With reporting by Kali Herbst Minino
The meetings — ostensibly — are about “well-resourced schools,” and what vital educational elements students and families say they want in their public campuses. But some Capitol Hill-area families are seeing the writing on the wall.
“Save Stevens Elementary” flyers have been posted to utility poles on the streets surrounding the Northern Capitol Hill school’s 19th at Galer campus.
“Seattle Public Schools plans to close schools beginning in Fall 2024,” it reads. “Stevens Elementary is on the chopping block. We need your help to save our school!”
The rallying cry is encouraging people to attend the district’s final “Well-resourced Schools” meeting Tuesday night — a final online-only session following a series of community meetings earlier this month.
UPDATE 9:30 PM: Tuesday’s meeting has been rescheduled. In a Monday afternoon announcement, SPS said it moving the meeting back “due to overwhelming community interest.”
Moving this online engagement to Tuesday, Sept. 26, after the school year has begun will allow for wider community participation. It will also help us prepare an exceptional experience for a larger number of people.
Seattle Public Schools says it isn’t closing any of its schools — yet.
CHS reported here on the “Well-resourced Schools” effort with SPS beginning its process to gather feedback from “students, families, staff, and community partners” as it starts a painful budget process it says could result in campus closures. A looming budget deficit has SPS promising no closures until 2024 but predicting serious belt-tightening as it expects a decade of lower enrollment. Changes in state funding and a forecast for a continued near-term drop in enrollment had the district scrambling to cover a $131 million budget deficit for the coming school year with continued financial shortfalls on the way.
SPS says the meetings about what every student in the system needs to thrive and grow are necessary before any talk of big cuts begins. The meetings, the district says, will inform recommendations Superintendent Brent Jones is making to the Seattle School Board in November.
At one of the community meetings held earlier this month at Garfield High School, community members sat down at large tables with pens and papers. The meeting covered three questions attendees were asked to write about and discuss with the help of a facilitator: What are your favorite things about your child’s school building? How can we make resources and services at each school stronger? What kinds of programs do you and your student value the most and why? Scribes sat around the tables taking down notes, and at the end of the exercise, the sticky notes would be posted on larger white pieces of paper.
The priorities at the Garfield event included sufficient staffing, special education support, mental health professional availability, nurse availability, support for languages other than English, large spacious classrooms, and neighborhood-accessible green spaces.
Jennifer Matter, president of the Seattle Education Association, the union of educators that works for Seattle Public Schools, has not found any policy directing what happens leading up to the decision to close schools. Without that kind of policy, Matter and other educators are interpreting the well-resourced school conversation to be the lead-up to a school closure decision.
“If anything is going to inform the decision on school closures, it’s these meetings,” Matter said.
It hasn’t been that long since SPS last went through rounds of campus closures that included cuts for Capitol Hill and Central District communities. CHS reported here in 2013 as plans began moving forward to reopen Capitol Hill’s Meany Middle School campus after it had been shuttered during a round of economic belt tightening. In previous cubacks, the district closed schools but kept campuses busy by shifting programs or leasing the properties to private and charter schools. By 2016, the district was reopening its shuttered or repurposed Capitol Hill and Central District area campuses. During the shuffling a decade ago, private schools like Hamlin Robinson leased buildings like E Union’s TT Minor building until the district said it needed the properties back. The start of the 2024/2025 school year could see similar closures, leases, and shuffling.
The district’s latest preparations for economic crisis and dropping enrollment come as it also prepares for future growth. Long-term needs and more solid funding for non-operations investments like campus upgrades and new buildings means projects like a massively expanded Montlake Elementary are moving forward.
That Montlake expansion eventually could be part of any conversation around closing Stevens as the 19th and Galer campus enrollment has continued to drop.
Matter says that the meetings happening this summer are disconnected from potential school closures or budget shifts, which has caused confusion.
“I don’t know how you can be having this conversation in a vacuum and not see the connection between well-resourced schools, and it having some influence on decisions that will be made later on school closures,” Matter said.
Any feedback gathered also comes with question marks.
Matter said central staff and people helping put on the event bolstered attendance numbers significantly. She feels that the turnout from the community was generally low.
The disconnection has sparked equity concerns.
“I don’t know if people realize, being titled ‘well-resourced schools, come share your vision’ that’s only going to call in a certain group of people,” Matter said. “It just doesn’t say ‘we might be closing some schools, if you want to have some input on it, come to these.”
