Many months into Seattle Public Schools‘ march toward seemingly inevitable school closures/consolidations to close a budget hole, a few things were clarified at tonight’s School Board meeting. For one, they’re only talking about elementary schools, so the plan that Superintendent Dr. Brent Jones is working on might be more accurately titled “A System of Well-Resourced Elementary Schools.” For two, while they insist there’s no specific list yet, the likelihood is that about 20 of the district’s 70 elementaries will be proposed for closure/consolidation:
But the district’s chief operating officer Fred Podesta insisted, “We weren’t looking for 20 schools to close, we’re looking for 50 schools to keep open.” They also outlined how a “well-resourced school” would be staffed – about 500 students, with full-time art, music, and PE teachers (though not full-time nurses):
The well-resourced schools plan – minus a specific list of schools – was discussed with board members after they moved down to tables with district managers; they voted unanimously at the meeting’s end to accept the plan outline, which was not, it was stressed, an “approval.” First, lots of questions; West Seattle/South Park board director Gina Topp, for example, asked Dr. Jones how he came to decide that closures/consolidations was the way to go. “A smaller footprint is going to allow us to do more things,” he replied. Other board directors asked hypotheticals regarding criteria for choosing which schools would be proposed for changes; the replies seemed to indicate that enrollment size will be the major driver.
Wondering about local elementaries’ sizes? West Seattle/South Park has 11 SPS elementaries – we’ve listed them with the enrollment projections for next year as noted in this budgeting document:
Alki (currently at the former Schmitz Park Elementary building, awaiting its appeal-delayed rebuild/expansion) – 267
Arbor Heights (rebuilt and expanded in the past decade) – 450
Concord International – 264
Fairmount Park (closed in the ’00s, reopened and expanded in the ’10s) – 366
Gatewood – 402
Genesee Hill (rebuilt and expanded in the past decade) – 439
Highland Park – 238
Lafayette – 494
Roxhill at EC Hughes (renovated six years ago) – 240
Sanislo – 164
West Seattle (recently expanded) – 330
So what’s next? Meetings:
We’ll publish the list of community meeting dates and places as soon as it’s made public. Meantime, Dr. Jones spoke repeatedly of bringing a detailed closure/consolidation proposal to the board “sometime next month,” no specific date yet. See tonight’s slide deck in full here. Again, this would be a plan to start in the 2025-2026 school year, NOT next school year.
| 92 COMMENTS