District Deep Dive with Alex Wakeman Rouse

Rainy Day Recess E3, 2024-12-10

[00:00:00] Alex Wakeman Rouse: We have a $4 billion funding gap, and our state legislators CAN fix it. But they need us to tell them it's a priority. 

[00:00:08] Christie Robertson: Welcome to the Rainy Day Recess podcast, where we study and discuss Seattle Public Schools. 

I'm Christie Robertson.

[00:00:19] Jasmine Pulido: And I am Jasmine Pulido.

[00:00:20] Christie Robertson: The families and communities surrounding Seattle Public Schools have been through quite the wringer in the last couple of years as Seattle Public Schools has come face-to-face with an ever-imposing budget deficit and has run out of one-time options to fix the problem. Initially, school closures were a major focus of the district's proposed solution to the budget problem, although the idea that this would actually save money with tenuous at best. Regardless, the district initially proposed solutions that involved closing up to 21 schools, then later reduced the number to four, and now it has dropped all plans to close schools for the 25 26 school year. All eyes now turn to what the district will do to solve its $100 million budget deficit and how the solutions will impact the children in its schools. 

Today, we have a guest who brings a thoughtful analysis of the budget crisis, proposing a solution that involves a closer look into where the district spends its money combined with a concerted effort to hold the legislature accountable for its responsibility to fulfill its paramount duty to fund the state's schools. 

This interview was edited for length and clarity and a reminder that all opinions expressed by our guests are their own.

[00:01:40] Jasmine Pulido: Okay, would you like to introduce yourself, Alex?

[00:01:45] Alex Wakeman Rouse: My name is Alex Wakeman Rouse. She, her pronouns. I'm a parent of two kids: one who's in second grade at Dunlap Elementary in Seattle Public Schools in Rainier Beach, and I have a five-year-old who will be an incoming kindergartner next year. I grew up here in Seattle. I'm a graduate of Seattle Public Schools, and my mom also worked as a school nurse for the school district.

 I helped found All Together for Seattle Schools. I'm the current board co-chair of the group. And we're a grassroots, parent and caregiver-led advocacy organization but that's really been advocating for the district to communicate transparently with the public and involve parents and school communities.

And we most recently were advocating against school closures and we are now really turning our attention toward the state and ensuring that the state fully and amply funds public education so that we don't have to have any more school closure conversations. 

 Legislative solution

[00:02:40] Jasmine Pulido: Why don't you tell us a little bit about the solution that All Together for Seattle Schools is proposing? 

[00:02:46] Alex Wakeman Rouse: I think the way I would answer that as All Together is that the $100 million gap that the school district has cannot be closed with sort of efficiency or cost savings in the district. That doesn't mean there aren't smart budget opportunities and decisions to find efficiencies elsewhere. But bottom line, we believe the deficit is just too large for Seattle Public Schools to solve by itself. And the only true solution for us as a school district and also school districts across the state is more funding from the state legislature. 

[00:03:33] Jasmine Pulido: Is the idea to go to the state legislature in coalition with other districts who are also going through this issue? Is it advocating for changes to the funding formula? Or is it just asking for more funding? What does that really look like?

[00:03:55] Alex Wakeman Rouse: So yeah, the solution right now is really rallying everyone from across Washington state to put the political pressure on state legislators to prioritize short and long-term fixes to the school funding situation. We've been working with a bunch of parents and caregivers and also folks on unions and school administrators to really figure out how to move the needle on funding.

It's been really interesting to learn that, and we've even spoken to some legislators, that everybody is in agreement that the state has not been fully funding education since McCleary. And that they've made little bits of adds in pieces here and there, but it's agreed upon that there's a gap.

We believe the gap is at least 4 billion dollars. And we've heard the reason that the state has not closed this gap is that it's just so wide, it feels really insurmountable. And there are so many competing priorities. But we've also heard that they need us. They need their constituents to show up and say that this is the top priority. This is super important. Please make this their top priority. 