“We don’t really know how the information gathered from these meetings will be used, but given the potential high stakes nature of these meetings, you would think more people would be participating,” Matter said.
Cherylynne Crowther, president of Seattle Special Education PTSA, encouraged consistent meeting notifications after she received a text and email for the event.
“Basic media sometimes is that if you want to get a message across, if you’re going to be effective at selling something, you’re gonna say it three four, five, six times, and across multiple methods.”
Heather Barker, a parent and an educator at Sanislo Elementary, felt well-informed about the meetings, but does not know if that’s the same for other families given that she’s immersed in the school district’s actions.
“I don’t know if a parent of one kid is getting these notifications or not,” Barker said.
Happening for two weeks over the summer, teachers also missed the meetings. Matter says a lot of educators had already made plans to be out of town during the meetings, and had they been more spread out in timing, some people might have been able to attend earlier in the summer.
Currently, SPS has not scheduled a meeting time for teachers to discuss the topic of well-resourced schools, according to Barker and Matter, but SPS has said those opportunities will be available.
As for closures, the district says school board policy outlining the process for closures includes making the superintendent’s recommendations publicly available and holding public hearings at or nearby the schools that would be shut down. Any process to shut down an SPS campus will take months — or years.
Still, Barker is concerned that schools in diverse areas without strong PTA bodies to advocate for them will be targeted in the event of school closures.
“We don’t really understand what the process will be,” Barker said. “I’m hopeful that the district moves through this process very carefully so we’re not further disenfranchising communities that are already struggling.”
“I’m sympathetic to the district’s plight. The legislature has not released enough money to truly fund the schools the way that they should be funded,” Barker said.
Community Meetings August 8-29
You are invited to join Seattle Public Schools (SPS) for an upcoming community meeting. During these meetings, senior leaders will connect with our community to envision what a well-resourced school looks like. SPS staff will share a presentation, respond to questions, and facilitate group discussion.
Your feedback will help guide future district planning. This fall, we will review your feedback and develop an inclusive and equitable plan.
SPS has the opportunity to reimagine a system of well-resourced schools that is safe and equitable. Our goal is to offer students the support, the programs and resources, and the inspiration they need to succeed in the neighborhoods where they live.
Community Meetings
Central Region: Garfield High School commons (please note this event location moved from John Stanford Center), Tuesday, Aug. 8
Meeting recording: August 8 at Garfield High SchoolSouthwest Region: Madison Middle School commons/lunchroom, Thursday, Aug. 10
Meeting recording: August 10 at Madison Middle SchoolSoutheast Region: South Shore PreK-8 rotunda/lunchroom, Monday, Aug. 14
Meeting recording: August 14 at South Shore Pre-K-8Northeast Region: Nathan Hale High School commons/lunchroom, Tuesday, Aug. 15
Meeting recording: August 15 at Nathan Hale High SchoolNorthwest Region: Robert Eagle Staff Middle School commons, Thursday, Aug. 17
Meeting recording: August 17 at Robert Eagle Staff Middle SchoolOnline: Teams Meeting, Tuesday, Aug. 29, 5:30 p.m.
Interpretation will be available in: Amharic, ASL, Cantonese, Somali, Spanish, and Vietnamese.
A link to this meeting will be shared by Monday, Aug. 28.Translation and interpretation services will be provided at each meeting based on request. After the online meeting, a recording will be posted to the district website.
We hope you can join us! The form to request accommodation for the meetings closed July 31.
Learn more about the Well-Resourced Schools Community Conversations.
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Just to note, the district has abruptly pulled the virtual meeting scheduled for this week, moving it far into September. They claim it’s so more parents can participate but I’d bet they realized that it a shitty time (end of summer/start of school) to ask parents for input.
But it’s not like the district is taking what parents say seriously; it’s a dog and pony show.
I was on the last Closure and Consolidation committee; the process takes about a year which would line it up just right for Fall 2024. Don’t let the district rhetoric fool you – they know exactly what buildings they will close. That list will come out in November.
I am an SPS parent. Nothing is confusing or unclear to me. The district has been perfectly upfront in a series of communications throughout last year that there are budget woes, that school closures need to be considered, and that these meetings are part of taking initial steps to identify factors to consider as they plan closures. Useful reporting would focus on substance and facts about same, rather than accepting Jennifer Matter’s ridiculous fake rants about process. She is the head of the teachers’ union–she does NOT speak for or represent parents AT ALL.
The district agreed to a massively upgraded teachers’ contract that they knew they didn’t have the budget for…and now it’s time to threaten to close schools.