E44 — What Do Other Districts Do?

Contact us: Send corrections, suggestions, and comments to hello@seattlehallpass.org. 

Disclaimer: Seattle Hall Pass features a variety of voices. Each person’s opinions are their own. 

[00:00:00] Christie Robertson: Welcome to Seattle Hall Pass, a podcast with news and conversations about Seattle Public Schools. I'm Christie Robertson.

[00:00:13] Jane Tunks Demel: And I'm Jane Tunks Demel.

In today's episode, we're going to talk about the next school board meeting. And the district pulled out an old trick and planned a monumentally important meeting during the first week of summer vacation — when most of us in the Seattle Public Schools community will be too busy to pay attention.

[00:00:32] Christie Robertson: Yep. They originally scheduled that meeting for Monday, June 10th, and we all thought that would be the meeting where they would finally release the list of schools to be closed, but then they canceled that meeting the Friday immediately beforehand.

[00:00:48] Jane Tunks Demel: So now they've rescheduled the school board meeting for June 26th, which is the Wednesday after the last day of school. And just as they might've hoped, Christie and I, and many other parents, teachers, staff, and other community members will be on vacation, celebrating the end of a long school year.

[00:01:04] Christie Robertson: This means our episode about the June 26th school board meeting will be significantly delayed because we'll both be on vacation. 

[00:01:12] Jane Tunks Demel: And we hope you all will be too. So we thought we'd at least get you all a pre-June 26th episode to tide you over.

[00:01:20] Christie Robertson: So without further ado, let's jump in.

[Music interlude]

[00:01:22] Jane Tunks Demel: Have you ever been baffled by what is going on with Seattle Public Schools?

[00:01:35] Christie Robertson: Have you ever thought to yourself: Is this really the right way to do this? What do other districts do anyway?

[00:01:42] Jane Tunks Demel: Well, we are here to answer some of those questions in today's special program called What Do Other Districts Do?

[00:01:50] Christie Robertson: We'll talk about how other districts handle school closures and consolidations, and then we'll discuss how often they have board meetings.

[00:01:58] Jane Tunks Demel: Or how often they don't have board meetings.

[00:02:01] Christie Robertson: Well, that too.

[00:02:02] Jane Tunks Demel: But let's start with the biggie. How do other school districts handle school closures?

Seattle Public Schools is proposing a plan to close 20 percent of its schools, going from 73 to 50 elementary schools. By way of engagement, the district had four informational meetings and questions were answered at three of them. They also plan to do the state-mandated hearings at each school that may be closed.

[00:02:26] Christie Robertson: I looked around at other districts in Washington State that have closed or considered closing schools to see if their process is the same. Let's start with Olympia School District, which considered closing three elementary schools. There was essentially one really big difference process-wise, and that was that the district offered more than one option to the school board. The Olympia School District superintendent presented their school board with two complete four-year budget options.

[00:02:58] Jane Tunks Demel: Wow, two options? Which one did the board pick?

[00:03:02] Christie Robertson: They picked the one without school closures. They said that would allow all schools to remain open “for the next few years while enrollment is closely monitored and increased revenue streams are explored and pursued.” So, they're not out of the woods yet.

[00:03:19] Jane Tunks Demel: Christie, did you look at Bellevue? I know Seattle's current Deputy Superintendent of Academics, Art Jarvis, closed two schools there.

[00:03:27] Christie Robertson: Yes. When he was superintendent in Bellevue, Art Jarvis spearheaded the closure of two elementary schools, bringing them from 16 to 14. That's a 12.5 percent decrease.

[00:03:38] Jane Tunks Demel: And by the way, Seattle's proposed closures are more than double that impact. Seattle Public Schools is discussing closing 27 percent of our elementary schools.

[00:03:47] Christie Robertson: Yep. That's right.

[00:03:48] Jane Tunks Demel: And so did Bellevue give multiple options to the school board too? Or did they just get one option like in Seattle?

[00:03:54] Christie Robertson: They got multiple — three in this case.

