Episode 42 - Community Meetings on School Closures

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[00:00:00] Christie Robertson: Welcome to Seattle Hall Pass, a podcast with news and conversations about Seattle Public Schools. My name is Christie Robertson.

[00:00:14] Jane Tunks Demel: And I'm Jane Tunks Demel. Today we're reporting on the community meetings about school closures that happened last week. As Superintendent Jones has announced, Seattle Public Schools plans to close 20 out of 73 elementary schools before the 2025-26 school year.

[00:00:30] Christie Robertson: He's even sometimes said around 20 and ending up with 50 schools, which makes me think it could be up to 23.

[00:00:38] Jane Tunks Demel: Yeah, and on Saturday was the first time I actually heard him say the number 73.

[00:00:45] Christie Robertson: Well, we're going to walk you through what happened at the three meetings and give you details of the information that was shared about closures.

[00:00:52] Jane Tunks Demel: And we want to be clear that no closures will be happening before next fall. 

[00:00:56] Christie Robertson: Right, it'll be the 2025-26 school year. 

[00:01:01] Jane Tunks Demel: There's been a lot of press and social media hubbub about these meetings already. 

[00:01:06] Christie Robertson: The first meeting on Tuesday, May 28th, at Roosevelt High School. It was basically a shitshow. It was a disaster.

[00:01:16] Jane Tunks Demel: Yeah, it seriously was. 

[00:01:18] Christie Robertson: But by Saturday at Chief Sealth High School and Thursday as well, at Garfield High School, the format was completely different. They had pivoted and were sharing actual information. They had a different layout of the room, and they actually shared numbers.

[00:01:39] Jane Tunks Demel: Woo!

[00:01:43] Christie Robertson: So it felt much more collaborative and felt like they were responding to what the community was asking for. Quickly about that first meeting because it's been getting a lot of press. It was at Roosevelt High School last Tuesday, firmly in Northeast Seattle, a largely white audience. 

Families and teachers rallied outside before the meeting. The groups that were represented there included All Together for Seattle Schools, which is a parent-led coalition. 

[00:02:13] Jane Tunks Demel: And then the Seattle Caucus of Rank and File Educators, which is a group of SPS educators who advocate for racial equity and fully funded schools. 

[00:02:25] Christie Robertson: Let's play a little bit so you can get a gist of what it was like at the rally. Here's some of the crowd. 

[00:02:31] Crowd: Keep schools open. Show your work. Keep schools open. Show your work. 

[00:02:39] Christie Robertson: There was one particular moment where Superintendent Jones stopped by and walked right up to the crowd and started talking to them. And here's what I managed to record out of that interaction. 

[00:02:53] Brent Jones, Superintendent: No, let's just keep talking. Let's just keep talking. We're going to do this part today and we'll keep letting information out as we learn from you all and we'll keep adjusting. 

[00:03:04] Speaker 2: It would be nice to know how we're going to try and invite people to come back to the district. I mean, if people are leaving, we should be like, wait, if people are willing to pay to get something they can get for free, what's going on here?

[00:03:17] Brent Jones, Superintendent: Seattle Public Schools has a great offering. What I'm saying is our schools are already great. 

[00:03:24] Speaker 2: They are.

[00:03:24] Brent Jones, Superintendent: But we can't sustain them the way we are going financially right now. So let's just keep talking! I'll see you on the inside.

[00:03:32] Crowd: Keep schools open. Show your work. Keep schools open. 

[00:03:42] Jane Tunks Demel: So at 6 o'clock the meeting started and it was in the Roosevelt auditorium and it was pretty packed with a lot of people wearing Red for Ed.

And then Dr. Jones and his staff ran through a slide presentation that was largely the same as a presentation they gave to the board on May 8th. So if you'd like to learn more about that presentation, go to Episode 40.

And during his presentation, Superintendent Jones downplayed the effects of moving schools, sharing his own experience of being bussed when he was an SPS student. 

[00:04:14] Brent Jones, Superintendent:  I want to make sure that you all understand I was actually a student who changed schools four times. My school got consolidated. I got bused from the South End to the North End. I know change is difficult. I'm with you on that. But we do hard things in Seattle, and you have a superintendent who cares. I'm from here. I went to school here. My daughter went to school here. My mother was a teacher in the district. I'm going to be caretaking us along the way. So I do think it's going to be an inconvenience for a while, but I think ultimately it's for the better as we move forward. 

