By Aaron Allen, The Seattle Medium
The Seattle Public School Board met last week to discuss and share with the community its plans for building “well resourced” schools throughout the district.
With the district in financial straits but on the mend, Seattle Public Schools (SPS) Superintendent Dr. Brent Jones has had to make some difficult decisions in order to bring balance back to the budget and establish a new fiscal and educational landscape.
According to reports, SPS elementary schools are under-enrolled. Empty classrooms can lead to decreases in staffing, resources and inequitable offerings from school to school. In addition, the lack of students in buildings has attributed to some of the budget challenges the district has faced for quite a few years now.
According to Dr. Jones, the new, well-resourced schools proposal will include a consolidation and closure of up to 20 elementary schools on top of the budget cuts already approved by the district.
“We’ve had a structural budget deficit that we have taken on trying to get rid of that deficit by approaching a balanced budget through a reduction of $131 million last year and we’re going to tackle $105 million this year,” says Jones. “We took a very shrewd approach; we thought through a lot of different scenarios, and we were able to get our budget balanced and we’ll have a submitted balance budget for 2025-26 and we did one last year for 2023-24.”
Among its 104 school buildings, SPS currently has 73 elementary schools that serve students in preschool through 5th grade, 29 of which currently serve less than 300 students.
As part of their well-resourced proposal, SPS will consolidate approximately 70 elementary school sites into 50 well-resourced schools during the 2025-26 school year. Dr. Jones is not recommending any closure for the 2024-25 school year.
Some of the objectives of the proposal, which were derived by input from the community, are to have multiple teachers per grade level, inclusive learning for every student, stable support staff, social and emotional learning support, art, music and PE staffing at each school. In addition, it is designed to provide a stable operational budget, safe, beautiful and healthy school grounds, and preschool in every building and community connection.
“We decided that we needed to look at what does a system of well-resourced schools looks like,” says Jones. “And so, we set out to talk to our community and ask them what a system of well-resourced schools looks like to them?”
“We asked them (students, parents and staff) a set of questions surrounding how we use space, what kind of programs and services do they want, and they came up with some guidance for us,” Jones continued. “This helped us to come up with our definition of a well-resourced school. And to get there, we have to make sure we have enough resources to be able to fund those things that the community wants.”
While the initiative may not be popular with everyone, SPS officials says that consolidation of schools will help provide the comprehensive education that is needed to prepare all students for lifelong success, and prioritize innovative, high-quality schools staffed by exceptional educators.
“This is a huge challenge,” says Beverly Redmond, Communications Director for SPS. “But I’m also embracing and leaning into what can be and that we want our schools to be as strong as they possibly can for every successive generation of Seattle Public School students.”
“I certainly think that this is again an opportunity for us to come together to bring stability, reliability, and predictability to our families,” Redmond continued. “We have watched over the last several years, at least since Dr. Jones has been in office, how many times we’ve had to come back to a board meeting or to a session to hear how staffing has been disrupted or a favorite class has been lost. So, we want to bring that stability to the community.”
According to Redmond, the goal of the district is “to ensure every student receives a world class education tailored to their academic, social and emotional needs.”
Change is challenging and the School Board is a firm believer that although this transition can be difficult for some staff and families, it will benefit everyone in the long run.
“We’re trading up into something better right now,” says Jones. “We’re disrupting business as usual, but we’re replacing it with something better. And so, this could actually be a game changer for us as we go forward.”
Dr. Jones and his staff plan to present their preliminary recommendations to the school board in June, the school board will then take the recommendations under consideration and provide community members and stakeholder an opportunity to provide feedback.
“We hope the community is able to join us for one of the upcoming informational community meetings,” says Jones. “To ensure SPS families have the greatest opportunity to take part, each meeting will present the same information but be held in locations around the district.”
“The community’s vision will provide a foundation to frame challenges and opportunities for SPS in the coming years,” added Jones. “It will help guide future strategic planning and resource allocation decisions, including funding for Well-Resourced Schools, SPS Funding Our Future planning, renewal of the Seattle Excellence Strategic Plan, and the BEX VI Levy.”