[00:03:57] Jane Tunks Demel: Oh wow, what were they?

[00:03:59] Christie Robertson: Okay. One was consolidating schools — two schools. Two was keeping schools open, but then cutting 30 staff and tapping into the district's reserve fund. 

[00:04:12] Jane Tunks Demel: And. of course. in Seattle, the district has already used its reserve fund. There's nothing left there to draw on.

[00:04:19] Christie Robertson: And three was keeping schools open and not cutting into the reserve fund, but cutting 60 staff.

[00:04:25] Jane Tunks Demel: It seems like Bellevue's board really got to see the trade-offs, right?

[00:04:29] Christie Robertson: Yeah. And I have something else you're going to be jealous of.

[00:04:33] Jane Tunks Demel: What?

[00:04:34] Christie Robertson: Dr. Jarvis brought to the board an 85-page proposal with detailed analysis,

[00:04:41] Jane Tunks Demel: Wow. Was there fiscal analysis in there too?

[00:04:43] Christie Robertson: Fiscal analysis, all the stuff.

[00:04:46] Jane Tunks Demel: Wah. I want that in Seattle.

[00:04:49] Christie Robertson: Well, maybe you'll get it this summer, Jane, right on the first week of summer vacation. 

[00:04:54] Jane Tunks Demel: Oh, great. Perfect.

[00:04:57] Christie Robertson: Okay, another difference in Bellevue, the amount of community involvement in the process. This is just wild. There were like six levels of community involvement. They had a superintendent community advisory council made up of students, parents, staff, and community leaders. They had school committees, hearings, and listening sessions for families at seven elementary schools that were all being considered for closure or consolidation. They had regional committees, school work groups, focus groups, administrator advisory — any of this sound familiar?

[00:05:31] Jane Tunks Demel: Nope.

[00:05:32] Christie Robertson: So we're going to have hearings, though.

[00:05:35] Jane Tunks Demel: You mean the hearings legally required by state law at each school site that might be closed?

[00:05:40] Christie Robertson: Those hearings. 

[00:05:41] Jane Tunks Demel: Ahhh. 

[00:05:42] Christie Robertson: You know, Seattle used to do work groups and task forces just like other districts do, but they seem to be out of favor in the current governance system. I often think that it's really sad. We have one of the most educated cities, probably in the world, with lots of really smart people, and we're not making use of their knowledge.

The only way for these people to share their knowledge is to give a two-minute school board testimony or write an email and hope that somebody is going to read it.

And since these smart folks aren't in direct communication with the district, they don't even have the proper information to be making strong proposals. So I think they often get batted away with, “Oh, you don't know what you're talking about.”

[00:06:29] Jane Tunks Demel: Seriously. 

Okay, Christie, What other districts did you look at?

[00:06:33] Christie Robertson: Two more districts, Bainbridge Island and Marysville. Bainbridge Island School Board was also given two options. But then the administration realized that the district's budget shortfall had been a mistake.

[00:06:48] Jane Tunks Demel: Oops!

[00:06:49] Christie Robertson: Yep, instead of being short $4.5 million, the hole was actually closer to $500,000 and they didn't end up having to do any closures.

[00:06:59] Jane Tunks Demel: And what happened with Marysville?

[00:07:01] Christie Robertson: Marysville is in quite the situation now. They had a $25 million deficit, and they were considering all kinds of cost-cutting measures. Closing schools, getting rid of sports programs, closing their pool, eliminating librarians And then after pushback, they decided not to close any schools.

But then, they basically went bankrupt! And last Tuesday, the state superintendent, Chris Reykdal, said, "I have determined that the district is financially insolvent." So now, it looks like they're going to have to close schools anyway.

[00:07:35] Jane Tunks Demel: That doesn't seem good at all.

[00:07:37] Christie Robertson: Yeah, we don't want to copy Marysville. 

And Jane, let's talk about one school district outside of Washington. You were just showing me an article about how San Francisco Unified School District is handling closures. So tell us about that.