[00:04:49] Jane Tunks Demel: They didn't give out any information about numbers, and they also did not accept any questions from the audience at the end. People were mad. 

[00:04:58] Christie Robertson: The meeting had been scheduled for an hour and a half, but after about half an hour, the presentation was over, and the meeting ended abruptly with everybody feeling really startled and confused about what was going on. It ended with a QR code that went to a Thought Exchange link, which describes itself as an AI driven community platform. 

People were really very shocked that they weren't going to take any questions, or have any other kind of interaction with the audience, and people started yelling out, here's some of those interactions.

[00:05:35] Bev Redmond, Chief of Staff: Thank you. Thank you. This is an information session. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Excuse me. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I understand what you're saying. Thank you. I can hear you. Now, again, you may log in to the Thought Exchange so that you can share your thoughts on things that you've heard tonight as we move forward. Ma’am, with respect, please have a seat.

[00:06:24] Brent Jones, Superintendent: Okay, everyone, listen, listen. We have our team out here that has information. If you want to go deeply into some of the analysis and all that type of stuff, feel free to come out there. But having, see, just like this, this isn't a conducive environment to have a back and forth like that. So come on out and we'll have a conversation out there. Thank you. I'll be here. Come on out. Thank you so much. 

[00:06:54] Speaker 11: No school closures, show your support, no school closures.

[00:07:07] Jane Tunks Demel: And you can hear Chief of Staff Bev Redmond and Superintendent Brent Jones imploring the audience to quiet down.

[00:07:15] Christie Robertson: Instead of engaging, they shunted everyone out to the lobby saying that there were going to be staff out there. But it was just individual staff members with giant crowds of people around them, completely inaccessible. I tried to listen to some of them, but I couldn't get anywhere near close enough to hear anything.

[00:07:38] Jane Tunks Demel: This is Jane. I talked to two of the 46th District legislators, which is the district that I live in and the district that this session was in, Gerry Pollett and Javier Valdez, and they were both shocked that there were no numbers shared by the district.

[00:07:54] Christie Robertson: It was really quite a terrible meeting.

[00:07:57] Jane Tunks Demel: Yeah, it was a travesty. 

[00:07:59] Christie Robertson: Okay, so that was the terrible meeting. We also watched/went to the two other in person meetings at Garfield and Chief Sealth. And the rest of what we're going to tell you is from those two meetings, cause that's where information was truly shared.

[00:08:15] Jane Tunks Demel: So yeah, we went to the Garfield High School meeting in person on Thursday, and there was no rally, but there were people standing out in front giving out flyers. The same rank and file educators were there, and also All Together for Seattle Schools.

[00:08:31] Christie Robertson: It was a totally different vibe in the room where instead of a giant auditorium with staff on the stage, it was like a lunchroom. And they had a bunch of round tables and sheets on the tables so that you could write down your questions 

Chief of Staff Bev Redmond and Superintendent Jones both acknowledged in their comments that they wanted this meeting to have a more collaborative feel. 

[00:08:58] Bev Redmond, Chief of Staff: I want to say something to you to say that I know that this is a challenging moment for our entire community. A lot of things are going through your mind. A lot of questions are on your mind. That this is a difficult topic. But our hope is to provide you with some critical information tonight. As we prepare to present a full plan to our school board. I want to say that we also made some tweaks to our program to make sure that we had an opportunity to hear from you this evening.

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[00:09:38] Bev Redmond, Chief of Staff: One of the things that we heard on Tuesday is that 1) you wanted to learn from each other and hear each other. And then 2) that you wanted to have a space where you can share your questions. 

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[00:09:50] Brent Jones, Superintendent: Tuesday evening we had to make some adjustments. We found that we had mismatched expectations from what we were trying to achieve and what the audience wanted to hear. We want to make sure that we give information, we give context, and then we get information from you all. 

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[00:10:11] Brent Jones, Superintendent:  This is our opportunity to have a redo, if you will.   

[00:10:15] Jane Tunks Demel: And I gotta say I give them major kudos for the pivot they made in just two days.

[00:10:21] Christie Robertson: Absolutely. This is actually the first time in quite a while that I have felt that the district is taking a collaborative stance. The presentation itself was the same. The setup for presenting the closures was a bit doom and gloom. Superintendent Jones said that if the district doesn't close schools, it'll have to reduce staffing and programs and all kinds of other cuts.

