Seattle's school closure proposal is a really dumb way to make policy
It puts school closures ahead of much more important policy decisions, and it is a poor way to solve budget problems.
Seattle Public Schools officials want to close seven schools by next fall and use the savings to close the district’s budget gap, but using budget problems to make policy changes that will affect neighborhoods for years to come is a dumb way to raise money. And a really dumb way to make policy.
The District pleads necessity — the need to close a 2009-10 budget gap predicted at $24 million with worst-case scenarios (state-level cuts) taking it past $40 million. That doesn’t make the proposal any smarter. And the money saved, estimated by Seattle School District officials at $2.1 million to $4.2 million per year for seven elementary-sized school buildings on the discard list, isn’t much — particularly at the low end of the range — compared to the disruption (and possible enrollment loss) of closing schools and moving school programs from place to place like so many houses and hotels on a Monopoly board. Here's the list of closures and program shifts.
One good sign from a Tuesday night school board work session on the proposals, put forward by Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson, was the apparent skepticism of school board members during the four-hour discussion. The plan is not likely to be approved as proposed, though it’s too early to tell which school communities have the voice to influence the plan and what exactly will change. Meanwhile, there’s a clutch of reasons why the whole plan should be delayed until the school board deals with other policy decisions that should come before school closure decisions.
The assignment plan. Changes in the student assignment plan were delayed when Goodloe-Johnson arrived two years ago so she could put her mark on the new system. Enough waiting. Time for the board to step up. What Seattle needs is an assignment plan based on where families with children actually live, a neighborhood-schools plan where students are assigned to the closest school and required to go there — with some options for alternative schools and kids from low-income families to move around. Until this is done, you don’t rationally know which schools to close. And considering falling housing prices, wouldn’t it be smart to expect kids to return to the south end and Central Area where enrollment has fallen lately?
Cut busing. A neighborhood-based assignment plan, as above, would cut busing costs, saving about as many dollars predicted for the superintendent’s school-closure plan. In fact, some of the program changes in the plan (moving APP from a closed Lowell, moving Summit all the way to the Rainier Beach High School Building) may increase busing costs.
Bilingual education. The district is developing a new way to deliver bilingual education, and this program should be completed before buildings are closed or programs are moved. The system Seattle uses now to help newcomers learn English is about the most expensive imaginable. It’s heavy on staff and it relies on bilingual instructional aides scattered across the district, to help kids in a variety of languages. More centralized, intensive instruction to raise English language learners to a higher level before sending them out to regular schools could save significant labor cost — and fill a school building or two. Closing schools now may preclude some bilingual program options.
Stop confounding capital and operating budgets. Goodloe-Johnson’s plan has the condition of buildings as a primary criterion, arguing that closing them would save capital expenditures later on. But since the mid 1990s the district has had a clear, ongoing program of capital-funded major maintenance. New buildings abound and overall building condition is up since then. Capital maintenance is voter-funded and can be used to do the work on buildings the district decides to operate because they’re the best for neighborhood cohesion and school programs. In other words, where buildings are located is always more important to educational programs than building condition. Nor does the capital saving of closing a building that needs maintenance help close the current expense educational programs budget gap.
Here are two other thoughts about the new proposal. First, the plans put on the table Tuesday night did not include creation of any more K-8 schools. The decision to move Summit and put a K-8 in the Addams building was made earlier in the month. Since K-8s are practically parents’ favorite thing, any school closure plan should create more K-8s, say at Meany, a good-sized building now a middle school. In the Superintendent’s plan Meany is wasted as the new home for two programs that don’t really need to move there.
The plan also in a way signals the end of Seattle’s alternative school movement, or at least the failed options among those in the experiment, and that’s probably good. The Goodloe-Johnson plan kills outright AS #1, and the African American Academy, mostly for poor academic achievement, and moves Summit from the far north to the far south — a thinly disguised poison pill. The board should also take note of the successes in this 30-year experiment: TOPS and Salmon Bay, both K-8s, and NOVA and the Center School, both notably small high schools. These programs are not cookie crumbs dropped on the trail supposed to lead us out of the woods. These are big, lighted highway signs.
