Seattle Public Schools considers closing at least 17 schools to help $100M deficit, low enrollment

SEATTLE — Seattle Public Schools (SPS) is considering shutting down at least 17 schools next school year to help address its $100 million deficit and low enrollment.

On Wednesday, the district released its “System of Well-Resourced Schools” initiative, which includes two options that aim to address the issues.

Option A would close 21 schools and save the district around $31.5 million. Fifty-two schools would remain open.

Option B is a little different.

The proposal would keep 56 schools open and shut down 17 schools. This plan would save Seattle Public Schools around $25.5 million.

“We have a great deal of many schools that are operating not at full capacity,” said Marni Campbell, Well-Resourced Schools officer for SPS.

Several schools are listed in both options, including McGilvra Elementary School and Catharine Blaine K-8 School.

“I do think it’s taking away safety to some degree because you have to go relearn the new community whether you’re a student, a parent, a faculty. There’s a huge cost and time suck of going in and having to do that whole thing over,” said John Lorton, a father.

Alice Appleton, whose son attends McGilvra Elementary School, said she fears at-risk students across the district will fall through the cracks since there would be fewer schools to meet each community’s unique needs.

“This has been very top-down. It’s very operationally focused. This has been a one size fits all. Let’s put a factory farm model of a school on top of an incredibly diverse and beautiful and different community where students have lots of unique and different needs,” she said. “The idea that you’re going to have no choice. You’re going to go to your neighborhood school. And that’s all you get, and each neighborhood school is exactly the same, and it’s this large-scale operation where people won’t actually know your kid.”

Parents of students at Catharine Blaine K-8 School said the possible closure does not seem to align with the City of Seattle’s investment in Magnolia Community Center, which is connected to the school.

“It centers around this community center. It centers around this school. To have a shuttered school, but to still have a community center that the City is pouring millions of dollars into retrofitting and making more modern makes zero sense,” said Michelle Dunlop, a mother.

The plans have been in the works for at least a year and a half, Campbell said, however, the district has been discussing this topic for almost two decades.

According to SPS, the district’s enrollment in 2024 significantly decreased to 48,000 students from 94,042 students in 1964.

The district’s 117 school buildings in 1964 also declined to 104 school buildings in operation in 2024, according to the district’s website.

Campbell said the district had considered several factors when it created its two options.

“Which are the ones that are going to best serve our students? Either, is the building condition, the right size, and distributed correctly around the district? It was really looking more at, we need 12 schools in this part of this city. What are the 12 schools that are going to best be the places for our students to learn and grow?” she shared.

KIRO 7 News asked the district if teachers, staff members, and faculty could face layoffs within its plans.

“We know that we’re taking cuts. We took cuts this year. That is again part of the reality of living in a time of an operating deficit, but no I would not say, I’m not in the position to say if we’re having layoffs,” Campbell said.

However, parents like Andrea Larson said the changes would still affect teachers as many would have to shift around or welcome more students in their classes.

“It’s a really horrible way to treat teachers that have been loyal and teaching this district essentially for their entire career,” she said.

The student-to-teacher ratio would not increase next school year, Campbell said. She also anticipates that the plan would not require more buses or bus drivers, she added.

“The teachers follow the students. If we move students into larger schools, we would have more teachers. That ratio is not changing, but they perhaps would be in a different school or in a different building,” she said. “If we decide to not close any school, we would then need to reduce that deficit, fill that gap of 30 million dollars in another way, and in that case, we would likely look at increasing the student-to-teacher ratio, if we were not able to move forward with some right sizing of our district, but under this plan, we are not changing the student-to-teacher ratio.”

Campbell told KIRO 7 News that the well-resourced schools would have enough classrooms to fit teachers and students impacted by the possible closures.

The district’s school board, with four elected and two appointed members, is scheduled to vote on a possible decision in December of 2024.

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