 We in All Together for Seattle Schools have been working with folks in about 17 school districts across the state from over in Kitsap County, up to Bellingham, to Olympia, to Wenatchee, definitely in the King County area, as part of this campaign called the Billion Dollar Bake Sale. And this is really our attempt to build that grassroots advocacy across the state to inform folks that we have a $4 billion funding gap, and our state legislators CAN fix it. But they need us to tell them it's a priority. So that's the point of the bake sale is communities can hold their own tables with information and postcards to write to their legislators that solving the school funding gap has to be something they do this year and that we care about it enough that we are going to write to them, we're going to be relentless, we're going to show up in Olympia. Because that's what we've heard they need.

 And I just want to say that there's a lot of other groups in this space doing this work, like the school board directors, the school administrators, Washington State PTA, labor unions, OSPI, or even groups like the People's Big Five. Everybody has evidence and information to show that there's this huge gap and that Washington State is not meeting its constitutional obligations.

So where the bake sale comes in is we get into communities, and we help educate them that the reason their school districts might be talking about closing schools or cutting music programs or laying off educators is because the state is not fully funding basic education. And basic education, they've said, is fully funding special education needs or competitive wages for K-12 staff. And a lot of people don't know that our local levies are funding these pieces. 

So, can I rattle off some stats? I think it's really helpful. Okay. So some of the data that I found really compelling that we're hoping again to spread to the masses so folks are informed is:

Special education, we've talked a lot about that. The state says special education is “basic education” so that they fully fund it, but they're only funding 80% of the costs of providing special ed across the whole state.

[00:07:30] Christie Robertson: There was actually just a new audit, and it says there's a 26% gap. So 74%.

[00:07:37] Alex Wakeman Rouse: Oh, now it's, yeah, that was based on last year's data. So now it's gotten worse!

And where does that money come from? Because the districts are providing those services, so it comes from local levies. And in order to do that, then districts have to cut elsewhere because they're unable to raise their own revenues in a lot of places because we've already maxed it out.

 I think we all know the pinch of rising costs as of late with inflation. That's also hit districts, right? So insurance: since 2020, insurance has gone up 60% on average. Since 2018, the cost of diesel fuel has gone up almost 40%, electricity 37%, food costs are up 36%. So the costs for even just operating schools is a lot greater. And state funding has not risen with inflation. So when they account for inflation, the state provides a thousand dollars less per pupil than we did in 2018. So yes, there's more money in K12 education, but the purchasing power is less. The dollar doesn't go as far. 

 I do want to give another example of kind of an unfunded mandate or really a lower funded mandate by the state and the government, and that is McKinney-Vento transportation. McKinney-Vento, those are students who are identified as unhoused or homeless. There's laws that protect them. 

So the school district is required to provide transportation to their school, give them the opportunity to stay in the school that they're getting services and education rather than have to move every time they, maybe get placed in a tiny home village or somewhere else. Which is great because the government recognizes the need for stability for these students and how important it is for them to stay in their homeschool. But it's an unfunded kind of mandate because the state just does not give nearly enough funding for how much it actually costs to provide transportation for these kids. This year, the state is giving about $750,000 to Seattle Public Schools to provide transportation for McKinney-Vento students, usually through taxis or Uber or Lyfts, not school buses. But they transport them all over, like I know from our social worker that there are kids that are coming maybe from as far as Tacoma sometimes and way up north. So they don't have to still live in Seattle Public Schools. 

But anyway, the point being, the state's giving us about $750,000. But the district is planning to spend at least two and a half million dollars on providing transportation for those kids. So I know that's small, but that gap really illustrates, at least for Seattle, how often the actual costs of serving our students are beyond what the state thinks.

So that's one example. We'll talk about the prototypical funding model, which is how the state decides how much funding for staffing you will get. I'm just going to throw out a couple of things. It takes over 5,000 elementary students to generate enough funding from the state for one school nurse. That's how the state funding formula is currently set up. It takes 811 elementary school kids to fund one full-time counselor. School staff safety personnel they're funded at one staff for every 4,200 high school students.