[00:07:51] Jane Tunks Demel: Yeah, and I lived in San Francisco for several years, so I'm pretty familiar with the city. Seattle Public Schools has a lot in common with San Francisco Unified. Both school districts have about 50,000 students and just over 100 schools. And San Francisco, just like Seattle, has declining enrollment and a budget deficit. Another thing they have in common is both Seattle and San Francisco use the Student Outcomes-Focused Governance framework. 

[00:08:17] Christie Robertson: Okay, so then what happened?

[00:08:19] Jane Tunks Demel: San Francisco Unified just announced their process for closing or merging an unspecified number of schools. The San Francisco superintendent and his staff identified three criteria for their board to look at when considering closures: equity, excellence (whatever that means), and effective use of resources. 

And they say that equity will be weighted more heavily than the other two criteria. They'll also consider issues such as academic performance, historical inequity, student enrollment, and teacher turnover for each school.

[00:08:52] Christie Robertson: Teacher turnover is a really interesting criterion because it could be considered a measure of school climate.

[00:08:59] Jane Tunks Demel: Exactly. I'd love to see Seattle consider teacher turnover and school climate when they're talking about closures.

[00:09:06] Christie Robertson: What is San Francisco doing for community involvement?

[00:09:10] Jane Tunks Demel: San Francisco held 16 in-person community sessions in schools throughout the city. All of these meetings were open to all community members. 

Seattle held three in-person community sessions. 

San Francisco also had 16 sessions with various family and student advisory councils and committees. This is something we haven't heard about in Seattle at all. 

San Francisco has all sorts of amazing student and family advisory groups, such as the African American Parent Advisory Council, English Learners Advisory Committee, Native American Pacific Islanders Parent Advisory Committee. They also have advisory groups on topics like the Arts Equity Committee, High School Task Force, and the World Language Council.

[00:10:00] Christie Robertson: That's what I'm saying. Advisory committees. Where are they? And why aren't we taking advantage of our city's great minds? 

 Okay, so then what happens next in San Francisco?

[00:10:11] Jane Tunks Demel: So the superintendent is going to present these things to the board at a meeting next week, and after their board settles on the criteria and the district does the analysis, they're going to hire a third-party researcher who will assign scores to each school to rank them for likely closure. 

San Francisco Unified will then create several proposed scenarios for closures, mergers, and co-locations. A co-location is when two schools are on the same site. And then the next step will be, they're going to have Stanford University conduct an equity audit of the various scenarios to make sure that no community is disproportionately impacted.

[00:10:55] Christie Robertson: Looking around at these other districts makes me wonder how much our school board and our district administration are looking around to see what other districts do. Just curious about that.

[00:11:09] Jane Tunks Demel: Yeah, like how often do other districts hold school board meetings?

[00:11:13] Christie Robertson: Right. So that's our next question.

[00:11:16] Jane Tunks Demel: So this is our next question in what do other districts do: WDODD?

[00:11:23] Christie Robertson: That's right.

The Seattle School Board used to have two general meetings a month.

[00:11:27] Christie Robertson: And a bunch of committee meetings.

[00:11:30] Jane Tunks Demel: Yeah. And with Student Outcomes-Focused Governance, they ended most of the committee meetings.

[00:11:36] Christie Robertson: So we're mostly talking about general meetings.

[00:11:39] Jane Tunks Demel: Those are the ones that they put on YouTube that have a long agenda and an opportunity for public testimony.

[00:11:45] Christie Robertson: Yep,

[00:11:45] Jane Tunks Demel: And I've noticed recently that the Seattle School Board is having fewer and fewer meetings and they're getting closer and closer to the legal minimum of one meeting per month for school boards in Washington State as per RCW 28A.343.380. 

So my question for you, Christie, is what do other school boards do?

[00:12:07] Christie Robertson: Right, they have to have at least one meeting a month and how many of them do that versus having more? So I did my internet research and I looked at a bunch of other districts. It's really easy to find each district's school board meeting schedules and almost every district I looked at, no matter the size, has two meetings per month 

And then you suggested that we narrow down the search to districts that are part of the Council of Great City Schools, the coalition of the country's largest urban public school systems.