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Comments:
Posted Wed, Nov 26, 10:50 a.m. inappropriate
One of the reasons enrollment in central and south schools is so low is that most middle-class and affluent parents (mostly, but not entirely, white) in these parts of the city have little faith in most of the neighborhood schools as they currently exist. The few public schools that do have a good reputation, lots of parent involvement, etc, in the south end (for example, Orca and Kimball elementaries) are bursting at the seams. The school district's all-city enrollment policy means that parents in central and south Seattle can--and do--send their kids all the way across town for school, particularly middle and high school. Or else find a way to pay for private school. This is a big part of why enrollments are so tight in the north and so low in the south. The numbers are slanted in the elementary grades and are even more so for middle and high school.
Dr. G-J has spent quite a bit of time in the last year coming to the south end and asking parents what it would take to bring kids back to the neighborhood schools in this part of town. My take is that several parts of this plan (Summit to RB, APP to Hawthorne among them) is that it's a bold move to get central and south families back into the local public schools. Bringing in established parallel programs may be the only way to do it. Sad to say but it does work--look at Garfield and Graham Hill.
I have NO DOUBT that parents of current APP and Summit students will balk and balk hard against the proposed moves. Let them. Their neighborhoods already have a dozen great schools to choose from; let their kids get reassigned. Good luck and godspeed. If Goodloe-Johnson can pull it off and actually get the Summit K-12 program in place at Rainier Beach or another south city location, my guess is that there will be great demand from people down here who *also* don't want to send their kids across town for school--middle and high school in particular.
Posted Wed, Nov 26, 12:47 p.m. inappropriate
Angie has it exactly correct. As a long time South Seattle resident and parent and grandparent of public school students I agree with her analysis of the enrollment problems in the South End.
The movement to close schools is primarily a political response to the know-nothings in the Seattle power structure who have routinely been demanding it, the Seattle Times Editorial Board especially Joni Balter, Norm Rice and his rancid spawn Greg Nickels and assorted business leaders and groups. By picking off a few weak schools the District buys relief for a few months from the incessant attacks by these societal parasites until they ramp up the pressure again.
Posted Wed, Nov 26, 4:18 p.m. inappropriate
What population of parents has Dr. G-J been talking to? Parents of children already in the public system, or parents of private school kids saying, "if you had X,Y&Z;, like the private school does, maybe I'd send my kid there? Angie, your presumptive "take", and "guess" that demand would increase, don't justify ripping kids out of successful programs in hopes that they'll reconstitute elsewhere and be okay. What if your "guess" is wrong? Should we base policy decisions on presumptions and guesses?
I support any policy that makes progams like APP available to more kids at their local schools, North, South, East and West. But this proposal tears apart successful programs instead of fixing the failing ones. From your comments, it seems the Robin Hood approach of taking from supposedly affluent "(mostly, but not entirely white)" North-end kids, to give to underprivileged South end kids is fine with you. If I'm catching your drift, it saddens and sickens me.
When can we dump the idea that top-down social engineering is going to solve these inequities? Didn't we learn anything from mandatory bussing?
Posted Wed, Nov 26, 7:38 p.m. inappropriate
The affluent kids in the north end have an abundance of good choices. One of the major reasons why schools in the south end generally suck is that the middle-income and affluent families have abandoned them. I think (hope) GJ is trying to get them to come back. Robin Hood isn't even part of it.
Look at the economic demographics of the public schools and the communities around them. This may be a surprise to you, but there are quite a few well-off neighborhoods south of downtown. Leschi, Madrona, Beacon, Columbia City, Lakewood, Seward Park. But the overwhelming majority of kids in the public schools down here qualify for free lunch. This is a huge problem for our community and if G-J can get things moving in the right direction, she's a real hero.
Hey, if you think you can do a better job running the school system, run for the board.
Posted Thu, Nov 27, 10:20 a.m. inappropriate
Angie, my point is: when something works, don't fix it; try to duplicate it in other places. Looking at what capacities will be if APP moves to Marshall and Hawthorne shows that the program won't be able to expand beyond the walls of those schools. So this proposal does not expand the program.