That's just the basic kind of formulas. And a lot of us would argue those are unfunded too. Like every school needs a nurse. Every school needs a counselor. Definitely every high school needs a school safety personnel. But the state is saying that they don't need it. And I think we all agree that's just wrong.

[00:11:28] Jasmine Pulido: Do we know the last time that the prototypical funding model was updated? 

[00:11:33] Christie Robertson: So they do tweak it. That's what they do, is they'll tweak it down. They'll be like, okay, we'll bring it from 4,200 to 3,500, and tweak around the edges of it, but it still just is so far from what is needed. 

[00:11:46] Jasmine Pulido: But when is the last time they tweaked it? Do we know?

[00:11:49] Christie Robertson: I think they tweaked it in the last session, increasing the number of paraeducators. And the session before that they tweaked the number of counselors.

[00:11:58] Jasmine Pulido: Oh, really? 

[00:11:59] Christie Robertson: Yeah.

[00:12:00] Jasmine Pulido: Wow, that's that is really surprising. Because considering that we just came out of COVID and the repercussions of that, especially around mental health, we had an episode of Community Voices on security. And all of those things that you mentioned are all things that have been exacerbated as a result of the ramifications of COVID. And so it's surprising that that number is like that even so recently. 

[00:12:26] Christie Robertson: Yeah, and Jazz, they make a huge deal of it whenever they tweak it, like “we are funding increased counselors! There's like a whole bill about it!” And they all stand up and talk about how important it is. And it just doesn't bring us to... so that's why you get people saying we need to, like, just redo the prototypical formula.

[00:12:45] Alex Wakeman Rouse: Which I think is a great thing to do, and that's not something I think can be done in this next session. But they could take steps to deciding to tackle it, right? They could say, "Let's start up this task force again to figure out an overhaul of the system." So that's part of what the Billion Dollar Bake Sale is advocating for short-term and long-term fixes. Like we can't just pursue one or the other. It's gotta be both. 

And there are folks that we spoke to that said, and I think Director Rankin has spoken about this, that when they did the prototypical model initially, the base amount of funding that they used as their like "We're going to allocate from this," the one that counselor for 800 kids was already old. It was already like an insufficient amount of money. 

So, even if the allocations are wrong, it was never fully funded. So some people believe the prototypical model, we don't know if we need to change it cause we've never actually fully funded it. And that we felt that here in Seattle, for sure, because we've raised educator pay and other pay in our contract, which is stuff we have to fund, because the state doesn't think that's what it costs for staff.

So it's a both and. 

[00:14:07] Christie Robertson: So they don't find enough staff, and then they don't find enough money per staff.

[00:14:12] Alex Wakeman Rouse: Exactly. 

[00:14:15] Christie Robertson: And I think part of that conversation is about how do you take student need more into account. Because there's some add-ons to it where there's like some multipliers based on student need, but very little. 

[00:14:22] Alex Wakeman Rouse: And I think it's really compelling that federal post-COVID relief ended last year. And there were a lot of studies, not just here but also nationally. That infusion of extra funds actually helped student outcomes in some places with behavioral health. Or in some districts, they found that there were academic outcomes that were greater. 

[00:14:42] Christie Robertson: I think another data piece I want to show is

[00:14:44] Alex Wakeman Rouse: There's a lot of information that shows this isn't just a Seattle issue, right? As part of the Billion Dollar Bake Sale, like I said, there's caregivers from about 17, 20 districts right now who are working on this campaign and trying to spread the word and doing their own analysis. So, one of the parents over in Kitsap County did some analysis of the school district financial health indicators. And in 2018/2019, and I'm using that because that was clearly a pre COVID year, about 74% of school districts across the state were in good financial health. In 22/23, that's the most recent data we have, it's down to 48, so we are clearly not doing well. In 2018/2019, there were eight districts in really bad health, some in binding conditions. That's now up to 34 districts. We need help here in Seattle, but clearly there's help that's needed across the state. This isn't just like a few districts who don't know how to manage their money well or widespread mismanagement. This is a state funding problem. 

