Closing Schools in Seattle

Several items have come across my desk recently about school closures. 

First, there's "special" Board meeting this week on Wednesday, the 11th which a bit of everything. 

The agenda reflects a Work Session on what this board wants to put forth at the annual Washington State Directors' Association General Assembly. This is the professional group for school board members throughout the state. It's 20 minutes but only President Liza Rankin is likely to speak so I doubt the other Board members will have much to say.

There is an executive session "to review the performance of a public employee." I venture to guess that is about the Superintendent's contract as Jones is still operating under his previous contract which expired on July 1. I'm sure the Board has had many back and forths about it (in the form of these executive sessions) and I'll bet the issue is "how can we pay him more when we say we have to close schools?" 

Then there's a "study session" on "long-range facility planning." This is scheduled for 90 minutes and, attached to the agenda, is a document about this called...Long-Range Facility Planning. This is a real bare-bones document BUT with key information to know as the district moves towards closing schools.

For example, page 5:

 2024-25: 107 School Sites

– 63 Elementary Schools (K-5)
– 10 K-8 Schools
– 1 K-8 Homeschool Resource Site
– 12 Middle Schools (6-8)
– 18 High Schools (9-12)
– 3 Interim School Sites
– Support Buildings (Central Office, Memorial Stadium, etc.)

On that last item - support buildings - I wish they had named them ALL and put the names of the interim sites. Off the top of my head on interims, one would be the John Marshall building near Green Lake, another would be the empty Schmitz Park Elementary School, and the other would be the old Van Asselt building in the south end. 

Further, there are:

35 Landmarked buildings (plus 8 more likely landmarks)

and

251 Portable classrooms

and 

Four Athletic Complexes and Memorial Stadium

and even

Cleveland Memorial Forest

There are 10 leased buildings including one in Lake City that is used for professional services companies and Oak Tree Mall. 

They claim on page 7 that the building life cycle is 75-100 years which is laughable now. It's really more to 35-50 years. 

On page 11, they review funding sources - BEX and BTA - and coyly says that these levies "Play a key role in funding district technology equipment, software, and services." I know that 80% of the Technology budget is in the levies. And if a levy fails? Wouldn't that be a disaster for this district? So many dollars for other costs would near-immediately shift to Technology to continue that funding. I never thought this a good idea for one department to be almost all funded by levies. 

Page 16 talks about where they get the data for this long-range planning. The one that has shifted the most is the "learning environments condition" which seems to get changed randomly rather than in a organized manner. 

Page 17 discusses the Facilities Master Plan which is a 10-year document to guide the district in their planning. It was last updated in 2021 BUT:

Next update to be implemented after Well-Resourced Schools decisions

Page 20/21 has information about enrollment with forecasts for low, medium and high projections. They project about 390 students less this year than last year. 

Page 22 has a bar graph of enrollment from 1982-2001. 

Page 24 is very interesting with not one but two demographers'. input.

 All models predict a decline in enrollment over the next 10 years.

- Enrollment projected to decrease by 6.3% (FLO model), 6.5% (SPS model), or 7.9% (EDS model) by the 2028-29 school year.

– Equates to a loss of about 3,166 students (SPS model), 3,100 students (FLO model), or 3,900 students (EDS model) from the current enrollment of 49,226 in October 2023

Page 25 dives into kindergarten enrollment and this is stunning:

Percentage of students born in Seattle that enroll in Kindergarten steadily declined from a peak of 72% in 2012-13 School Entrance Year to 53.3% in 2023-24 School Entrance Year.

While at the same time, births were increasing from 2006-2007 to 2016-2017.

 

Here's the link to the SPS FAQs on closing/consolidating schools. 

 

From Ed 100 - they write mostly about the California public school system - a story with a "School Closure Checklist." Let's see if SPS is doing any of this.

The district should begin by appointing a District Advisory Committee. This is sometimes referred to as a 7-11 committee, referring to the size of the committee recommended by law. (Some school districts expand the membership beyond 11 when creating a school closure committee, but larger committees can be unwieldy.) This committee gathers data, holds public hearings, and makes recommendations to the school district. The core role of the district advisory committee is to get the facts and make recommendations.

That happened when I was on the last Closure and Consolidation Committee and we were more than 11; it WAS too big. But yes, we were the ones to get data from the district and then go out into the schools and review all of it in place. 

