(District video of Wednesday night’s board meeting)
By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor
Seattle Public Schools Board directors stopped short of telling Superintendent Dr. Brent Jones to throw out the two closure-plan options he unveiled last week and start over – but at times during their meeting tonight, that seemed like a possibility.
West Seattle/South Park director Gina Topp even tried to propose a resolution asking him to promptly draw up a third option that would close only a handful of schools, but she was ultimately dissuaded, with questions about whether that was appropriate without advance public notice.
The board’s mostly critical words about the “Well-Resourced Schools” plan, meant to shrink the SPS system in hopes of covering up to a third of a nearly $100 million budget gap, followed a presentation by district executives, primarily Dr. Jones and Dr. Marni Campbell, who’s in charge of the plan. (Here’s the slide deck, which also attempted to address some of the concerns/questions they said they’d been receiving.)
The most common concerns were that the plan so far didn’t show a clear path to improved student outcomes – something that is supposed to be driving everything the board does – and isn’t backed up by all the details families need to know about exactly how their children’s educational needs will be met if their school closes or is affected by closures,
Campbell said teams would be formed to plan a “caring transition” for students displaced by closures.
Board director Brandon Hersey insisted, “It has to all come back to the goals.”
The “goals” seemed rooted in numbers as much as anything, based on Campbell’s example of how they arrived at one scenario for this area: The Southwest region is projected to have about 4,500 students, and that means it needs 10 (elementary/K-8) schools instead of 13, Sanislo Elementary, while beloved as Campbell acknowledged, not only wasn’t big enough to be one of those 10 schools, it also was in fairly bad shape. “It’s not so much about wanting to close (a certain school), but, which 10 schoools would better serve the comunity?”
Director Michelle Sarju then offered a concern that other directors shared: How are they possibly going to work through this in just three months, and vote by year’s end? This challenge had been rolling down the track for a long time, as Dr. Jones’ presentation of specific closure proposals was originally expected months ago. She stated flatly that she isn’t sure they can “get this done” in the compressed time frame.
Director Joe Mizrahi pointed out one major missing detail – what would the policy be for kids who want to be allowed to stay at their current school, if it stays open but their attendance-area assignment changes? (Hersey suggested they look at how it’s been done in other districts that have gone through closures.)
That’s when Topp tried to make her motion, observing that so far, “we have to bring community with us, and I don’t think we’ve brought community with us.” She wanted to suggest that the superintendent come up with an Option C closing “four to six schools.” The discussion that ensued over the proper way to bring up a motion at one point suggested a special meeting might be needed; some tension flashed between Topp and board president Liza Rankin over whether Topp would have to find a way to bring forth a proposal whether Rankin would let her or not. (The president insisted she wouldn’t stop Topp from making a motion, though at this meeting, ultimately none was made.)
Director Evan Briggs declared the superintendent’s proposal a “shell … a skeleton” and said some of its explanations seemed like empty “words on a page.”
President Rankin then voiced sharp concerns of her own, declaring the proposals “sheer disruption” for families. In the original timeline, they would have had summer workshops and other additional opportunities to work with community members on planning, but now, “five community meetings are not enough.” And she said the “academic team” should have been at the table, not just the district’s top administrators. Rankin too said she didn’t believe they could work out all the details suitably by December.
Campbell tried to point to some of the data that had been asked about, and said other information would be available next month. Jones then tried to be pragmatic, warning that the work would “take time … if we’re not there yet, we’re not there yet … we’ve done a lot of work, but if we need to do more work …”
Mizrahi echoed Topp’s call for a scaled-down proposal, but again, no motion was brought forward. And Sarju voiced concern that “we’re leaving here without an answer for families,” repeating the time-frame concern, “Here we are trying to crunch into three months what we had nine months to do … this has been an anxiety-producing exercise.”
Briggs then suggested they should “be free to go home now and leave it to staff to figure out what to do next.” Ostensibly that’ll happen before the board’s next meeting, October 9. In the meantime, Topp’s next community conversation and the West Seattle regional community meeting on the closure proposals are both scheduled for one week from tonight – she’ll be at the Admiral (West Seattle) Library, 2306 42nd SW, 5-6 pm September 25, and then the district meeting is at 6:30 pm at Genesee Hill Elementary (5013 SW Dakota).
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