So again, we have to show the legislators that this is worth fighting for. And to do that we have to show up. And I think Seattle's in a good position because we're close to Olympia, there's a lot of us with resources. We can show up. We can take some time to help ourselves and help others.

[00:16:16] Christie Robertson: I love that the Billion Dollar Bake Sale is statewide, though, because that's something I've heard from a lot of legislators, that it's really key that it's not just coming from Seattle, so we can put our local efforts into something that's statewide.

[00:16:27] Alex Wakeman Rouse: Exactly.

[00:16:29] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah, and my understanding is that the amount of districts that are in binding conditions is the highest it's ever been, historically speaking, for the state.

[00:16:37] Alex Wakeman Rouse: yeah, it's six districts right now, and if you look at least since 2015, it's always been maybe one, so it's pretty big. And it's big districts, it's small districts and I think some of the analysis that we looked at also showed that some of those that are in binding conditions were in "poor financial health" recently. So 34 in "poor financial health" means there are some on the precipice of some really bad financial situations. So again, we got to step up for them too.

Budget solution

But again, like I said, there may be, and probably are, some sensible cuts that Seattle Public Schools can make that are not student-facing and that do not require school closures. 

[00:17:07] Jasmine Pulido: Yes, this is the second part of what we wanted to talk about. With your experience looking at city budgets, what kind of budget solutions do you think that SPS could potentially turn to internally in order to demonstrate good financial management without harming kids. 

[00:17:40] Alex Wakeman Rouse: What's difficult is that the school district's budget documents and information that's provided publicly is really high level, and in some cases so broad, it's hard to even identify where there might be opportunities for that sensible savings. 

I personally work in government budgeting and policy work. I'm familiar and pretty comfortable getting into the nitty gritty. And it's hard to get into the nitty gritty with Seattle Public Schools budget. 

[00:18:11] Christie Robertson: I think this is a good time to bring in an anonymous source who said that we could refer to them as "an OSPI nerd". They had a lot of great knowledge and insights to supplement Alex's information. One of the interesting things they said was to look at the school district accounting manual called F195, which can be found at OSPI. They called this "the decoder ring" to understanding the SPS budget. And then, the F196 shows actual district spending. 

Our OSPI nerd clarified for us that another part of what makes the SPS budget so confusing is that it is actually the same budget parsed in several different ways for different purposes. One method is activity-based. Another is object-based. So you can't compare between the models only within them. So our source said, "Find the eight pages that make the most sense for what you're trying to understand and study within that section." 

And then they also said that part of what makes the SPS budget so hard to understand is that the F 195 wasn't designed for large districts. And trying to fit everything that SPS does into this generic format for all districts ends up being messy and obscure. 

SPS does publish what's called the "budget book" where they try to make the budget digestible to people like school board directors. We'll link to all of these things in the show notes. 

[00:19:37] Jasmine Pulido: Yes, and we also shared this information with Alex to inform her research into the SPS budget. 

[00:19:47] Alex Wakeman Rouse: I'll give you a quick example. One kind of broad budget that they have is called "Purchased Services." And it is $147 million of Seattle Public Schools' budget. In their 212-page budget document, however, there's only one sentence that describes what purchased services is. 

[00:20:09] Jasmine Pulido: Purchased services. Services associated goods from independent contractors or service providers, persons, organizations, or other agencies that are rendered to the school district under-expressed47 or implied contracts, with the exception of specific expenditures entered into for the expressed purposes of travel.

[00:20:34] Alex Wakeman Rouse: So that's a huge bucket. And I believe a lot of contracts are in here and maybe contracts for essential services. I think maybe food services. I don't even know! But a hundred and $47 million is a lot of money. 