The free lunch stats are symptoms of larger socioeconomic problems that are outside the school system's mission to solve. Certainly well-nourished kids perform better in school, and having those programs administered through the schools is a good thing, even though feeding kids should not be the school's responsibility. (That lies with the larger community and society in general.)
But how will any of that change if APP moves into the neighborhood? It seems your hope is that if APP moves in, more affluent families will send their kids back to the public school, which in turn, makes things look better as test scores may rise, but how does that, in and of itself, help the population of failing kids in failing schools? Without vast improvement in gen. ed. teachers, staff and administrators, and delivering a better gen. ed. product, how can we expect the less fortunate kids to do better? Won't we just be housing two distinct, separately performing populations under the same roof? I don't predict that would be very harmonious. In fact, I predict severe turf wars will harm both programs and alienate more people. That's my worry.
But look: I hope I'm wrong. I am sorry the Southend schools suck and shame on the people in charge to date. But I don't see this proposal doing much about that. But again, should it go through, I hope you are right and I am wrong. But history, I believe, is on my side. John Stanford made exactly the opposite move for a reason.
Posted Thu, Nov 27, 3:48 p.m. inappropriate
For all those people who think that north end schools are rich and filled with kids who were born with a silver spoon in their mouths, this is the letter AS#1's equity committee submitted to the school board, asking it not to close AS#1...
The AS#1 Equity Committee is a school based group that includes parents, teachers, and staff of Alternative School #1 who are actively working to dismantle institutional racism at the school and beyond, and to bringing an equity lens to all we do at the school. We are writing to you to urge you not to close AS#1. It is imperative that AS#1 continue to serve those vulnerable students for whom traditional schools are not a good fit and who are reliant on the Seattle Public Schools as their best hope for a meaningful education and a fair shake for a good future.
AS#1 is a school where a diversity of families for whom traditional schools are not a good fit have found a home, a safe space, a place to flourish and learn and succeed. We ask that you prioritize equity as you decide which schools to close and move beyond looking at schools as numbers of seats to looking at who the children are who are filling those seats, and looking at how successful the school is at serving the needs of those children, and looking at what other options there are for those children to receive the kind of education that they have chosen at AS#1 and that works for them. We ask that you recognize that education is not a one size fits all proposition and that equity means that every child gets an education that works for them, not that every child gets the same education.
That AS#1 provides a home for nontraditional families including families with a gay or trans-gender student or parents, families of color and multiracial families, families with students with learning disabilities, and low income families, is not an accident. This is at the heart of what AS#1 is about. At the center of all of the wonderful experiential learning in service to academic rigor that happens at AS#1 is the bolstering and supporting of every child's positive sense of her/himself, and a deep and abiding respect for the inherent value of each student --All of this within an overarching commitment too equity and justice in all things we do.
Please consider that:
Of the alternative schools in the north end, AS#1 and Summit (a school already slated for relocation at best, with a possibility of closure), include 37% and 49% students of color compared to 20% and 22% students of color at Thornton Creek and Salmon Bay; AS#1 and Summit include 40% and 49% of students qualifying for free and reduced lunch compared to 8% at Thornton Creek and Salmon Bay; and AS#1 and Summit include 48% and 58% of students who are not living with both parents, compared to 4% and 19% at Thornton Creek and Salmon Bay. Which schools and which families need the most support?
17% of the students at AS#1 have special education needs and 40% of the middle school students at AS#1 have special education needs. This is more than triple to ten times the percentage of students with IEPS at other north end schools where the average is 4-8%. AS#1's commitment to mainstreaming and inclusion and hands-on, field trip-based instruction has proven to be especially appropriate, effective, and appreciated by families with students with learning disabilities. What other schools in the Seattle School District share this commitment to inclusion and hands on learning at the core of their program?
Families that include gay children or parents feel very welcome and safe at AS#1. Gay and transgender staff, teachers and families are always a strong part of the school community.
· AS#1 includes a high percentage of multiracial families who find that their children have a peer group and are supported at the school –invaluable for these children as they come into their own sense of self and identity.
· The air is different at AS#1 because it is a school that is doing the work of undoing institutional racism and examining what equity means in everything we do –kids, families and staff can feel safe in bringing their full and authentic selves to school and so the kids have a greater opportunity to inhabit their full potential.