This Board is allowing the district to tell the story THEY want to tell. I do not believe it will be objective. The fact that so little has publicly happened should tell you that they are just going to shove this through on the premise that staff and parents just don't know enough. 

Also, there are those on the Board who are control freaks and likely dole out info  as they see fit to the rest of the Board. But each and every member of the Board WILL have a school closed in their region. They have the responsibility to visit all the schools in their region that may be closed. Will they? I sincerely doubt it.

Second, they list "Focus on Equity." For example, schools that serve Black students tend to be more frequently closed in California. 

To head off hasty decisions about school closures, AB 1912, passed in 2021-22, requires school districts to slow down, get the facts, involve the community, and conduct an equity analysis. This process can help districts make equitable and cost effective decisions about school closures.

From the law:

This bill would require a school district under financial distress, as defined, before approving the closure or consolidation of a school, to conduct an equity impact analysis in its consideration of school closures or consolidations, as provided. The bill would require the governing board of the school district to develop a set of metrics, as specified, for the development of the equity impact analysis, and to make those metrics public at a regularly scheduled meeting of the governing board of the school district so that the public can provide input regarding the metrics being used to conduct the analysis, as provided. 

Is SPS doing this? Not yet but I think I heard one director at the last Work Session ask about this. 

 Consider Schools To Close is next. 

Closing a school with declining enrollment is not necessarily the best choice. The school board should provide the school closure committee with a list of criteria to be examined, and share it at a regularly scheduled public board meeting so that the community can provide input. This list can help create an Equity Impact Analysis.

That analysis lists 9 items, some of which I have not seen under discussion like:

- Environmental factors e.g traffic and proximity to freeway access

- Aesthetics and the opportunity for blight and negative impact on the surrounding community

- Impact on feeder school attendance patterns

Make Decisions which is the role of the Superintendent.  The next step is for the Superintendent to conduct public hearings to gather community input. It is good practice to hold public meetings at schools considered for closure as well as at schools where closures may have a significant impact on enrollment. Meetings should discuss proposed uses for the property, including for community services. The district will be having public hearings but I'll bet anyone they will be an hour with a limited number of speaker slots. And no, they will not have public meetings on the best uses of the empty buildings.  It also includes within a Transition Plan this notation: Options and timeline for transitioning pupils to their new schools, including improving safe routes to schools and home-to-school transportation needs. Then those recommendations go to the school board for review and I had to laugh here: - The school board then reviews and considers public feedback.  - Decisions about any school closures or consolidations are announced at a subsequently scheduled regular meeting. At that next meeting, the board should include a review of how public input was incorporated into the final recommendation. This Board has done very little public imput (as I have contrasted with what San Francisco Unified School District is doing) and that last item about reviewing what the public said being built into the final recommendation? They shouldn't even bother.  Secret meetings with the usual suspect groups is NOT public engagement.  They do have interesting ideas for using the surplus property. You should check those out.  Good graphics in this article from The 74 -   Thousands of Schools at Risk of Closing Due to Enrollment Loss. “There was always hope that the kids were coming back.”  But most have not — part of a decline that is projected to continue throughout the decade. Oregon, New Mexico and West Virginia are among the states expected to see enrollment drop at least another 10%.  In the years leading up to COVID lockdowns, fewer than 2,000 of the nation’s roughly 98,000 schools saw decreases on the level of Jackson. That number more than doubled between 2019 and 2021.  Among districts with over 50,000 students, those with the greatest share of schools that declined by 20% or more are concentrated in the South.
So what is happening in San Francisco Unified School District? On September 18th, they will have their closure/consolidation list to announce. It's anyone's guess if that happens in September in SPS. At least SFUSD has a coherent timeline.

Families and staff at the affected schools will be notified through email, phone calls, and text messages in our seven main languages (English, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, Tagalog, Samoan, and Vietnamese) on the afternoon of Sept. 18. 

Along with this notification, we will provide resources for parents and guardians on how to discuss these changes with their children, as well as guidance for teachers and staff on engaging with students in processing this news. 

A detailed transition plan tailored to support students, families, and staff at these schools will also be shared on the same day.

Then, SFUSD is waiting all the way to December 10 for a final recommendation vote. SPS is doing it in November.  I just double-checked and the final vote for SPS is scheduled for December.

Want to know what it feels like for school community to see their building closed? Here's a great article from The New Yorker (thanks to reader Stuart for it).