[00:20:50] Christie Robertson: And there's no list of those in there or?

[00:20:52] Alex Wakeman Rouse: There is no list of those. And there used to be a practice where all contracts over $250,000 went to the school board for approval. The school board changed that policy I believe in 2021 and raised that to a million dollars. So now, any contract that the school district signs for less than a million dollars does not have to go through the board for approval. And that's a big deal because the documents that are provided to the board are public. And so the public could piece that together and see where the money goes. Again, it's difficult to understand where $147 million of purchased services goes. I can't say whether there are opportunities to cut because I don't know what's in there. So that would be one example of a category. 

[00:21:44] Christie Robertson: That's wild.

[00:21:45] Alex Wakeman Rouse: I want to give three other examples of really broad buckets in their budget that I would love more information for. I really honestly am curious why the school board has not asked the district to provide more information on these line items. And I think that's where I personally stand as I would like to see more of an interrogation from our school board directors of where we're spending money that is not directly impacting students. And are there opportunities to cut back on that rather than closing schools? 

So one would be, it's called "information systems." I'm pretty sure that means IT, but the soft side of IT. Because they have a whole capital budget, which is a whole separate thing. This is all operations. And that's $34 million. I can imagine that includes IT support, that includes equipment. 

[00:22:41] Jasmine Pulido: Maybe licenses, 

[00:22:42] Alex Wakeman Rouse: Licenses, applications, of which I'm sure there are many that are really important and integral in classrooms. But there may be others in other systems that are maybe less important. I know from my experience in government, too, there's replacement policies for how often you replace laptops or replace your computers or for big government replace vehicles. And those are places that you know are worth looking at efficiencies. Maybe they can replace central office computers less frequently. Like I'd be curious to see if they've examined things like that. 

[00:23:19] Jasmine Pulido: For that particular line item, does it even have a description in the documents? 

[00:23:26] Alex Wakeman Rouse: Information Systems? I don't think so. There's a glossary at the end that describes it. But there aren't specific line items. You can imagine a budget that might start with information systems at the top and have specific line items for computers and IT support and the details. But the budget document, does not provide those details.

The other two examples I'm curious about are "supervision of instruction." So, this is within the "central administration" budget bucket. " Central administration" is $69 million. And this is where you've got school board, superintendent's office, HR, public information, central items that are managed.

But "supervision of instruction," I'm not even sure what that means, and it's $32 million. And that's separate from the "principal's office." So the "principal's office" has its own budget item. That's like funding to support principals, to pay for supplies, principal salaries. So, I'm not sure what supervision instruction is.

[00:24:37] Christie Robertson: This is Christie jumping in to say that our OSPI nerd said that supervision of instruction is miscellaneous central office and includes everything that's not in other buckets. So it definitely would be nice to see line items on that.

[00:24:52] Alex Wakeman Rouse: Separately, there's a different bucket called "instructional professional development," which is $29 million. And so I don't know the difference between the two. Together, that's $60 million in "supervision of instruction" and "instructional professional development." I would just be really curious about what those are. 

[00:25:17] Christie Robertson: According to our OSPI nerd, instructional professional development activities are described in the F196, and they include instructional coaches and part of vice principals. Again, would love to see that line-itemed out. 

[00:25:35] Jasmine Pulido: I have one other question, because I'm not a budget person, what I'm wondering is, do other school districts provide more detail on budgets such as this?

[00:25:45] Alex Wakeman Rouse: That's a really good question, and I don't know. My experience is on a different government, and our budget documents are a lot more detailed. You'll see changes called out specifically in our budget document. So if there is a proposal to add funding for a program, there will be the amount of money that's proposed to be added to that program, whether there's an increase in staff for that program, and what the program is. 

And these budget documents are just much more summary and high level. They do have a few sentences here and there of "this budget reflects a change in these things," but not in that detailed way. But again, I'm not sure if this is a really common level of information. Maybe this is typical.