More than any public school we know, AS#1 is a place where the things that matter most in life are the things that matter most. What would it mean to the Seattle School District to close the one school that is at the forefront of intentionally and actively doing the work of undoing institutional racism, keeping equity up front, and closing the achievement gap? And what message does this send to the community?
Please do not close AS#1, for the sake of the current and future students who need the kind of education that only AS#1 provides. For most families at AS#1, private school and home schooling are not options that they can afford to consider. Please keep equity up front and see the people behind the numbers.
Posted Thu, Nov 27, 4:11 p.m. inappropriate
It isnt that AS#1 and Summit perform poorly academically - our kids dont perform badly - we use different yardsticks to measure their progress...
At AS#1 for example, the decision by many parents not to have their children take the WASL skews statistics so that it appears this school is underperforming. However, many kids go on to be honours students in high school...
And, of course, Title 1 money is linked to WASL performance - poor WASL stats means less federal money for the school ...
AS#1 has chosen to accept that consequence - it has made the hard choice to maintain our educational integrity by doing without or cutting back on some ancillary services, such as having a school nurse, for example...
As for AS#1 being at Stage 4 in the 'no child left behind' classification - the school just found itself placed there when that debacle began... it has never been classified at Stage 1, 2, or 3... and now its unfairly branded as being academically sub-par because a bunch of irrelevant criteria are being applied to it.
As to the state of the building - the District has done no major maintenance for years. There have been substantial improvements made which have been funded by parents.
And, though the Board has defaulted on maintenance and now says the school building is not suitable for children, in the past two weeks, work has been going on to instal fibre optics cables - how crazy is that???
The whole thing is a con job to slowly ease true, site-based, democratic alternative education out of the district...
And the ultimate irony in the AS#1 -WASL conundrum, is that we now have a new Superintendent of Instruction who says he's going to get rid of the WASL beast anyway!
Posted Fri, Nov 28, 1:40 p.m. inappropriate
Here's a comment from Leslie Varney, sent to the editor:
I appreciate your input via Crosscut and agree with most of what you say, but I have to take exception to your characterization of AS#1 as a school with poor academic achievement, for several reasons. I don't have enough experience with the African American Academy to speak to whether it is a success or not, but with one former student from AS#1 and another current student there, I do feel I have experience to comment on that.
I currently have a child in his first year of Nathan Hale High School who spent 1-8 at AS#1. When placed in Math 9, he discovered that this was stuff he had learned two years before at AS#1. After a month and a half of him dealing with the boredom of this, they finally moved him up to Math 10 and by the end of this year, he will be where he was at the end of last year at AS#1. This past quarter, he had four B's and one A, which I consider quite high marks for someone making such a large transition. I have chatted with several of his teachers who have commented on how insightful and interesting he is to have in class.
Nor is he alone is this. I own a coffee shop across the street from Nathan Hale High and talk with students from there every day. The school closures have been much discussed recently and I have heard over and over from students who have never attended AS#1 how unfortunate it is, since students who come from there do so well in academics once they reach Nathan Hale.
Most students who attend AS#1 do not take the WASL. They opt out for various reasons, as is their legal right. For each student who does not participate, a zero is averaged in for the overall school grade. This has lead to the incorrect impression that AS#1 is an academically poor performing school.
I would love for you to talk with parents and students concerning their experiences with AS#1. I understand that it's academic progresses might be harder to evaluate, but that does not make those progresses any less valid.
Posted Fri, Nov 28, 3:57 p.m. inappropriate
Other than closing schools what has Maria offered?
Some ideas
- Use the ITBS instead of the WASL test.
- Fund preparation/management time for the teachers instead of having so many teacher days off.
-Close the school district television production department. If needed show the school board meetings on the city public access channel.
-Stop feeding the district during meetings. Let them eat a candy bar of their own.
-Dump the Source web site. The teachers do not get paid to do it anyway. And it is rarely up-to-date, causing emotional grief.
-Scale down the remodeling to a reasonable level. Fewer "historical" remodels which leave a veneer of old bricks on a new building.
