Seattle School Board Wednesday Work Sessions, September 24, 2025

 There has now been documentation attached to the Board Work Sessions for tomorrow. 

As you may recall, there are four topics - October enrollment, High School lunch, budget, and "Strategic Resource Analysis."

Staff is not showing its hand on either enrollment or high school lunch but for the other topics, there are attached presentations.  

Remember I said there was quite a long stretch of time for the Strategic Resource Analysis at nearly two hours? I was wrong because this report -from the consulting group Education Resource Strategies - is 212 pages. Did I look at every page? I did but I wonder if all the members of the Board will have. I will be irritated if there are questions asked that could be answered by reading this document (and I can guess in advance who will ask them). 

ERS funders include the Gates Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of NY, Raikes Foundation, and others. 

This report is entitled, "Aligning Resources to Strategy and Need: Diagnostic Analysis for Seattle Public Schools." It is a very meaty report with a huge amount of information and data.  They have "key insights" tied to the SPS Goals and Guardrails. 

It is divided into the presentation (about 45 pages) and then the entire report. The presentation appears to be topline info. 

By examining how resources are allocated and used, SPS is building a shared fact base on the current state of resources to identify and prioritize actions needed to address inequities across the system. 

Resource equity means schools, the district, and the community working together to ensure every student has access to the right mix of resources and supports needed for high-quality learning. It ensures that all schools across the district create opportunities for every student - so that race and family income no longer determine a student's future.

That last sentence is wrong. Frankly, I think it's magical thinking. It should read:

It ensures that all schools across the district create opportunities for every student - so that race and family income no longer determine a student's outcome in SPS. 

Why would I change that? Because, like leaving out unions as one part of the district's challenges, in that sentence they left out the role of parents and families in a child's life. SPS cannot be held responsible for all aspects of a student's life. 

I note that they only touched on some of the Goals and Guardrails in writing this report. 

They do say that this report is "a snapshot of the current resource use patterns and what contributes to those patterns." 

The report does not identify cost reduction opportunities to close the deficit. Its purpose is to align resources to strategy and effective practice while giving the incoming Superintendent and the community a clear picture of how current spending patterns connect to student and staff experiences.  

They also claim that in 2023-2024, there were 49,226 students which matches what the district's "About" page at the SPS website says. But then, on page 23 of the second document they say the "total enrollment for 2024-2025 was 51,729. That just isn't right and I wonder how they got that figure. If only that had been the enrollment. This is on page 23 of the report. 

Here are their "Key Insights:"

1. Potential misalignment of school funding levels, need, and the desired student and staff experiences.

2. Unsustainable district operations given current fiscal deficit conditions.

3. Variation in student access to advanced coursework.

4. Inequitable student access to experienced educators.

5. Inconsistent and/or inadequate support for school leaders given variation in leader experience and ambiguity around school autonomy.

6. Challenges with strategy implementation driven by a lack(sic) organizational alignment and clarity of ownership. 

 

Pages of interest:

Page 12 - Per Pupil Budgeted Spend by School Poverty Level. This chart shows the spending for lower poverty concentrated schools vs highest poverty concentrated schools. 

For K-5 and K-8, it's $16,381 on the low end and $22,943 on the high end.

For Middle and High schools, it's $13,551 on the low end and $18,876 on the high end.

They do state that most of the additional spending at higher poverty concentrations are because of Special Education and ELL. 

Page 15 asks principals this question - Are positions and dollars allocated fairly based on my school's needs?

The AVERAGE is 34% agree or strongly agree. Broken down it's 29% for elementaries, 44% for K-8s, 33% for middle schools, and 45% for high schools. Ouch.  

On another page it's noted that:

Forty-two percent of principals have 0-2 years of experience. That's seems like a high number of newbies to me. 

Also:

Only half of school leaders agree that 1) central office departments coordinate effectively to provide support, and 2) share that they can easily find the correct support person.  