[00:10:46] Jane Tunks Demel: But on the bright side, he also strongly suggested that there would be no more October shuffles. That's when the district adjusts staffing at schools in response to school enrollment. And pretty much every Seattle Public Schools parent has a story of their kids switching classes two months into the school year. It's a serious drag.

[00:11:05] Christie Robertson: We're also looking at consistent stable and comprehensive school staffing. We've heard time and time again, around October, some of our students see their favorite teachers. Some of our schools are disrupted by the October shuffle that's caused by enrollment. We can probably mitigate that with a consolidated number of schools. 

He repeated that line at all three of the meetings that we've seen, and clearly enjoyed the applause to the No October Shuffles. 

[00:11:35] Jane Tunks Demel: We’re going to hold you to that, Superintendent Jones.

[00:11:38] Christie Robertson: He did say “mitigated,” though.

[00:11:41] Jane Tunks Demel: Yeah, yeah. I'm just waiting for a time when there's rainbows and unicorns and no October shuffles.

[00:11:47] Christie Robertson: Superintendent Jones pointed out that it's actually really unusual that we have these small elementary schools and that none of our surrounding districts have these small schools

[00:12:00] Jane Tunks Demel: By small, you mean fewer than 300 students, right? 

[00:12:03] Christie Robertson: Yeah. 

[00:12:04] Brent Jones, Superintendent: Right now we have 105 schools, including 29 schools with less than 300 students. And just a data point — none of our sister districts have any schools that are under 300 students. It's hard, it's inefficient for us to be able to run schools at 300 students and less. 

[00:12:21] Christie Robertson: And I was surprised to hear that and I wanted to fact check it and guess what? Superintendent Jones is correct. Although I did see that there were two schools in the Northshore School District with fewer than 300 students. He also pointed out that some schools might feel well resourced, but that's when the schools are supplementing with outside funding,

[00:12:44] Brent Jones, Superintendent: And some of our schools probably could be considered to be well resourced, but they're not well resourced with stable funding. They might be well resourced with the generosity of some of our communities that have come forward to plug some of the gaps in staffing. But we want to make sure that all of our schools have consistent, predictable funding and consistent and predictable staffing as we move forward.  

[00:13:08] Jane Tunks Demel: And by outside funding, he means PTAs.

[00:13:11] Christie Robertson: PTAs or grants, or other such things, yep. 

 And here is how Dr. Jones described the mission that he's been given.

[00:13:22] Brent Jones, Superintendent: So my board has given me the unenviable task, the honorable task, however, of coming up with a plan to develop a system of well resourced schools. 

[00:13:31] Christie Robertson: Following the presentation, there were small group discussions. The staff were at tables. You could ask them questions. You could write down your questions on a card, talk to your neighbors. And other staff went around and collected the cards and grouped them into similar questions for the Q and A session. 

They had Superintendent Jones and about four or five of his senior staff answering questions from the audience. Probably the biggest question that was on everybody's minds and had been asked over and over was: How does this save money? 

Here's Marni Campbell, kicking it off with this question. 

[00:14:13] Marni Campbell: How will this reduce cost? If you aren't selling the closed schools, how do you reduce costs? Will teachers or staff be cut?

[00:14:22] Jane Tunks Demel: At the meeting in Garfield High School, they kind of dodged the question when people asked how would the savings be realized. Here you can listen to what head of HR Sarah Pritchett says. 

[00:14:35] Sarah Pritchett, HR: We do have costs that will be saved by reduction in staff. He talked about a little bit of that around school leaders around different costs with some of the fixed staff that are in buildings. We hope that we can support staff though we have attrition that happens every year. We have some other things. 

[00:14:54] Christie Robertson: And Chief Operating Officer Fred Podesta answered, and again, a very dodgy answer 

[00:14:59] Fred Podesta, COO: The exact savings are site-specific. But we can't speak to exactly what we're going to save until we have a specific list of buildings. We haven't finalized that yet. 

[00:15:09] Jane Tunks Demel: I think they realized that people weren't accepting those answers, and so after the first two community meetings, they thankfully offered some detail on the FAQ that they put up on their website, and we'll link to that in our show notes.

[00:15:23] Christie Robertson: Should we read it? 

[00:15:24] Jane Tunks Demel: Oh, yeah. 

[00:15:25] Christie Robertson: So they say each elementary or K-8 site closure will result in a savings in the range of $750,000 to $2.5 million. On average, they estimate that closing a site will save about $1.5 million.