-Start middle and high school later so it is easier for the kids to use public transportation in the daylight.
-Pay elementary principals an appropriate wage. They are not managing thousands of people, they should not make over 100K.
-Stop hiring political allies at the district.
Posted Sat, Nov 29, 9:06 p.m. inappropriate
Angie -
I am a lower-middle class, single, north end parent of an APP student. I agree with much of what you have to say about the schools in the south end. I want to point out that I and many parents I have spoken with are much less concerned about where the APP program is located than with what the move and split will ultimately do to the program. I would not mind driving my child across town to a successful Lowell APP program, but the proposed plan completely tears the APP program apart. Sending each half of the program to house with an existing and completely different program will kill the APP program and may bring chaos and tension to the schools that house it.
Lowell is much more than an accelerated classroom; It's a school-wide program that works because it extends into every facet of the day. It is alternative in nature, with a heavy social justice curriculum, and an emphasis on individual accountability (students move around quite freely). While this works great as a whole school, it might be quite disruptive when half a school is operating under one method and the other half is operating under a different, possibly more stringent set of rules. Breaking the APP program up will kill it and it truly is a beautiful program. Sure, maybe it needs to move south and yes, it definitely needs to have better racial representation by having more minority students IN the program rather than sitting in a school next to it), but why kill a really great program by breaking it up?
Posted Sun, Nov 30, 12:12 a.m. inappropriate
I think during all the discussions surrounding the future of the APP program, the Seattle School leaders forgot to seriously consider the well being of the children. They are not pawns in a strategy to balance a budget or fix schools that are broken. They are little people with a love of learning that cannot be successfully nutured in ordinary schools – children in the APP program work 2-3 grade levels higher than their own.
My children were raised with the advantage of love, security and books. Our ethnic background and geographical location have absolutely nothing to do with their academic abilities. It is a gift they were born with and it should not be looked at as an unfair privledge or elitest.
We’ve learned from the past that busing doesn’t work. We can not compare the success of Garfield, a high school, to an elemetary school. Children this young should not spend 2-3 hours on a bus each day. And how involved will parents be when the school is 15 miles away plus traffic?
Compromising is always necessary when dealing with problems. If Lowell truly cannot stay open due to building safety concerns, then split APP in to a North and South program. Utilize half of Thornton Creek for APP or create an advanced learning school within Jane Adams grades 1-8 to eleviate the overcrowding in the elementary schools, Eckstein and Washington.
As parents we need to make sacrifices, but we shouldn’t sacrafice our children. What kind of school system would we have if we dismantled successful programs and ignored the capabilities of our advanced learners?
Posted Mon, Dec 1, 6:43 a.m. inappropriate
Under the Seattle School Board own closure guidelines/criteria, its clear that AS#1 @ Pinehurst must stay open because:
1: Geographic & Proximity. Closing AS#1 would destroy the capacity plan that was just passed because closing AS#1 contributes to, rather than eliminates, the over capacity problem in the N, NE and NW.
Closing AS#1 and moving Summit so far south displaces as many as 600 students (200 AS#1 pupils and an estimated 400 Summit students who wont move with the school), plus depriving another 200-300 current students and 2009/10 kindergarteners of an alternative school choice, because there is no room in other central-north non-traditional programmes (Thornton Creek, Salmon Bay, TOPs, Bagley's Montessori, the International School - see 2008/09 waitlist numbers for an indicator of how many children missed out on a non-traditional programme place).
Closing AS#1 does nothing to increase capacity because the numbers are being double counted: If Jane Addams (32 classrooms) is set up as a mushroom model then there are no rooms available for other, new k-8 classrooms: 12 will already be taken up by TC (K-5), 10 taken up by Autism, 8 taken up by AS#1 (K-8) which only leaves 1 classroom left over for excess NE capacity.
The Decatur and Pinehurst buildings will be available, but at approximately 600-seats, they're insufficient to handle the over capacity - the majority of Summit students, now homeless because they dont want to move south to RBHS and the existing middle school overflow from the rest of the N and NE... Northgate and Olympic Hills cannot take in all of that overflow...
And that's not even counting the spaces needed for the 2009/10 kindergarten influx, which, with the current surge in population in the north end, will probably outstrip the numbers of children graduating from the elementary and middle school communities...
