, SPS would say are the train to Crazytown:

I would also like to see the district for once try some positive marketing. Yes, the families of 4,000 kids left Seattle schools during the pandemic, which in part has touched off the current budget crisis. So why not first ask them to come back?

Hold a news conference and say: “We want you back.” Make that the new district motto. Offer people reasons to come back, like guaranteed access to tutoring. Or — as two Seattle PTAs are now formally asking for — a continuation of advanced learning programs.

Or create some excitement by proposing a new magnet school … maybe an artificial intelligence academy? Or more of the language immersion schools that have proved so popular.

And then ...boom!

Mistakes can always be undone — see the history recounted above. And Seattle school parents are nothing if not resilient. But coming at this fraught stage of digging out from the pandemic, this move has the stink of giving in, if not giving up.

Parents, refuse to give up.