There's 78 of them, and Seattle Public Schools is a member.

[00:12:48] Jane Tunks Demel: That's right. And many of these school districts, like Seattle Public Schools, are operating under the Student Outcomes-Focused Governance Framework, which tries to minimize the time spent on board work, with the idea that the board will then have more time freed up to turn their attention to student outcomes and how to improve them.

[00:13:06] Christie Robertson: With that in mind, you might expect that Council of Great City Schools’ districts have fewer meetings. But even the ones on that list of 78 districts tend to have two meetings per month. That said, there were a few that only have monthly meetings, notably Denver, Atlanta, and Minneapolis

[00:13:28] Jane Tunks Demel: You might wonder why we are obsessing about this now. Well, I have an answer for you. It's because the schedule for the 2024-25 Seattle School Board meetings was on the agenda for the canceled June 10th meeting. And that schedule shows only one school board meeting planned per month.

I found this really surprising and frankly disturbing because we know that next year is when the school district plans to close 20 schools and close a $100 million-plus budget gap.

[00:13:58] Christie Robertson: It's also the year after they failed to make progress on their own goals and failed to meet most of their guardrails. In my mind, this should be a year of righting the ship toward progress.

 [00:14:10] Jane Tunks Demel: The School Board can add Special School Board meetings, and in fact, the Board Action Report hints at that, saying that special meetings are also planned throughout 2024-25.

[00:14:21] Christie Robertson: But they don't mean planned, right? They mean, might be planned.

[00:14:25] Jane Tunks Demel: I assume so. 

And what's the difference between a General School Board Meeting and a Special School Board meeting, Christie?

[00:14:33] Christie Robertson: Well, the biggest difference that folks might notice is that special school board meetings do not have the opportunity for public comment as per RCW.42.30.240.

[00:14:48] Jane Tunks Demel: That's extremely problematic for a year in which the district will be transforming the entire K through 5th grade system of schools and redrawing attendance area boundaries, among many other things.

[00:15:00] Christie Robertson: So that's what other districts do about school board meeting scheduling.

[00:15:05] Jane Tunks Demel: Other districts have public comment more than once a month.

[00:15:10] Christie Robertson: That is true. 

So Jane, I have a question for you before we conclude here. What do you think are the odds that the district will actually release a list of schools to be closed at the June 26th board meeting?

[00:15:24] Jane Tunks Demel: I think the odds are slim to none that they'll release a list, but that's just a hunch. It's not based on any information that anyone's told me. 

[00:15:32] Christie Robertson: I guess you could say it's based on prior experience of the list being postponed. 

[00:15:37] Jane Tunks Demel: But what do you think, Christie?

[00:15:39] Christie Robertson: I have to say that I have hope. And maybe that's more cynical than it sounds because I just think that the timing of this release is ideal for them to drop it right at the beginning of vacation when everybody is fried and completely switching gears out of school and into their summers.

[00:16:00] Jane Tunks Demel: And see, that's why that, in this case, I'm the optimistic one. I think that they won't do it right when people go out on vacation because they know they would get so much pushback about that. And I do believe they're trying to partner with school communities. I think they're just not ready to release the list yet. So …

[00:16:18] Christie Robertson: Probably a combination of those.

[00:16:20] Jane Tunks Demel: So follow us on Twitter @SeattleHallPass and we will post a list if they share it on June 26, even though we'll be on vacation.

That concludes this episode. Our show notes are available at seattlehallpass. org.

[00:16:35] Christie Robertson: You can also email us tips and ideas at hello@seattlehallpass.org. You can support us by donating, subscribing, or reviewing us on your podcast app. I'm Christie Robertson.

[00:16:48] Jane Tunks Demel: And I'm Jane Tunks Demel. We'll be back with more episodes soon, and we hope you'll join us next time on Seattle Hall Pass.