Seattle school closures could hinge on new enrollment, capacity counts

Faced with declining enrollment and a $104.4 million deficit, Seattle Public Schools administrators will roll out a fiscal stabilization plan Wednesday that could pave the way for school closures and consolidations. 

But a newly formed parent group, All Together for Seattle Schools, is demanding the board pause any decision about school closures until after the legislative session this spring, with the hope that the state will increase the district’s funding.

“It’s just way too early for the district to decide on any major budget cuts,” said one of the group’s leaders, Alex Wakeman Rouse. “The state has extra funding, we need to advocate to the state to amply fund public education, we need to know how much revenue the district is actually working with before we commit to any kind of plan that consolidates schools.”

The rallying cry for a pause on school closures comes at a time when the district has been losing students for years. 

Ten years ago, district officials predicted that by 2020, Seattle enrollment would reach 60,000 students. Instead, the district peaked at 56,192 in 2019, according to state enrollment figures, and has seen slumping enrollment ever since due to a declining birthrate, pricey housing that has pushed families to less expensive neighborhoods and an exodus during the pandemic to private schools and home schooling.

This fall there are a total of 50,999 students — including preschoolers and Running Start students — in the district. That’s a drop of more than 5,000 students since 2019, enough to fill nearly half the seats in Memorial Stadium, and down about 9% from the pre-pandemic high. 

To balance the budget and account for declining enrollment, the district will unveil the fiscal stabilization plan during a board meeting Wednesday. That plan could include consolidating some schools.

Asked how the district would make the decisions, district officials did not elaborate, only saying that Superintendent Brent Jones has had conversations with legislative and government leaders, School Board directors, community members and educational leaders, and that he would take into account the effects on students, community and the overall educational system.

Enrollment numbers are just one part of why a school might be on the chopping block. Other factors include the quality of the building, whether the school needs to close to be rebuilt or renovated, whether other schools nearby have the capacity to take in new students, and where growth for future generations of students is predicted. 

Rouse, and others who formed All Together for Seattle Schools, worry that the board will lean toward balancing the budget by shuttering some schools. She began mobilizing after her student’s school, Dunlap Elementary, lost two teachers when the district had to reshuffle teachers and students at dozens of schools six weeks into the school year. She’s recruited almost 60 people to join, although the group’s core is about 10 people, Rouse said. 

Rouse, an analyst for the city of Seattle who helps develop the city’s budget, wants the district to partner with the group, and other families and educators, in the upcoming decisions about closing the budget gap.

She found the district’s attempt to do that this summer at the “well-resourced schools” meetings disillusioning. The meetings were an effort to define what every school needed to offer its students to serve all of their needs, but some saw it as a precursor to potential cuts and consolidations. 

“Our biggest call to action is that we want to be partnered with, we want to be heard and included, we want whatever budget proposals that come down to be co-created by the community,” Rouse said. The group is recruiting families to attend the board meeting at 4:15 p.m. Wednesday at district headquarters, and is raising funds to provide transportation, food and language interpreters to any family in need.

The importance of capacity

One way of looking at whether certain schools are underused is by capacity — how many students a school can physically hold compared with how many students attend.

For example, Licton Springs K-8 school is only 33% filled to its operational capacity. Queen Anne Elementary school is only 43% filled.

In addition, 18 additional schools are less than 65% filled. They include: Adams, John Rogers, Stevens, View Ridge, Wing Luke, Sanislo, Queen Anne, Rainier View, Madrona, Graham Hill, Decatur and Daniel Bagley elementary schools; Blaine K-8, Mercer, Meany, Robert Eagle Staff and Whitman middle schools; and The Center School, a high school.

But Christie Robertson, whose son finished at Licton Springs K-8 last year, says the school can’t be evaluated by a percentage on a spreadsheet.

Her autistic son struggled for years at neighborhood schools, so much so that the family tried home-schooling and online schools. It wasn’t until they found Licton Springs, a small school focused on Native American culture and history in Ballard, that he finally started to thrive.

“He didn’t even really use any special education support there. All he needed was his teachers to not be so reactionary to him,” Robertson said. The small class sizes and calmer learning environment made all the difference, she said, and “he totally completely transformed in a year.”

Robertson said school officials should “have some kind of accounting for who is [at the school] and what it is that is special to the environment. … There are some kids that don’t fit in” at neighborhood schools. 

Parents at The Center School, an alternative arts-focused high school housed in the Seattle Center Armory building, agree. 

Katie Russell, who has a freshman student at The Center School, believes it’s shortsighted to think closing the school will save the district money because kids like hers would need more assistance if they transferred to a larger school.

“My kid, who is really thriving with minimal accommodations now, wouldn’t do well in a big environment at a traditional school and would end up needing an IEP,” Russell said, referring to an individualized education plan, which often requires schools to have additional staff in classrooms to help students.

Mary Park’s daughter struggled academically and socially at a large middle school before she transferred to The Center School, when her grades “improved exponentially year after year.”

Park’s impression is that the school serves neurodivergent, gay, lesbian, queer and trans students very well.

“It’s a haven for kids like that who do need a more supportive, smaller community. Maybe [they] don’t feel safe in a bigger school,” Park said. 

Closing a school can be a controversial, emotional issue. Last spring, Bellevue voted to consolidate two elementary schools, despite community pushback.

“It’s kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Park said of closures. If students hear that a school might close down, they are less likely to enroll there.  

“The rumors go around about it being closed down, so fewer kids enroll and then it’s even more on the chopping block,” Park said. “It’s unfortunate.”

Russell agrees. That’s why she tries to avoid worrying about possible closures until she knows more from the district directly.

“It’s just too stressful feeling worried that your school is going to close,” Russell said. 

Stevens Elementary parents are also anxious about a potential closure. The school, built in 1906 in a neighborhood northeast of Capitol Hill, is considered one of the city’s historic schools, and has high ceilings, hardwood stairways and a classic columned exterior. But enrollment-wise it’s one of the smallest schools in the city, with just 152 students this year.

Allison Augustyn, the advocacy chair of Stevens Elementary’s PTA, acknowledges that moving students to a new school could be the right answer, but feels the district has left her and other families in the dark.

Not knowing about the district’s process “is the problem,” Augustyn said. “I don’t want a move to happen without more clarity around that decision making.” 

Lane Oatey, who has two students at Sand Point Elementary, a school with just over 200 students, hopes the School Board will put a pause on closing schools. 

“I feel like they should separate solving the current budget crisis from a process of discussing school consolidation or addressing under enrollment,” Oatey said. “Although they are related, a lot of the current budget crisis is not because there are too many small schools; it is more related to other structural problems that the district hasn’t been addressing.”

He worries about the ripple effects of closing schools. Many Sand Point students walk to school; if Sand Point shuts its doors, the district might need to provide more buses to transport the students to new schools. 

“If you take away a neighborhood school that is walkable from their community, when you put busing into the picture it is always a challenge to mitigate school absences and tardies,” Oatey said.

Many parents are doubtful that closing schools will actually shrink the budget gap by a significant amount. 

But many of the candidates running for School Board who felt similarly did not win seats in last week’s election. The new board will be sworn in Nov. 29.

Jones has said that consolidating schools would save $20 million, and the savings would materialize in two to five years.