Tomorrow night (Tuesday, March 31), new Seattle Public Schools Superintendent Ben Shuldiner is scheduled to make the West Seattle stop on his districtwide community-engagement tour. One of the issues he is likely hear about: Prospective staffing cuts at West Seattle High School. Though enrollment at WSHS continues to grow – as we’ve reported, portable classrooms have been added to hold everyone – there is concern the district is basing its decisions on faulty data. The West Seattle High School PTSA is leading a campaign to help get this message to district leadership. The following is from a letter they’re sending to the superintendent:

We are members of the West Seattle High School PTSA and our broader community. Together, we ask you to meet with the West Seattle High School’s SEA (Seattle Education Association) representatives regarding their request to discuss the projected enrollment calculations that will cause cuts in our school staffing and make it unfeasible for our school to implement a functioning Master Schedule for the 2026-2027 school year.

SPS’s current enrollment calculations indicate that WSHS will lose teachers, classes and education supports in the 2026-2027 school year that are essential to the academic success, access to equity and emotional well-being of our kids. For many students, these educators and opportunities are the reason they come to school.

The prospect that WSHS may lose art and CTE classes, our care coordinator and social worker, and that all subjects may be overenrolled due to SPS’s enrollment projects is very frustrating. The enrollment estimates on which SPS is considering these steps seem to ignore the following.

– Madison Middle School (our main feeder) currently has 40 more students in their 8th grade class compared to the previous year.
– There are 65 students on the WSHS waitlist, currently.
– SPS is projecting that WSHS will have 10 fewer students in 2026-2027.
– The projected 1 teacher to 180 students class size ratio is well above the 1 to 150 figure in the SEA Collective Bargaining Agreement and would not permit the creation of a functioning master schedule.

West Seattle High School has been over-enrolled and SPS has not adjusted our FTEs appropriately many times over the past decade. The West Seattle High School community appreciates the challenges of determining how to fund schools before knowing final enrollments. However, we are discouraged by the consistent inability of SPS’s budget development and re-allocation processes to provide adequate staffing and resources to our school. As [a letter from teachers] notes, we believe a root cause of this issue is the opaque data and projections used to make these estimates.

Recently, when WSHS enrollment has been miscalculated or our school’s schedules have been changed without consultation, our students, parents and teachers have attended SPS Board meetings and taken other means to share our experiences. We would all much rather be focused on educating our children and continuing to nurture our community, but we will make
ourselves heard again if necessary. We are aware that other schools may experience greater underfunding due to this situation than WSHS. However, we believe that continuing to share our perspective about the flaws in the budget allocation process should benefit the whole SPS community.

Respectfully, we urge you to grant the WSHS SEA representatives’ request for a meeting to discuss and mitigate our school’s enrollment projections and budget allocations. Further, we hope this situation is an opportunity for SPS to provide greater transparency regarding the data and assumptions that drive a budgeting process that has undermined student success at WSHS and other schools across the district for many years. We would welcome the opportunity to discuss these matters further.

WSHS is not alone in facing potential cuts, as the district is continuing to work toward a balanced budget; WSHS PTSA president Paul Bugala tells WSB, “The WSHS PTSA is very aware that other schools will be worse off if the SPS budget process follows its course. As the letter notes, we hope giving our perspective about the enrollment projection process and amplifying the voices of our teachers will be helpful for the whole SPS community.”

SUPERINTENDENT’S TUESDAY EVENT: Regardless of your interest in/issue with SPS, all are welcome at the superintendent’s Tuesday night event, 6:30 pm at West Seattle Elementary (6760 34th SW).