2: Geographic & Proximity. The new Decatur contemporary K-5 will be filled with NE families on day one. Olympic Hills and Northgate spaces have also been promised to NE families for capacity relief.
3: Cost Per Pupil. The AS#1 building/programme excess capacity could be taken up with displaced Summit families who do not want to move out of the area, thereby resolving the cost per pupil issue.
4: Cost per pupil. AS#1 accepts that all city draw transportation would end. Future transportation would be included for N, NE, NW only.
5: Access to Programs. There is high demand for alternative schools in the north, north east and north west of the city. There would still be no leftover capacity at Salmon Bay and Thornton Creek with the removal of 800+ alternative seats from the North end. (600 current students at Summit plus 270 capacity at AS#1). This would negatively impact the choices for incoming families.
6: Access to Programs. AS#1 (and Summit) serves an important equity function as evidenced by the higher number of minority and free/reduced school lunch students at the schools.
7: Academic Performance. AS#1 is performing well, under the Alternative Schools check list developed by the district.
AS#1's academic achievement scores are negatively skewed by incomplete and misleading WASL statistics. Many AS#1 parents choose not to have their children take the WASL - which is their legal right - because they believe it is a poor mechanism for measuring educational progress. The new Superintendent of Instruction has signaled his intention to abandon the WASL.
8: Academic Performance:
Under NCLB criteria, AS#1 was classified at Stage 4 without ever having passed through Stages 1, 2 and 3 and being given the opportunity and assistance to address those areas where it was deemed to be performing insufficiently.
Now the programme is being closed whilst it still is only at Stage 4, whereas other programmes in the District already at Stage 5 (mandatory restructuring/closure) are being left intact.
9: Academic Performance:
The District should wait until it has completed an alternative schools audit before making determinations about whether or not to continue the AS#1 program.
10: Consequence - assignment/placement plan failure. 50% of Viewlands families did not go where the district reassigned them last round of school closures. In that entire school closure process, 20% of displaced families didnt enrol where they were assigned, and 10% left SPS altogether.
11: Consequence - forcing families and education funding out of the District. Closing a north building will ensure that Shoreline will get more North End families, which means less money for the district.
12. Consequence - Unnecessary disruption. It becomes a game of musical chairs, where anyone moving into the AS#1 building will displace the current population without giving them anywhere else to go. You will only be switching homeless populations by keeping Pinehurst open but discontinuing AS#1.
Posted Mon, Dec 1, 4:21 p.m. inappropriate
Well put my3sons. But Kris's comments right before yours, are right on the mark as well. Lowell is a community that should not be split up. I fear even more Northend/Southend turf wars should that happen, and we'll be right back at the table in 2 or 3 years with another set of problems.
The right thing to do is expand APP without tearing apart the all-city draw at Lowell. Having my kids attending school with kids from all over the city is a great experience. The Southend kids deserve better schools. But can we not address that need without cannibalizing another thriving program?
Posted Tue, Jan 6, 1:47 p.m. inappropriate
Angie: I sense that we have like-minded goals- a healthy public school system and increasing school enrollment throughout the city, with state dollars following those potentially expanding enrollments. However, your solution of spreading out high achieving students to other schools like pawns on a chessboard has already been tried and doesn’t work.
Don’t get me wrong, I wish it would work. The current school proposal is not unlike the rebalancing efforts of busing, shifting students around the City to achieve balanced enrollments and "equity." I, like many others, initially believed in busing as a means for desegregation. Busing was appealing in its idealism and straightforwardness. Unfortunately, as we now know, the national experiment of busing in the 70s and 80s just led to more families leaving the school district, leaving those students, (mostly minority) who could not afford to move or go to private school, in worse shape. African-American leaders eventually came out against busing, as they saw the burden of long bus rides falling disproportionately on minority students. In school districts that clung onto busing far longer than they should have, schools became even more segregated as minorities outnumbered the few whites that remained. Again, African-American leaders questioned the benefit of having classrooms shared with a just a few white students, if the schools were still starving for resources, good teachers and enrollment numbers.