Page 16 has an interesting statement:

Review and realign resource allocation practices to ensure funding is distributed more transparently and equitably across schools, particularly those serving higher-need students based on the experiences SPS desires to create for its students and staff.

If you have less than 50% of principals believing their schools are funded "fairly," I'm not sure what moving money around might do. And that "experiences SPS desires to create" certainly smacks of "well-resourced schools."  

And on Page 18, we see that SPS spends more than peer districts by about $2K. Those peer districts were Albuquerque, Portland, Metro Nashville, Denver, and Columbus, Ohio. 

Page 20 shows that out of 120 large urban districts in the US, Seattle is 9th in the highest rate of smaller elementaries (defined as fewer than 350 students). 

They talk a lot about advanced courses and who enrolls in them. They repeatedly use this word "access" which I think is the wrong word. These courses are accessible but I think the issue is not supporting students soon enough to make that leap to advanced courses. That, of course, needs to be worked on. 

One fascinating finding is:

Page 25 - Proficiency largely closes the gap in AP enrollment for Hispanic students but not for Black students. Hmm.

 Another finding, starting on page 29 is that:

The highest poverty schools in SPS have the highest proportion of teachers with fewer than three years experience. 

Again, they don't mention unions but I'd bet that issue is one that greatly affects this finding. 

 Another key insight:

Challenges with strategy implementation driven by a lack (sic) organizational alignment and clarity of ownership. 

I have heard this over and over for decades.  

Page 43, Guiding Framework for this Work asks some good questions about the Goals and Guardrails, Priorities, Metrics, Strategic Initiatives, and Investments.  

From the Report:

Page 33 - Spending on Transportation exceeds both local and national comparisons - an area worth examining. 

- Highest percentage of its budget spent on student transportation

- Highest cost per rider: $9,155/rider in SPS vs $2,230/rider for peers

- Fewest riders per bus throughout the day compared to WA state peers.

Page 36 - Transportation and Special Education spending is much higher than elsewhere. 

Page 99 breaks down the spending at Central Administration and it's very interesting.  

Page 118 starts the discussion of small schools, citing "the challenges around scale are most predominant at the elementary and K-8 level."

Even though enrollment increased and the rate of small elementaries decreased in the early 2010s, Seattle's elementary portfolio outlook is almost equivalent to what it was 20 years ago.

Page 124 - Small schools are not inherently bad and many in the field of education advocate for small schools by design. 

Page 125 - When small schools are formed by default rather than by design, common challenges may arise. 

Page 133 - SPS has a lower "small school premium" than peer districts, likely due to tradeoffs in student and staff experiences.  

In Seattle, this "premium" is 5% which is much lower than the 15-25% rate seen across other urban districts. 

 Page 136 is a key page in how SPS can make schools better AND drive higher enrollments.  

Seattle should continue to investigate the factors that have driven enrollment loss recently and evaluate whether changes in school programming could attract back lost enrollment and mitigate further loss. 

This could include options like adding intentional programming to support multi-grade classrooms or broader portfolio changes for the district and community to consider like (sic) redrawing attendance zones, reconfigure grade bands across schools (e.g. K-2 and 3-5) or school consolidation.

 

Budget Study Session

This presentation doesn't say much that's new except for a kinda funny example to explain how SPS ended up not being in the hole as much as previously thought.

 • Imagine a family thought they’d need $10,000 from savings to cover their
budget.
• But thanks to $3,600 in surprises (like winning a small lottery prize or canceling
a vacation), they only needed $6,400.
• They still spent more than they earned, but not as much as expected and they
still needed to spend $6,400 out of their savings to make ends meet.

 

Also, they are extending the "interfund loan for at least one more year" and deferring repayment to the Rainy Day Fund. 

As I mentioned, there is no notice of the role of unions in budgeting. Also, I don't care what they are saying they are cutting at Central Administration, they are spending a lot on consultants. Which also doesn't get mentioned. 

More on this in another post as I finally got some clarity on spending on Student Outcome Focused Governance via public disclosure documents.