[00:15:44] Jane Tunks Demel: And some of the savings would be realized in the following areas. The first one is called Other Support. Yes, that's the official name: Other Support. And they say that will be about $940,000 per school site. That includes things that are not directly involving student instruction. So things like culinary services, maintenance, custodial services, grounds, utilities, and information systems. And they also made clear that this estimate is taking into account the cost, how do you say this …? 

[00:16:22] Christie Robertson: It's the ongoing costs of maintaining a closed building are subtracted out from that. So they're going to be actually saving $940,000 in those kinds of overhead costs. So they say it's "net of assumed ongoing costs for maintenance grounds and utilities in vacated buildings.”

[00:16:40] Jane Tunks Demel: And then they'll save about $375,000 from the principal's office. So that includes, of course, the principal, because you don't need a principal if you have a closed school. And if the school has an assistant principal, which most of the small schools do not. They also mention school clerical staff. 

[00:16:59] Christie Robertson: And finally, teaching supports, $170,000, includes building based support services. So like non-teaching staff, building leadership team expenses stipends, other miscellaneous teaching expenses.

Here's a major question I still have not heard an answer to, which is: how much does it cost to close a school? Anybody who's ever moved before knows that it's not free. And I have no idea what the range of packing everything up. I have no idea how much that would cost, but they should know. And how much is left after they subtract that out?

[00:17:42] Jane Tunks Demel: I wonder what they did last time. Did they just leave tables and chairs in buildings because it's kind of like a natural storage place?

[00:17:51] Jane Tunks Demel: Executive Director of Operations Marni Campbell also pointed out that not all of the benefits will be cost savings, 

[00:17:59] Marni Campbell: We want to make this an upgrade, not just a cutting. How do we build stronger, better schools and a stronger, better system of schools? One of the things we designed for was ensuring that we have space in every single one of our K-5 schools for at least three classes for students receiving intensive special education services. Right now only 43% of our students who receive this kind of service get to go to their home or attendance area school. That means the rest of our students are going to a school that is not the school that their siblings go to, that their neighbors go to. And I think about how we put a dollar value on that. I think it's priceless. 

[00:18:42] Christie Robertson: I think it's priceless too, says Christie.

[00:18:45] Jane Tunks Demel: Another question was: How confident are you about enrollment projections? 

[00:18:50] Christie Robertson: And their answer was, “We are very confident.” Here's what they said. 

[00:18:54] Marni Campbell: We are quite confident. We have triangulated our own internal enrollment. We have two separate external agencies that have done demographic and enrollment studies for us. We're quite confident that that we do have the capacity, in case that there are any adjustments, the analysis will be shared, but that will be shared with our school board initially. That is the way that this process goes. 

Next question was about lobbying legislators for more money. Here's Marni Campbell.

 [00:18:22] Marni Campbell: Next question. It sounds like more funding is needed. How can we help Seattle Public Schools pressure state legislators to fully fund education. And I'm going to let, yeah, I hear that. 

I hear that. I'm gonna let the Superintendent speak to that. 

[00:19:42] Brent Jones, Superintendent: So I'm going to ask you all a question. If we come with up with a plan to approach the legislature that's a nice tight plan, would y'all join us in trying to make that happen. 

Okay. So we are going to commit to doing that. 

And I think one of the challenges is: Are we asking for too many different things or how do we prioritize what's first and foremost. We know that special education funding is really important. We know that transportation funding is really important. We know that our materials and supplies money is really important. How will we come up with a strategy? I'm just saying if you all are willing to join in that, I think that's going to be an ongoing thing that we need to do. However this turns out, we need to make sure that we're getting fully funded from the legislature. So thank you. 

[00:20:26] Christie Robertson: And then Art Jarvis, Deputy Superintendent of Academics, explained some of the problems with the McCleary Fix that happened, what, eight years ago now?

[00:20:38] Art Jarvis, Deputy Superintendent of Academics: McCleary did two major things that affect Seattle. One is they limited Seattle's ability to take care of its own problems. They said, “This is all the money you can collect on levies.” Secondly, they admitted that McCleary was the prototype would need a lot of work. They have been otherwise occupied for these last couple of years with housing and affordable housing and some other issues. And I understand that. But meanwhile, they've left special education. They've left transportation. They've left the basic ed prototype untouched and that's not serving us well. In case you wonder why you're watching this happen in places like Moses Lake and Evergreen and Blaine and Mount Baker and across the state, it is the same issue that the funding system has got to be fixed. You cannot stop where they were in 2018. And then leave us where we are. 