Growing school districts are healthy school districts. Our Seattle School District enrollment is extremely low given the population of our city of nearly 600,000. Historically, we now have approximately the same number of students as we did in the early 1920s when the population of Seattle was only 315,320. We are far from the peak of 100,000 students in 1964 when there was a smaller general population. The only lower enrollment than now was in the post-busing era of the early 80s. We have one of the highest private school enrollment percentages (1 in 4 school age children) in the nation.
School closure "fire drills" and reconfiguration proposals every few years give the impression of a dysfunctional and unstable school district. Nobody can plan for 12 years of educating their children. Seattle Schools are not bad, they suffer from a crisis in confidence. Parents choose other options and school enrollment goes down, the district loses revenues and another round of school closures is necessary. It's a vicious cycle. The 2006 school closures triggered a 20.7% enrollment decline among affected students; using 2007-08 per-student funding estimates of $4,600, revenue loss of the current closure proposal may total upwards of $38 million.
We have seen it happen across the nation where negative school perceptions leave urban school districts poor and predominantly minority, even in cities that are wealthy and racially balanced. For their remaining minority students, these struggling school districts never recover as they face budget crises and School Superintendents who rotate in and out every few years.
Your suggested approach of co-housing successful parallel programs in South-end schools has initial appeal and it feels like it should work. Afterall, it works at Garfield, a sought after school in the CD with a waitlist. However, grade schools, with small children just discovering their identities, are a different animal. Please (re)-read John Stanford’s justification for moving the APP out of Madrona to its own self-contained site. Superintendent Stanford noted that the disparities between the two programs were not lost on the minority children of Madrona, and he did not want to sacrifice their developing self-esteem to a theoretical benefit of being co-housed with a popular program. Your reference to Graham Hill is unclear to me since I don’t recall its successful preschool and Montessori program being moved in from a North-end school.
We can fix our current overcapacity problems but we can't do it on the backs of successful schools like Lowell and Washington, schools which will fuel the long-term growth of the Seattle School District. If the school district shrinks and bond measures fail, we will always be going back to the table for further school closures, program cuts and further fights over an ever-shrinking pie. Well-intentioned administrators will continue to devise solutions to balance enrollment and shrinking budgets among the few public schools that remain. But we must understand there will be less to go around with the approach of letting the upper and middle income families slip away from the public schools.
To break this cycle, people need to see that the Seattle School District is a high achieving and stable school district which they can count on for twelve years of predictable education, not tumultuous disruption every few years. I’m no math whiz but it seems that if just 1/4 of those private school families returned to the public schools, that our capacity problem and financial problems could vanish.
One last point: The above assumes that capacity is the issue here, not some other agenda. However, if capacity were the real issue, I think that the school district would propose the simplest solutions, disrupting the fewest students by combining nearby under enrolled schools, building a few temporary classrooms at overenrolled sites, and transferring small programs that take up many classrooms. I sense a different agenda is driving the school district plan, one that seeks to solve society's ills by placing high achieving students in underperforming schools, by operating under the cover of balancing capacity throughout the district.
Yes, let's do better at recruiting minorities to magnet programs at APP and throughout the City. But let's not get bogged down in wholesale disruption that leads to disenrollment of our schools and lawsuits. Public Universities and Public employers have had to boost their minority recruiting efforts in the post-Proposition 200 atmosphere, and in many cases they have been successful. I think we can be successful too and also grow our Seattle School Enrollment in the process. We need to bolster the District’s reputation. When Garfield and Washington music programs win national honors and produce a record number of National Merit Scholars, parents ...
Posted Tue, Jan 6, 1:55 p.m. inappropriate
(cont.) take notice. These are indisputable facts that rebut mistaken perceptions that Seattle Schools are second rate.
I am for excellence for all, the weighted student formula and outreach/recruiting of bright minority students to magnet programs. We can accomplish excellence for all children by specific measures and growing a well-respected, high achieving school district. We shouldn't do it by moving high achieving children around the City like pawns on a chessboard. I don’t want to see the current proposal, which will disrupt APP at the Elementary and Middle School levels, have a negative effect on perceptions of our great schools and teachers here in Seattle.
--tadd