Capitol Hill’s Stevens Elementary and three other Seattle Public Schools campuses targeted for closure in a long and painful system budget process will not be shut down next year, the district has announced. The move as has become the norm with the district’s handling of the closure plans leaves as many questions as answers.

Superintendent Brent Jones announced the full retreat on the shutdown plan as students head into the Thanksgiving holiday this week, saying the months of worry, changing roster of possible closures, and evolving accounting of possible savings from closures “highlighted the need for constructive conversations and collaboration to replace conflict, as meaningful progress for our students requires unity and shared purpose.”

“The projected $5.5 million savings from the proposed closures are significant,” Jones said in the announcement. “However, we agree that achieving these savings should not come at the cost of dividing our community.”

At Stevens on North Capitol Hill, life for the kids continues with hopefully fewer distractions over undoubtedly confusing talk of their small school closing. Announcements for the popular PTA fundraiser holiday tree sale were going out despite the planned closure.

Stevens families were part of groups of parents across the city put on the brink of seeing their neighborhood school shuttered as district officials were at the campus for a question and answer session to explain the planned elimination of the 18th Ave campus. Repeated details from officials that Friday night of the long, multiyear, and seemingly predestined path to shutting down Stevens left many parents frustrated about what would only be around a $1.5 million a year savings, the district said, from the school’s consolidation with nearby Montlake Elementary.

CHS reported here on the questions around the proposed Stevens closure after it emerged as one of four Seattle elementary campuses on a list of planned “consolidations” as the district backed down from an initial plan that could have cut 21 campuses from the system after public outcry.

Officials have said the district would require what could be a series of shutdowns over the coming years. “Schools need to be a certain size” to be efficient and make sure the district is financially viable,” with “appropriate scale, and appropriate design,” one official told Stevens families.

The district had said the decision to close Stevens and the three other elementary campuses was based on criteria including building condition, the “facility’s design in support of all types of learning,” and enrollment and capacity with a threshold requiring a campus to be able to support at least 400 students with space for services and preschool classrooms.

A shutdown would have ended more than 100 years of public education on the campus and the landmarked property where a Stevens school has welcomed children since 1906. The campus buildings have been overhauled and seismically improved in recent decades.

Stevens  reached a peak enrollment of just over 400 in 2013 when the district adjusted area attendance boundaries to address concerns about overcrowding at the school. Its blacktop schoolyard is surrounded by single-family style homes in one of the wealthiest areas of the city.

Cuts in state funding and a forecast for a continued near-term drop in enrollment has the district scrambling to cover what has been expected to be around a $130 million budget deficit for the current school year with continued financial shortfalls expected over coming years.

The announcement from Jones about the pullback on the current shutdown plan said little about what comes next.

Jones said this week the district and the Seattle School Board will “focus on addressing our district’s budget shortfall through legislative and levy renewal advocacy, as well as pursuing operational efficiencies aligned with our shared values and priorities.”

“We also remain committed to addressing the underlying issues that drove this initial proposal,” Jones said. “These challenges remain critical to ensuring the long-term health of our district, and we will continue to work together to find solutions and ensure any adjustments we make are both equitable and sustainable.”

The latest decisions follow strong pushback and criticism of officials and the shutdown process by the All Together For Seattle Schools parent group. Others have threatened a recall against school board president Liz Rankin over the shutdown process.

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