[00:21:36] Jane Tunks Demel: And then School Board Director Emeritus Leslie Harris from the audience gave her opinion. 

[00:21:41] Leslie Harris, Former School Board Director: McCleary 2. 

[00:21:44] Marni Campbell: I wonder who that was. I think I recognize that voice. 

[00:21:47] Jane Tunks Demel: I loved hearing Leslie shout out and miss having her on the dais. 

A couple of people had questions about what school transportation is going to look like in this world where there's fewer small neighborhood schools and their students would presumably have a longer route to school. 

[00:22:06] Marni Campbell: Will closures result in children being bused long distances. Will children be able to walk to school or kids assigned to the closest school to them? 

So I can speak to that a little bit. We've done an analysis to see a potential with our different modeling out scenarios, and students do not live farther from these potentially consolidated schools than they do currently. So we do not anticipate that students will be traveling much farther. That their access to attendance area schools will continue to be robust. 

[00:22:39] Christie Robertson: Did not like this answer. Jane, this doesn't make any sense to me. How can you have fewer schools and not be farther from your school? That doesn't make sense.

[00:22:49] Jane Tunks Demel: Yeah, my kid's school is two blocks away and I'm pretty sure the next school will be farther than that.

[00:23:55] Christie Robertson: At any rate, I appreciate people's concerns about what transportation will be like, but I also hope that people are willing to make a little bit of sacrifice in order that our school boundary lines don't align exactly with the traditional red lines that have segregated our city for so long. And I'm not getting the impression that this is happening, but I really hope that the district takes this opportunity to do that. 

A couple of times it did feel like they felt a little defensive about some of these questions, so maybe gave answers that weren't entirely accurate. 

Someone also yelled out from the audience, asking them to explain how they're going to solve the rest of the budget crisis, because even at their most optimistic estimates for how much they're going to save, it's less than half of the deficit that we need to solve.

 I think this was answered first by Kurt Buttleman and then by Fred Podesta.

[00:23:56] Speaker: So the legislature needs to be a part of that solution. 

[00:24:04] Audience: Right. $40 million? You said $89 million ... 

[00:24:08] Fred Podesta, COO: And we would very much like that assistance when we go make that ask. Again, Dr. Jones alluded to we're the only district in this part of the state that operates schools this small. We understand that we love the schools too, but they are, are, they are inefficient. 

So as we're competing with other districts for that state funding. It is not the strongest hand for us to say. “And we'd like you to provide that funding so we can subsidize schools with enrollment of 150, unlike every other district in the state.” So, I mean again, we do need your help. And if subsidizing smaller schools is the most important thing that's what we want to talk about. But in the end, it doesn't lead us to the comprehensive set of services at a neighborhood school that we've been talking about. It's less efficient and it's less effective.

[00:25:06] Jane Tunks Demel: Okay. Next question. What will we do with empty buildings?

[00:25:12] Christie Robertson: Fred Podesta answered this in all of the sessions. Here's what he said at Garfield.

[00:25:19] Fred Podesta, COO: in the short term, we'll keep our buildings in inventory. we understand that they're important community assets. We understand the green spaces around, schools are important, so we will work as possible with each neighborhood community to come up with an interim plan and then keep looking at our long range forecast to decide... 

So, since our newer more modern buildings have a capacity for more students, and, even with these 20 consolidations we'll still only be at 85% capacity for elementary schools, we don't believe over a longer haul of 40 years that we'd necessarily need all these buildings. But we want to keep many of them in inventory because Seattle is a growing community and some of these over some longer period of time may need to be reopened. 

And so we would plan for the interim uses is potential for community center, potential for parks. Are there community partners that might want to still use the building, but we will commit to keeping the buildings in good condition and making sure they remain assets in your community and that the green spaces are still available to neighborhoods.

[00:26:18] Jane Tunks Demel: And the most interesting thing for me is because I have a school site two blocks from my house that's likely to close down, that needs to be rebuilt, is that he said that they will just, tear those buildings down and then have green space. So, I'm really curious about what that'll end up being like.

[00:26:38] Christie Robertson: Another question about finances. When the schools are consolidated, how does the cost of transportation factor in? Again, this answer from Marni Campbell didn't make very much sense to me.

