Seattle Schools and Closures

The Seattle Times has an article today about school closures in SPS. When I saw the headline I confess I was puzzled. Why are we revisiting this? But the Times sure got some good quotes from Board members so read on. 

When Seattle Public Schools scrapped its school closure plans last November, the district didn’t entirely shut the book on the idea.

But with significant leadership changes expected this year, including the departure of Superintendent Brent Jones and potential turnover on the School Board, school closures appear to be dead in the short run.

Yes, a new superintendent AND a new majority on the Board certainly would point to at least tabling this idea for quite some time. But, as has been pointed out, the district still has severe financial problems and closing schools would be one way to save at least some money. (On balance, with all the issues around school closures, I'm not for closing schools to save money.)

At the time, the School Board rescinded its direction to Jones to prepare preliminary proposals to close up to five schools for the 2025-26 academic year. But it didn’t pull back a portion of the resolution asking the superintendent to draft a long-term fiscal stability plan and create a task force to advise him on future recommendations.

Ah, yes, this taskforce. Another waste of time and money. Why? Not because there aren't smart people out there who, joined together, might come up with some good ideas or a draft of a plan. No, because the Board and the superintendent create these groups, have them spend hours and hours on a report, and then the powers that be say thanks and promptly shelve it. 

Why bother?

SPS said last week it planned to start advertising the positions later this month for the task force that will advise district leadership, with plans to begin meetings in May. 

The task force will provide “insights and feedback,” which “will help shape the multiyear budget forecast,” according to the district. But the task force will not make spending recommendations.

Based on the timeline, the task force will not present its final “considerations” to the superintendent until September.

I'll put up the link for the taskforce positions but I'm warning members in advance what will happen. And, if they are creating this now and expect meetings to go on until September, that's not great. Plus, they will hand these "insights and feedback" to which superintendent? 

Now what did the Board have to say in this article?

Topp

Board President Gina Topp said this week there are “no plans to revive the conversation” about closing schools.

“However, nothing is ever off the table completely,” she said.

Topp had said that the board and district must regain that trust before discussing closing schools.

This week, Topp said there are discussions underway about how to meet students’ needs and the best way to do so.

On that last thought, I wonder what "discussions" she's speaking of because there have not been community meetings on this subject. 

 

 

Mizrahi

Board director Joe Mizrahi, who represents District 4, which includes Fremont, Queen Anne, South Lake Union and portions of downtown, said it was a mistake and inaccurate to frame closures as a budget issue last year.

“If I am ever talking about this again, I am not talking about this in terms of the budget,” he said. “This is about what’s happening at this specific building and this specific community … It’s not about trying to save $1 million.”

Still, Mizrahi said that closures wouldn’t be among the top five items he’d ask the new superintendent to focus on. “I would say let’s just stabilize things,” he said.

So Mizrahi would NOT close schools to save money? Because saving money was all that was discussed last year. Would he pick by academic achievement? I'm not sure how you do that because, to be fair, you have to consider the population of the school and its size? Building condition? That's not really fair because it's district staff who pick and choose what buildings to renovate and, as well, have manipulated the population size at many schools.

 

Rankin

You can always count on Director Rankin to say some wild things.

School Board member Liza Rankin said she doesn’t see a budget scenario that completely removes closures from the discussion.  

“It seems fiscally irresponsible to me to maintain the level of capacity that we have,” Rankin said.  

The board asked the district administration in December 2023 to develop a plan to meet its vision for “a system of Well-Resourced Schools.” That could have included consolidating and closing schools, restructuring grades and adjusting programs. Rankin said the administration chose to pursue closures and failed to meaningfully engage communities. 

The district also has additional options, including changing how it staffs schools to revisiting attendance boundaries, she said.

“If we decide that the most important thing is that buildings stay open, some schools will have education and some schools will have babysitting,” she said.

Is that what she thinks is happening now? Is she going to address that some schools are smaller than their buildings because staff made that so? Is she going to acknowledge that somewhere in the past decade a quiet decision was made to build so-called mega-schools that would necessarily mean some other buildings would close? 

Of course not. 

Well, you would not change boundaries before closures because you then would have to adjust again AFTER closures. 

The Times also had this "huh?" thought:

The board has not yet decided whether to hire an interim or permanent superintendent to replace Jones. 

I don't know if the Times is not sending someone to listen in on the superintendent search discussion by the Board but interim idea seems gone. Spending time and money to search for an interim AND then doing it again for a permanent superintendent would be ridiculous. And again, from the meeting this week, there was zero discussion of seeking an interim superintendent.

I'm hoping for a superintendent who knows how to create strategic long-term planning.