I Need Your Input on School Closures
Update from SPS:
Key Upcoming Dates: To ensure everyone has the opportunity to understand these proposals and share feedback, we are hosting a series of meetings.
- Sept. 11: Refreshed webpages launched with all proposals, criteria, and data.
- Sept. 24: Online information sessions to provide an overview of both options.
- Sept. 25-Oct. 8: In-person meetings in each region for families, staff, and community. Separate SPS staff meetings will also be held.
- Mid to Late October: Superintendent announces the preliminary recommendation.
- November: Public hearings on each proposed school closure.
- December: Final School Board vote before winter break.
I note that Director Gina Topp is having a community meeting on September 25 at 6 pm at the West Seattle Library. Given that comments at the West Seattle Blog on closures is nearing 100, she's gonna need a bigger room.
If directors don't regularly have community meetings, so be it. BUT for this time and place, every single one of them, should be having community meetings like once a week for different areas of their region.
end of update
Three questions:
1) What are your burning questions?
I assume many would say, "Where will all the kids in the closing schools go to?"
2) What area-specific issues are you concerned about? Let us know items that we wouldn't know about if we don't live in your region.
3) Do you have plans to fight back? Should the Board vote no on all of it?
FYI, In addition to the upcoming meetings and hearings, you can send feedback via this form.
They have created specific areas of concern to tell them about like HCC, Special Education, etc.
Comments
-NE Mom
Sanislo makes sense to close (even though I love that community). Enrollment is below 200 and the building is the "open concept" school of the 1970s. Everyone seems to hate the building. I do worry that the area around Sanislo is a bit more affordable for young families, and that we could see more kids coming up in the next 10 years who would love a nearby neighborhood school. However, as of right now that building should probably close, and a new one built if there is a capacity need in the future.
Closing Boren Stem K-8 is just so wrong. There was such community support to open that school. I believe it is the only Stem focused school in the district other than Cleveland HS, and many Stem kids later go to Cleveland. Stem has typically had long waitlists (I don't know if it has long waitlists currently). Further, I think it has served kids who are high functioning but who are "on the spectrum" well, and it has given them an environment where their unique interests and strengths are supported. I don't think many private schools are able to well serve some of the kids who go to Stem, even if their parents can afford it. Also, the Boren community is close, and has had a very supportive and active PTSA. It's just a travesty for that strong community of 450 students to be blown up by SPS.
Finally, closing Lafayette is jaw dropping. Yes, the building is old. But it has the largest student population of any elementary is West Seattle with 500 students! Most students walk to school. It has enormous parent support in the neighborhood. The district proposes sending most of the Lafayette kids to the Pathfinder building, which is more than two miles away. Huh? The Pathfinder building has limited road access. Transportation would be a nightmare. This plan would also involve converting Pathfinder to a K-5 neighborhood school from a K-8. Again, really? Pathfinder has traditionally had long waitlists (not sure currently). It is beloved with a very active PTSA and volunteer parents. It's a very strong school with about 450 kids. SPS wants to blow that up?
In addition to Sanislo with under 200 students, SPS has three other schools in the SW region that have under 300 students (Concord, Highland Park, and Roxhill.) If Sanislo is closed, Highland Park will likely have over 300 students. But Concord and Roxill would still have under 300 kids. Instead of looking at some merger or boundary lines changes for those schools, SPS is looking at potentially blowing up Lafayette (500 students) and Pathfinder (450 students). It is definitely blowing up Boren Stem (450 students). I thought this was about closing small schools? Instead, this looks like it is about SPS not liking K-8s.
Finally, Madison Middle school is overenrolled. So now we are putting a large number of 6-8 graders from Stem and Pathfinder at Madison? Oy vey.
Look at the fine hand of Hersey for that decision. He has lobbied for months, that it is inequitable to touch certain schools in the SE and SW.
So the glaring lack of sanity in WS is because some schools are protected.
