Boom! Former School Board President Lets SPS Have It on Closure Plans
The Seattle Times has an op-ed piece - Seattle school closures: Cuts in all the wrong places- from former School Board President Michael DeBell. Let me say upfront that DeBell and I didn't always agree BUT he listened. To everyone. He was one of the better board presidents in the last 30 years of this district.
Seattle Public Schools is headed for a “defund the police” moment. The district is proposing a closure/consolidation policy so contrary to its long-term interests, so ideologically driven and brimming with unintended negative consequences, that our city will look back at it with disbelief.
Pretty damn great.
I'll let you read all of it yourself.
Here is my comment I left:
If ONLY the Times allowed gifs I'd put up one that says, "Boom!" Mr.
DeBell, in his usual calm and considered manner, debunks a lot of the
so-called reasoning from senior leadership on closing schools. He
absolutely nails it.
I was on the last
Closure and Consolidation Committee and so had a front-row seat. The
process was SO much more inclusive that it's embarrassing that either
the Superintendent and/or the Board try to say there was authentic
public engagement.
That academics are not involved in that reasoning AT ALL is wrong. Just wrong.
He
speaks of the many layers of staff at the district level and he's
right. To remind readers, SPS likes to say they are in line with central
spending in other regional districts. Except that SPS divides that
spending into "central office" and "central administration." Add those two together and SPS spending is absolutely out of line.
The
district either is not really considering OR being truly honest about
the costs of doing all this. The extra transportation costs to bus kids
to further away schools is one. Protecting closed buildings is another.
Remember the movie saying, "Greed is good." Well, in public education, some choice for parents/students is good.
"Originating with Superintendent John Stanford back in the 1990s, the
school autonomy and choice model has proved to be both effective and
popular." And the very school named for the late John Stanford would change from dual language to just an attendance area school.
"In the cause of racial and social justice, this board and superintendent
have been moving toward homogeneous schools and away from choices. The
closure policy will be a huge and irreversible step in that direction." Spot-on.
One
issue that DeBell didn't bring up but I will is that in February 2025,
Seattle Schools will put two levies up for renewal. One is the
Operations levy which brought in $646.8M over three years. The other is
the BEX levy for renovation of buildings that brought in $1.4B (yes, B,
not M).
Simply put, the district would
collapse without the Operations levy and facilities work would greatly
slow down if they lost the BEX levy (and I note that the district funds
80% of a major department - Technology - out of BEX).
So
parents and taxpayers you DO have leverage. Tell the Board you want to
see this dialed back and more input from families and school communities
plus a fully-fleshed out transition plan or the levies could be
endangered.
SPS has not lost a levy in 30 years. But given how flawed the "well-resourced schools" plan is, maybe it's time.
Comments
Like Mellisa, I didn't always agree with Michael, but I have a lot of respect for how he listens and how much he cares for all students.
The City of Seattle lost confidence in SPS in the 80's when levies failed and enrollment plummeted. Michael was part of the community that helped to rebuild that confidence. His assessment that this plan is just too much to ask of taxpayers and parents is correct.
His assessment about the savings and enrollment is also correct. The projections on savings for the closures in the 00's was about the same as the current projected savings. Michael's assertion that those savings were never realized is correct.
This is both because closing building is expensive. Moving students is expensive. All the mitigation involved and the additional transportation and the disruption to Sped is expensive.
Moreover, even talking about closing schools causes enrollment to drop. I was on a committee in 2010 that did a deep dive on closures and enrollment and we were able to show that schools targeted for closure, consolidation or moving had enrollment drops between 10% and 40%. The overall enrollment growth of that time period blunted the damage, but we don't have the overall enrollment growth this time to mitigate.
northender
I’ve been following your coverage of the Seattle School Board’s recent proposal to close 20 schools, and I think there’s a critical aspect that is absent from the district’s cost-benefit analysis. While the board claims the closures will save about $30M, their projections seem to miss a significant financial risk—the loss of students leaving the district due to these closures.
If families start pulling their kids out of Seattle Public Schools, the district will not only lose the students but also the funding that comes with them. Here’s the issue: for every student that leaves, the district loses about $25,000 in revenue, but they only save about $15,000 in expenses. This means for each lost student, the district is actually losing $10,000 net. If just 3,000 students (6% of the 50,000 total enrollment) leave due to the closures, that’s a $30M loss—wiping out any of the so-called "savings" from the closures.
In fact, some studies suggest that districts can lose over 10% of their student population after major disruptions like this. Imagine what a larger loss of students would do to Seattle's financial outlook. The board’s focus on the immediate expense savings completely overlooks the net revenue hit from lost students, which could leave us in a worse financial situation than we started.
You’ve always done a great job of holding the board accountable, and I think this issue needs to be raised loud and clear. The community deserves to know the full story before any decisions are made. Would you consider diving deeper into this angle in your coverage? It’s crucial to get this out there before it’s too late.
I’d be happy to help with more information or research if you’re interested in looking into this further.
Thanks for all the work you do to keep us informed.
Best regards,
CBA Parent
I was on a committee in 2011 when Bob Boesche was the CFO. We examined disaggregated enrollment data over the 00's closures and we were able to determine that for all the schools that had been targeted during the 00's closure window, 10-45% of enrolled students we no longer enrolled the subsequent school year.
This included schools that were not actually closed but only proposed to be closed.
The highest number was for Summit K-12. This was so long ago that I don't remember all the details for al the schools. But the tragedy in the way Summit was treated was awful.
The district narrative at the time was the "closures did not affect enrollment." This was because, except for this one small committee, the district only talked about and published aggregated data.
As Seattle was growing so quickly, new families moving into the district offset, the families leaving the district, when you looked at total numbers. The year after the 08-09 closures, total enrollment was up 300 students, so staff declared that the closures had no enrollment collateral damage.
But the disaggregated data showed a drastically different story.
The scope of this is so enormous, I would expect a significant enrollment decline, just based on the chaos and confusion.
https://www.seattlepi.com/seattlenews/article/after-5-schools-closed-157-students-left-seattle-1256324.php
Additionally, there's fixed costs in closing schools, moving assets, shuttling kids around, etc.