Enjoying This Tsunami of Information?

I firmly believe that down at the old JSCEE, senior staff said, "They want data and info? We're gonna give it to them."

The documentation released yesterday is just overwhelming. I am diligently reading through it and trying to pull out key items. One thing they could have done is group topics together but no, so if you are looking for a specific topic, you'll have to wade through all of it. 

I hope to get something together later today after I read, digest, and then organize the information in a way that is most helpful to parents. 

But I read the comments at the West Seattle Blog and it's a good snapshot of possible discussions going on around the district.

- This is heartbreaking. The reason I stay where I live and commute so far is so that my kids can apply to Boren K-8 next year and Lafayette as a backup. It’s a shame in a region so rich with STEM opportunities that both options will eliminate the only STEM school.


- Lafayette is the most walkable elementary school in West Seattle. Forcing half that school to go down to Pathfinder is ridiculous, and will significantly increased traffic and road rage.

 

-When we’re talking SPS district numbers, the ’24-’25 annual budget is $1.25 billion:Meaning they are disrupting kids and families, firing teachers and staff at schools across the city for what will amount to less than 2% savings in the budget. That’s a rounding error when talking in amounts this large. I do not believe this is the best way to save 2%.

 

- The per pupil transportation costs for the district are insane. They are double any other district in WA. It’s a $45M line item that should be scrutinized. The problem is Seattle never bought buses and pretty much all the competition dried up. So 1-2 companies just name their price and tack on a 15-20% profit markup every contract negotiation. A smart district would budget for the capital cost of buying buses in one of their levies that always gets passed from property taxes, then take the operations in house to reduce costs from the state.

 

- Not sure how closing 2 Delridge schools on a major bus line, in a diverse neighborhood of working class families is ‘equitable’. 

 

- If the K-8s are closed or changed to K-5s, will there be enough room for them in Madison and Denny? I don’t understand how the school district can reduce alternatives like Boren or Pathfinder, and expect parents not to consider private schools, charters or other districts like Vashon.

 

- Here we go. Divide and conquer.

 
- It makes zero sense to close Lafayette because just in case someone needs a reminder, Alki Elementary is being demolished to be rebuilt… The construction is expected to take 3 years and is delayed significantly because the neighbors had SPS in lawsuits due to traffic and parking concerns in the area. Current Alki kids are going to makeshift portable classrooms in the old Schmitz Park building that can’t even hold the current population of Alki Elementary. Imagine redistributing a good chunk of 520+ kids from Lafayette into a makeshift building at Schmitz Park for the next 5 years while Alki gets rebuilt. 

 

- It’s unfortunate that the metrics they are using to decide what is a good closure are completely divorced from the metrics of what makes a good school.

 

- The SPS philosophy is one (small) size fits all.  If a school “offers a lot of enrichment opportunities,” that puts a big bulls-eye on it.  They are closing it because it’s good, and popular with families.

 

- As a teacher at Lafayette, I found out about this when parents/community did.
What I keep coming back to is, how is it possibly more equitable for the children of Sanislo, who are almost all children of color and majority low income, to have no neighborhood school?

Comments

dj said…
As someone whose elementary kid's school is scheduled for closure on both lists, what I am absolutely not going to do is say "close that other school, not mine," even though it's tempting. The problem is (1) closing physical schools and (2) eliminating options for parents and kids who want or need alternatives to standard elementary-school programming. I want to focus my advocacy on that. I'm not going to take as a given that A and B are the only paths forward.
9/12/24, 10:40 AM
EL said…
The single most shocking thing to me about yesterday's report is the sheer volume of students undergoing school reassignment. When you look at the maps, the reassignment areas seem to cover more than half of the whole city! So even though my kids' elementary school OV is not slated for closure, both plans hugely impact enrollment because many kids currently going to OV would be reassigned to Hazel Wolf or Olympic View, and OV would (in one plan) absorb more kids from Sacajawea. Closing small schools in favor of better resourced schools is one thing, but redistributing half of the SPS elementary school population to save $30 mil is absolutely bonkers.
9/12/24, 1:30 PM
Melissa Westbrook said…
El, I did warn this would happen. As well, they seem to be going towards a two-tier bus system and that may impact boundaries as well.
9/12/24, 2:00 PM
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