Seattle Schools' Buildings and Their Condition
Reader Curious asked:
Can you explain how learning environment scores are determined? I can’t open the district link.
The district has done this ShareFile thing that I am having a hard time figuring out on how to provide a direct link. Anyone?
Here's link that will work and that to the Facilities Master Plan Update 2021.
First, you obviously see that this document was released in September 2021. The last update before that was 2018. It is stated in this document that the Strategic Plan changed since 2018 and that is also going to be true for the present day. So the next FMP - if there are closures - is going to read radically different.
With all that said, here's how the document opens:
This 2021 Facilities Master Plan update provides information about the district’s facilities, including updated building and school program names and addresses; building and site size; school capacity; and updated building condition assessment data.
District Overview
Seattle Public Schools (SPS) serves over 52,000 students in grades PK-12 across the City of Seattle.
Students from a wide variety of ethnic groups and neighborhoods attend one of 63 elementary schools, 10 K-8 schools, 12 middle schools, 13 high schools and 6 service schools. All in all, the District owns 119 sites.
The whole thing is just chockful of good info.
One section did make me a bit confused. This would be Appendix C: Sazan Environmental Services 2020 Building Condition Assessment Summary. This section starts on the document numbered page 32. It is similar to the page in the Well-Resourced Schools presentation on page 34. The difference is that on the WR Schools' page, it includes "learning environment" while the Facilities Master Plan doesn't but it has dates for all the major updates to the buildings since 1985 and where the dollars came from.
The FMP doc score is "weighted score building components" but they don't define that. I suspect it includes "learning environment."
Another interesting issue with these two building condition documents is that the scores are mostly the same for most buildings. However, in just two short years, Sacajwea seems to be deteriorating before our eyes with a much worse score and also, some schools got better scores two years later.
It's difficult to understand why the scores - by the same company just two years - apart would so different.
That is a hallmark of what SPS does in providing data - "here are some numbers" but they have no context about where they came from or what the data said in the past.
Anyway dive right in.
Here's one important piece of information on the BEX levies because Reader Vote No said in the post - Times Article on District Closure Presentation - that perhaps it is finally time for parents to oppose a levy.
BEX XI comes up in February 2025. What will be the situation by then?
Well, the district will have presented their final picks for closure and the Board will have voted on them. The district will be planning/enacting closure and consolidation procedures.
I believe SEA contract negotiations will have started by then as well.
And it's likely that the Board will have completed their negotiations with Superintendent Brent Jones for his next contract. They might give him a raise.
What will be the mood of the voting public in Feb. 2025?
Well,
I suspect more than a few SPS parents will openly say no. Will any
PTA/PTOs in the district? Possibly. What about parents who have left the
district? They voted with their feet and this presents an opportunity
to actually vote against Seattle Schools. With no disrespect, I think
the general voting public, who seem to blindly pass these levies over and
over, may not be in any mood to give more money to a district that struggles and struggles to right itself.
I don't think "wait, you'll see" is a winning strategy for the district but I've been wrong before.
What I wanted to tell you about BEX is that is where 80% of the Technology budget comes from.
This happened, like maybe 10 years ago, and I did report on that.
If BEX VI were to fail, it would nearly shut down a vital department. Now, because the district makes money off the interest from levy dollars, they might be able to keep the department afloat long enough to try another election. But boy, would that rock the district back on its heels if they have no way to support the Tech department.
Comments
This is actually not fine.
When the district first started BEX, MORE south-end schools were renovated than north-end; you are welcome to check my work. Later, it became more even.
However, through the years, the district has had more than one tortured explanation for why one school and not another (see RBHS, North Beach ES). Then, using equity became key except that what that meant in terms of stats/data, was never clearly explained.
What became even worse (to me) is after they finished renovating the high schools, they should have gone onto the middle schools. Whitman, Washington, Eckstein, Aki Kurose, all crying out for renovation TO meet learning standards. What the district has done to Washington Middle School - which is to grind it into the ground - is shocking and dismaying.
(I note that 1)RBHS never got their renovation alongside the other high schools 2) CSIHS kinda got renovated but really it was Denny that got the new building and 3) Ingraham has been renovated piecemeal. It was stated, though, that the RBHS project - the most expensive renovation in SPS history - is now $10M in overruns.
And know what schools used to be full? Laurelhurst, Wedgwood, View Ridge, Thornton Creek. How did those popular schools become unpopular? Hmmm
So yes, I see the fine hand of Rankin and Hampson.