After Outcry, Seattle Public Schools Backpedals On School Closures – For Now

It’s been a whirlwind first half of the 2024-25 school year for the Seattle Public Schools (SPS). After proposing a mass closure of as many as 21 schools, then reducing that proposal to just 4 schools, SPS decided to not close any schools for the 2025-26 school year. But it appears this is merely a ceasefire in the larger battle over the future of Seattle Public Schools, with the legislative session currently underway set to play a decisive role in how that battle is resolved.

How We Got Here

On September 11, Superintendent Brent Jones proposed closing between 17 and 21 public schools, including most or all of the district’s K-8, option, and alternative schools. After a massive public outcry led by All Together for Seattle Schools, Superintendent Jones announced on October 1 that he would instead propose closing five schools in 2025-26, none of which would be K-8, option, or alternative schools – but both he and school board president Liza Rankin indicated more closures would very much still be on the table in the future.

The school board then voted 6-1 to authorize the Superintendent to make a preliminary recommendation to close up to five schools. Later that same month, Jones announced that he would seek to close four elementary schools in 2025-26: North Beach, Sacajawea, Stevens, and Sanislo. This set off another round of public protest, with families across the city mobilizing in solidarity with families and students at the four targeted schools. 

On November 26, the school board voted to withdraw that preliminary recommendation to close any schools in 2025-26. Several school board members, including Liza Rankin and Michelle Sarju, said they still intend to pursue school closures. But this does make it unlikely that any closures will be approved before the 2025 state legislative session ends in April.

Opponents showed that the school district could not justify closures on the basis of finances or enrollment. Closing four schools was estimated to, at best, save less than $5 million out of a $94 million deficit. Student enrollment has stopped declining and even began slowly rising in fall 2024.

In the course of public meetings to explain the closure plan, however, SPS leaders made it clear that they actively believed closing schools was a good idea. It wasn’t something forced on them by budget deficits or enrollment changes. They prefer to operate fewer elementary schools, with larger enrollment, even if this means students must travel out of their neighborhood to get to school. SPS leaders still believe this, and it means we are still likely to see closures proposed in the near future, unless district leadership changes.

It’s clear that the battle over the future of public education in Seattle will continue until at least the November 2025 election, when four seats on the school board are up for election, and perhaps even longer. Although district leaders acknowledged they needed to rebuild public trust, by voting to proceed with closing schools in the face of widespread opposition, they ensured that trust would remain shattered.

SPS’s Actual Case for Closures

From the beginning of public discussion over potential school closures in early 2023, SPS leaders admitted they genuinely thought closing schools was a good thing to do – even as they also let the public believe they were forced into the decision by external factors.

SPS’s potential school closures first came to light in a February 6, 2023 Seattle Times article. SPS interim superintendent Fred Podesta was quoted as saying “the district believes that “consolidating into larger schools that have the resources they need is a good strategy whether you have money problems or not.”

Yet the Times headlined that article “Seattle may need to close schools to save money.” The lede was written as: “Faced with millions in budget shortfalls and declining enrollment across the district, Seattle Public Schools is tiptoeing around the idea that it may have to close some schools in a few years.”

For the next 18 months SPS leaders were happy to let the public believe that budget shortfalls and declining enrollment required closing schools. But as closures loomed larger and specific schools were named, members of the public began picking apart the data to show that closing schools could not be justified by finances or enrollment.

Seattle Public Schools faces a $94 million deficit for 2025-26. Closing 21 schools was estimated to at best save $30 million out of that deficit. When SPS scaled back the closure plan to just four schools for 2025-26, they estimated those closures would save $6 million, or about $1.5 million per school. District leaders claimed that closing schools would leave the remaining schools with more resources, but this was not possible given the size of the remaining deficit and likely cuts if the legislature did not come through with more funding.

Parents challenged the district’s estimates. SPS parent Albert Wong worked with other community members to run the numbers and instead concluded that “[c]losing four schools will yield savings of $630k-$678k per year per school, substantially less than the SPS estimate of $1.5M possible savings per school.” By extension, closing four schools would save just $2.7 million.

SPS’s estimates also failed to take into account the significant costs of closures, including maintaining closed schools and the loss of enrollment that would result when families leave the district after their child’s school is closed.

Evidence from around the country shows that closing schools does not bring lasting financial stability. A 2011 study warned that closing schools does not save much money. After Chicago went ahead anyway and closed 50 schools in 2013, the district’s finances worsened. Of course, plenty of evidence also shows closing schools harms student learning, but this appeared to cut no ice with district leaders.

District leaders also wrongly claimed that the state’s prototypical school model penalized SPS for operating smaller schools. Washington State provides funding to school districts based in part on a formula that assumes 400 students per elementary school. But the statute that establishes the prototypical school model explicitly states “The use of prototypical schools for the distribution formula does not constitute legislative intent that schools should be operated or structured in a similar fashion as the prototypes.” The model also assumes high school enrollment of 600 students per school, yet most SPS high schools have at least double that enrollment.

