Well-Resourced Schools Update: 9/26/24
Here’s a round-up of what’s been happening with the Well-Resourced Schools proposals since last week:
- 10/1 Update: Brent Jones has sent an email to families identifying that five schools would now be targeted to close for the 2025-2026 school year; the names of schools will be shared at the “end of October”
- Brent Jones sent an email to all families announcing that community meetings would be rescheduled and suggesting an alternate proposal is in the works
- Gina Topp, D6 School Board Director, held her community meeting anyway and it was reported:
- There was great turnout
- Families were able to share feedback
- She shared current plans close too many schools but remains open to closing some schools
- She confirmed Brent Jones is working on an alternate plan with fewer school closures and cutting staff to make up the difference (see below for two possible directions that have been circulating)
- She confirmed an interest to engage with state legislators but also stated SPS’ budget needs to be balanced by the end of the year
- She confirmed a decision has to be made in December to take effect for the 2025-2026 school year
- Media outlets attended the meeting
- SPS added a tool to their website to compare school size against neighboring districts
- Seattle Hall Pass released episodes that cover the School Board’s decision making methodology and a digestible history of how we ended up in this situation
- Community members produced a transcript of the September Board meeting
- Families are learning more about “Three Bells” after SPS quietly introduced the idea during their presentation at the September Board Meeting
- There are new advocacy opportunities to participate in! Learn more on our new comprehensive Advocacy page
- Consider completing this survey produced by SPS parents and community members to better understand the collective community’s opinion on the proposals
- Save the Date for the upcoming Seattle School Board meeting on October 9th where we’ll get more updates direct from SPS
Plan "Cs" or Alternate Plans to Close the Gap
Two plans have been circulated around how to close the gap outside of savings from school closures.
- Note 1: Original Proposal B explicitly included references to staffing cuts, but they were largely unspecified
- Note 2: When presenting Proposals A and B, SPS included information about how the remaining 70% of the budget deficit would be closed, which included some cuts
Plan C1
- Published 8/28/24
- Not included in SPS’ presentation at the September School Board meeting
- Addresses how a 30% budget gap could be closed via cuts (left side) compared to school closures (right side)
- This doesn’t address the remaining 70% of the deficit
- This plan explicitly increases class sizes and reduces Librarian assignments
- At Whittier, this would likely mean losing at least one homeroom teacher and a reduction in library access. Library access could potentially be recovered using PTA funds, but funding a homeroom teacher would be both cost-prohibitive and likely exceed the maximum dollar amount we can contribute to school staffing
- Have opinions on this plan? Email Director Sarah Clark and use SPS’ Let’s Talk link to let them know you’re against bigger class sizes and Librarian staff reductions!
Plan C2
- Presented by SPS during the September Board meeting
- This is aimed to address the remaining 70% of the budget deficit, but could be a framework for increasing these cuts to resolve the 30% intended to be closed via school closures
- Transportation changes refers to a shift to “Three Bells” (learn more below)
- “School Staffing reductions (est. $0-31.6 million)” likely refers to the cuts detailed in plan C1 but could be different
- Here’s more info from Save Seattle Schools blog about this slide
What Are "Three Bells"?
“Bell Times” are what SPS refers to as the start/end times for each school in the district. SPS currently uses two bell times (school start times) for all schools in the district: 7:55am (for elementary schools) and 8:55am (for middle and high schools).
In 2022, SPS announced they would be shifting to three bell times starting in the 2023-2024 school year in an effort to save money on transportation. Here’s an article from 2022 that provides an overview of the proposal and the outcome of community pushback that prevented the change from happening. In the 2022 proposal, a shift to three bells would move schools to 7:25am, 8:25am, and 9:25am school starts. Some elementary schools would start at 7:25am (like Whittier) and other nearby schools would start at 9:25am.
Families pushed back as they were concerned about young children walking to school in the dark, the ability for middle and high school students to participate in after school activities and sports, concern about bus stop schedules shifting far too early for appropriate sleep, and the challenge of providing transportation for families with children at multiple schools.
Most seriously, the proposal would create a significant childcare challenge for elementary school families. In order for the system to work, nearby schools would have to be at different start times (7:25am and 9:25am). This means some families at 9:25am schools would need before care, but families at nearby schools wouldn’t. If there wasn’t a high enough population needing before care or school buildings weren’t set-up to offer before care in the building, childcare providers couldn’t offer it, leaving families without access to childcare when they need it. In addition, childcare providers would be unlikely to be able to provide both before and after care as workers would have to come for an early morning shift, then have a break, and then return at the end of the school day. In short, it seemed like before care would be too challenging for childcare providers to offer unless all elementary schools participated.
Similarly, schools shifted to an early start (and an earlier pick-up) would likely find a need for more after school care. But neighborhood childcare providers were already at capacity, which was often restricted due to building size. How would they absorb more families to provide this necessary childcare? And how could we ensure all this additional childcare would be affordable for families throughout the district?
Because of these issues, SPS tabled the shift in 2022 (although a few schools–including West Woodland–were informed in May 2022 that their school would still shift to an 8:55am bell time anyway). Then, at the September 18th School Board meeting, part of SPS’ presentation included the reference (see the pie charts above) to shifting to three bell times for the 2025-2026 school year. If school closures are pursued, there will be fewer buildings to host before and after school childcare and longer bus rides for students with transportation, meaning the challenges identified in 2022 would be even worse in 2025.
If you have an opinion about a bell time change, be sure to email Sarah Clark asking her to vote “no” on disruptive district proposals that have boundary line changes dividing established communities, bell time changes that can only provide worse outcomes for students and families, and that don’t preserve continuing assignments through middle school that families count on.