[00:26:53] Marni Campbell: Thank you. And the next question, when schools are consolidated, how does the expensive cost of a bus transportation factor in. 

So the state funds us depending on the number of students who ride buses. And the number of locations that they go to the average distance. So we would expect that we would have fewer destinations, but we would like to have more students traveling that buses. So when we model this out, we find that there's a little bit of a savings because we are able to have more students on buses, but again, students are not by and large living further away from their schools.

[00:27:31] Jane Tunks Demel: Another example of Marni Campbell not really giving a clear answer was when she was asked about the future of option schools. 

[00:27:40] Marni Campbell: Next question is how do option schools factor in? 

We've talked about all schools, serving students K through five. So that means we are considering all schools. So they are part of the considerations. 

[00:27:53] Jane Tunks Demel: So that answer I would call unsatisfactory. And many of these option schools are K-8s, and they alluded a couple times in their answers that middle schools and high schools are already feeling the pinch because of all of these small elementary schools. 

So the next question that was asked was: What is the plan for the already underresourced middle schools? 

And Deputy Superintendent of Academics Art Jarvis explained. 

[00:28:24] Marni Campbell: My quick answer about is back to Olympia. The prototypical model also affects middle schools, and it's going to affect middle schools hard. 

[00:28:34] Art Jarvis, Deputy Superintendent of Academics: Dr. Jones used the words “stability” and “instability." The reality is we cannot stay where we are. There is no choice to say we want to keep it the way it is. If we don't get funding and fixes, if we don't take care of ourselves in the short run, we will be forced to do one basic thing. And that is continue to cut programs and staff. It's the only option that we have. If we can keep all the buildings open, that would be wonderful. But the next place we have to go is we have to cut additional staff. 

We'll be at the high schools and the middle schools. For example, at the high school, to fund some of our special programs that are not funded by the state and do what we do at our marvelous high schools. So the next step would be to cut back to basic contract minimum. And that will hit the secondary programs because we've tried to do everything possible at the elementaries and protect the staff and the programs. 

What happens to the middle schools? What happens to the high schools? They will pay the price of having too many elementary schools period.  

[00:29:48] Jane Tunks Demel: Now, this question, I believe, was shouted out from the audience, right? How do we get families to come back to Seattle Public Schools?

[00:29:55] Marni Campbell: Because one of the main things that people have been talking about is why are we focusing on closing schools instead of bringing more families back? If enrollment is causing us to close schools, shouldn't we be focused on bringing families back?

[00:30:10] Christie Robertson: Here's how Marni Campbell answered this, and I found this to be a really fascinating answer.

[00:30:16] Marni Campbell: We absolutely see ourselves as a public service. We are here to provide education and the best education we can for our students. We are most often thinking about our students for whom this is the school system they will go to. And making sure that they have what they need and deserve as students, as citizens within our city, in our communities. 

So our best bet is to create the strongest, healthiest schools we can, which is what we've shared with you tonight, schools that have all of the options, especially in elementary music, art, PE. Those electives that we know we want our students to have that we have healthy, strong teaching teams at every grade level that are able to provide opportunities for support and extension for all of our students. 

[00:31:07] Jane Tunks Demel: And you hear it repeated again and again, that the pie-in-the-sky, well-resourced schools are all going to have music, art, and PE, which is not common in these smaller elementary schools. Like that's the biggest selling point is that a student would have all three of those classes.

And I guess for me, I don't think it's worth the upheaval to have a 30-minute music class once a week or who knows how it's going to turn out. I don't hear what other things will increase for students. What extra resources are they're going to be getting? 

So yes, they'll be well resourced schools, they'll have full-time people, a full-time PE, art, and music teacher. That's what they're promising us. But I don't think it's going to change an individual student's experience that much.

[00:32:01] Christie Robertson:  Right because of the ratios for each kid's time or the same. 

In an earlier version of this episode, we said they would also have a full-time librarian, but a couple of our listeners contacted us and let us know that no, it's still just a half-time librarian, even in the big schools.  

[00:32:17] Jane Tunks Demel: But they actually are with their FAQ (scroll down). I recommend you all read it. They are starting to convince me that okay, they will save some money closing schools, maybe not as much as you would hope for the amount of upheaval it's gonna cause, but there will be some savings.