Statistics made public in October 2024 also destroyed the enrollment rationale for closing schools. SPS enrollment rose for the first time since 2019, gaining 14 new K-12 students. This was higher than all projections made by SPS, whose consultants had predicted at least 600 students would leave SPS. In fact, SPS enrollment had flatlined since 2022. SPS enrollment decline happened in 2020, 2021, and 2022 during the pandemic, lockdowns, and a spike in housing costs.

Seattle’s overall population also dipped during those years, but has resumed strong growth. Last July, state officials released estimates showing Seattle has nearly 800,000 people – a record number since the city’s 1851 founding. It makes sense that as the city’s overall population continues to rise, so will enrollment at its public schools.

Analysis by Albert Wong further demonstrated that SPS’s current enrollment is still higher than at any time between 2000 and 2011.

When Shoreline parent Hannah Blackbourn posted data showing that enrollment was not actually down in that school district, Shoreline officials withdrew their proposal to close one of the district’s elementary schools. But SPS did not move to cancel its school closure plans even after the October enrollment data was made public.

Fewer, Larger, Farther Away

It’s clear that SPS could not justify closing schools on financial or enrollment grounds – and that they never truly intended to do so. Their main goal is to operate fewer, larger schools, in which students must travel further to get to and from school every day.

According to Podesta’s remarks at a community meeting at North Beach Elementary in November, SPS believes that fewer, larger schools could concentrate services more easily than the current 100 or so schools spread out across the city. Since the passage of the BEX V levy in 2018, SPS has been building so-called “mega-schools” that hold roughly 650 students, which fits SPS’s desired model.

Elementary students tend to thrive best in schools with smaller enrollments. For urbanists, this also raises a larger concern about removing elementary schools from neighborhoods, creating school deserts, and making young students travel farther to get to and from school.Students at the four schools that had been proposed to close would have had to travel between one and two miles to their new schools. Most families would drive elementary age students to and from school, rather than having them walk, bike, or ride a bus, undermining safe routes to school goals and adding traffic to the city’s roadways.

The Public Broadly Opposes Closures – and Disapproves of the School Board

Public opposition to closing schools was widespread, and not limited to those who spoke out publicly. A poll conducted by Change Research for the Northwest Progressive Institute of likely Seattle voters found 54% opposed school closures, with just 27% in support. When asked about specific options to address the district’s budget deficit, only 18% chose closing schools.

The same poll found strong public dissatisfaction with SPS and its leaders. 55% of respondents said they were unsatisfied with the direction of the district, with only 18% saying they were satisfied. 51% said they disapproved of the school board’s performance, and only 16% said they approved.

As public opposition grew, at least one school board member spoke out publicly and strongly against the closure plans. Sarah Clark, appointed to fill a vacancy in District 2 in April 2024, wrote an op-ed in the Seattle Times in October calling on the district to “end the district’s pursuit of closing 20 schools” and to work on a plan to increase enrollment. Clark further called for district leaders to “apologize to the community” and “do a total reset.”

When this did not produce immediate results, some parents went further. In early November, a group of parents filed a petition to recall Liza Rankin from the school board. In Washington State, a judge must agree that a recall petition has demonstrated the target of the recall committed misfeasance, malfeasance, or violated their oath of office. This is unlike California, where a recall can be filed for any reason or no reason at all. Washington State’s recall standard sets a high legal bar, and many recalls are rejected at this stage – including a recall petition filed against Mayor Jenny Durkan for her role in suppressing protests in the summer of 2020.

On December 2, a King County Superior Court judge threw out the recall against Rankin, concluding it did not meet that high legal bar. He did say it was “not frivolous” and raised serious concerns about district actions. Later that month, the school board voted to make Gina Topp the new board president. Topp is also applying for a possible vacancy in the State House in the 34th District, though she has said she would continue to serve on the school board if appointed.

At least four of the seven school board seats are up for election this year. It’s clear that the battle over the future of SPS will be fought on this year’s ballot.

What Will the State Do?

Opponents of school closures argued that the district’s budget deficit could only be solved in Olympia. Many districts around the state are facing serious budget problems due to the lack of ample state funding as guaranteed by the state constitution. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal said that “Washington currently underfunds K–12 education by around $4 billion per year.” Last week, Reykdal warned the state risks the “very serious possibility” of a second lawsuit if the governor and legislature do not increase school funding. 

Education advocates around the state are mobilizing to push the state to provide as much of that funding as possible, and want the state to adopt some sort of tax on the richest individuals and corporations in the state to provide that funding. Hundreds of people showed up at a town hall with Eastside legislators earlier this month to push them to provide that funding, and legislators appeared receptive.

Washington’s new Governor, Bob Ferguson, has become a wild card. Ferguson took office this month pushing budget cuts across state government. He has expressed a desire to exempt K-12 education from those cuts. But schools need new funding – simply maintaining current funding levels guarantees widespread cuts in public schools across Washington State, including in Seattle. Without new revenue to provide billions in new funding for public schools, SPS will not be able to close its budget deficit, and district leaders will likely turn once more to closures.

Parents are fighting back here as well. Seattle parents have linked up with other concerned parents across the state to hold a Billion Dollar Bake Sale at the state capitol in Olympia on Thursday, January 30. Hundreds of parents, students, and educators will show legislators and the Governor the urgent need to step up and solve school district budget deficits.