- crazy town
Latest gossip I heard was that year-ahead math is now officially impossible in our region. Walk-to math was long ago banned at the elementary level, and the middle school has reportedly abandoned its 7-8 acceleration class. The high school does not offer enough math classes to allow students to double up at that stage. Calculus in high school will see its sunset. This is all by design.
Seattle votes for this. The Stranger endorses this. Nothing is any secret. Maybe a majority of parents don't vote for this, but non-parents also vote in school board elections.
Families with means would stay in SPS if they felt the school district cared about their kids. Including HCC, dual language, inspired achieving, SPED.
NESeamom
You're right. I want to know where the kids in the closing schools will be going, and how that decision is being made. For example, it looks like Blaine K-8's elementary kids are going to Magnolia and their middle school kids to McClure. Why aren't some of the elementary kids going to Lawton? The current plan has some current families being switched from Magnolia to Lawton, including mine.
I also want to know what's happening to current Cascadia HCC kids if Cascadia becomes a neighborhood school as part of the plan. Honestly I thought that was happening anyway, beginning in the lower grades, so next year in 5th grade would be essentially the same as this year in 4th grade for my other kid. But what they wrote is just unclear enough for me not to be sure.
2) What area-specific issues are you concerned about? Let us know items that we wouldn't know about if we don't live in your region.
I understand why Blaine K-8 is on both lists: the district hates K-8s and the building is old and in poor condition. That being said, its closure is going to leave a huge metaphorical hole in the Magnolia community. And it's a very big campus.. I am worried about what will happen when it's left empty. If there is no way to keep the school there, I do hope they will be able to come up with something more community oriented. Part of me thinks it would be a great location for a high school......
3) Do you have plans to fight back? Should the Board vote no on all of it?
Not concrete plans, because I really don't know what will be most effective.
I'd like the board to vote no, but that brings up the question: what happens then? Receivership for the district?
2) How will the transition work when kids from Green Lake and BFDay end up at McDonald and John Stanford. Are K and 1 kids all put in dual language? Will there be an English track? Will all DLI programs be eliminated and everyone is in standard english languages classes?
3) What will SPS do to enable after school programs located in or near closed buildings to remain open? Will they offer closed school buildings for use by afterschool programs? Will they commit to busing students from their new placements to their old afterschool programs (which won't be super far from the new placements but may be outside of the redrawn zone).
4) How does one create a brand new school community from scratch (I'm thinking cascadia becoming neighborhood school, or McDonald totally changing from DLI to neighborhood). You can't just throw teachers and students in a new or newly defined space and assume it all goes well.
Outside of that, and as another WS parent pointed out, they aren't shutting down schools that *have* low enrollment. As of Jan 2024: Concord had 272, Roxhill had 234 and Highland Park had 268.
1) What happens to middle school boundaries?
2) How can they guarantee HCC kids stay in a cohort when they are closing/transitioning all HCC schools? Will kids still be allowed to join the cohort?
3) Will options schools with special models (eg Thornton Creek) keeps those models as neighborhood schools?
And a comment - the district is being disingenuous in saying Sand Point is staying open. The building is temporarily closing and they are moving 2/3 of the kids to View Ridge.
Worried Parent
HCC is dead.
As a parent of a kid who went to one of those HCC elementary schools I wish it weren't so, but it's true. My child received no services in middle school beyond taking math with some 7th and 8th graders as a 6th grader. His ELA instructor last year was utterly appalling, there was no advanced science, foreign language... nothing. If you want HCC, you are NOT going to get it in SPS. Pursuit of academic excellence is anathema to SPS leadership and culture.
- Seeing Red
D's Mom
Sorry, I just have to call out the hypocrisy of a board member protecting her own neighborhood school while causing all this heartache everywhere else.
Concurrent with this timeline is the next proposed levies.
October – Introduce BEX VI Capital levy with EP&O levy
November – Board Approval
February 2025 – Levy vote
Several of the closure options are dependent on the levy passing. But in all seriousness, how can you close 20 buildings and ask for more money????
- crazy town
-Concern Citizen and Parent