[00:32:39] Christie Robertson: And I think the bigger thing is they have a deficit, they've been solving each deficit year by year. And if they don't do this, we're going to have to cut even more from all of our schools in 25-26.

So when people ask about trade-offs, the trade-off that they're saying is bigger class sizes and program cuts. Here’s an example of Dr. Jones talking about that.

[00:33:08] Brent Jones, Superintendent: That's a great question. We don't have a comprehensive alternative model. And so, if there is a set of strategies that's comprehensive, that recognizes our current state, our current instability, we are very interested. We're looking at this in relation to urban districts across the country. We're all kind of faced with the same thing. No urban districts I know of have come up with a formula to be able to reconcile the instability that they're facing. And so we stay open. We want to be a partnership. We're figuring out how to do that with you all. We're so glad that you're interested and you're passionate about this. 

Right now, I have a bunch of smart folks here. We have a bunch of smart folks in the city. There has not been an idea that's comprehensive enough to say this is how we can proceed to bring stability, predictability, consistency. We want to disrupt business as usual and replace it with something better. But at this point in time, right now, this frankly is our best thinking. And this is the way we're going to get to, I believe, stability. It is not necessarily getting us to the perfect state. It's just getting us sustained for the next several years. 

[00:34:27] Jane Tunks Demel: I appreciated Superintendent Jones trying to end these meetings on a positive note. He was saying if there's another idea that anyone has out there, please let him know, and that he wants to stay open to possibilities. Even though it kind of seems like an empty request, you know, like I'm sure Superintendent Jones will be emailing me right back with all my ideas,

[00:34:51] Christie Robertson: Oh, yeah, definitely. There's probably an email waiting for you right now.

[00:34:55] Jane Tunks Demel: Yeah, but I still appreciate the sentiment and, they did keep a very positive attitude in the face of a lot of criticism during all three of these meetings. 

[00:35:07] Christie Robertson: Yep. 

[00:35:07] Jane Tunks Demel: And I think the first meeting they really deserved the criticism, but the second and the third meeting, I think they did a great job trying to answer questions.

[00:35:16] Christie Robertson: Yes. Congratulations on the pivot.

[00:35:19] Jane Tunks Demel: There you go.

 So what happens next, Christie? When are they announcing the list [of school closures]?

[00:35:26] Christie Robertson: Well, we're not entirely sure. We think it's going to be June 10th. Usually board meetings are on Wednesdays, but this one is on a Monday. But there have been slight indications that maybe they're going to give a little bit more details, but not have the list, but I'm still hoping for the list.

[00:35:45] Jane Tunks Demel: Yeah. I think we all just want to know which school sites they want to close, so we can get on with it. People can advocate to keep it open, advocate to help influence how the consolidation will happen or do whatever they want to do. 

They actually did have one new slide at the last in-person session. And they said that right now they're in the planning phase, which is April to June. And so that ends with the preliminary recommendation to the board, which is on June 10th. 

Once they announce the list of schools to close, that kicks off some legal requirements. For example, they have to have a meeting at each school site that they want to close, and there will also be a 30-day public review. 

And then in the fall, the superintendent will make a final recommendation to the board, and that will trigger a 14-day public review. 

And finally, after all that, that's when the board will take final action. And it looks like that's going to be in November of 2024. After that is what they're calling implementation. That's when their plan will be in motion from November 2024 and onward.

[00:36:57] Christie Robertson: So we'll learn more on Monday, June 10th.

[00:37:02] Jane Tunks Demel: And we will include in our show notes a picture of this slide from their presentation, and you can also see it at our Twitter account @seattlehallpass. 

[00:37:11] Christie Robertson: And that concludes this episode. Our show notes are available at seattlehallpass.org. If you like this podcast, you can support us by donating at seattlehallpass.org to help us pay our expenses. 

[00:37:26] Jane Tunks Demel: Thank you so much to our current donors. Can email us ideas and tips at hello@seattlehallpass.org. 

[00:37:33] Christie Robertson: You can subscribe to make sure you get all our episodes and you can review us on your podcast app or tell your friends about us.

[00:37:41] Jane Tunks Demel: I'm Jane Tunks Demel.

[00:37:42] Christie Robertson: And I'm Christie Robertson. We'll be back with more episodes soon, and we hope you'll join us next time on Seattle Hall Pass.

Correction: an earlier version of this episode indicated incorrectly that there would be a full-time librarian at larger schools.