[00:26:10] Jasmine Pulido: This is Jasmine jumping in to say that I asked another budget expert as a second opinion about line items and descriptions and budgets. And they told me that it is typical for budgets to not go into this level of detail. Otherwise, the budget doc would be enormous. So a 300-page doc could balloon up to a thousand pages. Back to Alex. 

[00:26:30] Alex Wakeman Rouse: There's another thing that I think it's worth knowing on the cost side of things. There are just a few buckets of costs that are required spending by the district that have increased significantly in the last few years. One in particular, special education. In 2022, we spent $211 million. This year in 2024, just two years later, we're budgeting to spend $272 million. That's a 30% increase, or $60 million, increase in two years. And only $140 million of that is from the states and the feds. The remainder, that gap, is what Seattle Public Schools has to make up. And that's a lot of money. 

So when I see that, I don't have a student in special education services. I don't have any professional expertise or experience at all in this, but it would make me wonder what is driving the increased cost, and it would make me wonder what's happening and why. And are there opportunities to really dig into what our special education students need? Are they getting those services? Is this amount of funding appropriate? Is it being allocated to the right place? 

So that's also a drawback of the budget book because you don't understand any of that. It just says special education services. So you can't even see how much is being spent on instructional assistants or on paying tuition to another school that a student might need, like a private facility or other types of supports. So I wish there had been more direct conversation and transparency around special education spending, as I know many families and parents have been advocating for years from the district to better understand that. 

[00:28:30] Christie Robertson: And board directors 

[00:28:33] Alex Wakeman Rouse: And board directors. I don't want to say there might be opportunities to, like, save costs there. Because we just don't know. And maybe this amount of money isn't even sufficient. But when you see something so big that is supposed to be funded by the state, but only half of it is being funded by the state, and it's grown by 30% in two years? That is raising eyebrows to me. And I would love to dig into that more.

[00:29:01] Christie Robertson: And I'll say from somebody who is familiar with the special education space, it's not like everybody's like, "Wow, this special education system is amazing! Our kids are swimming in services and doing so well," yeah.

[00:29:14] Alex Wakeman Rouse: Yep. 

[00:29:15] Christie Robertson: Do you know if there's ever been a citizen task force that looks over the budget? Like, I know the school board directors have no particular expertise in that area and might not even know the kinds of questions that you're raising to ask. 

[00:29:33] Alex Wakeman Rouse: I think we have had school board directors who have more experience with budgeting and financials. I believe there were more committees that the school board members themselves had. I feel like there was a financial committee, 

[00:29:48] Christie Robertson: There was a financial oversight committee. It's not mandated by the law. And so they got rid of all committees that weren't...

[00:29:57] Alex Wakeman Rouse: ...mandated by the law. I think it's important to look at other school districts in this regard, for sure. I'm just going to throw out an example. I know that San Francisco Unified School District has a bunch of different parent advisory committees or community related advisory committees, and those are real opportunities, I think, for, community members to get involved and to understand the details.

We even have this in our backyard. There's actually a lot of examples in the city of where citizens and community members and residents can get involved in oversight and support of city government. I was on the transit advisory board for a few years, which helped provide oversight responsibilities over the Seattle Department of Transportation, specifically some of their levy funding. And then I also, in that role, was the representative on the Move Seattle Levy Oversight Committee. And I was on a financial subcommittee within that committee, and so had the opportunity to meet with SDOT staff and fellow committee chair to review kind of financial statements. And that gave residents an opportunity to really get in the details and provide feedback from community to department staff on decisions they might be making.

So SPS doesn't have to look too far for these kind of examples. It kind of appears that both the district and the board have a very specific view of how they are in relationship with families and students. And, it's not at that level of involvement.

It's just interesting to think about what is it about the city that has resulted in there being more of that kind of oversight.Yeah, I think it's a very Seattle thing to, to involve community and residents. I think that there's also, I think there's 75 volunteer boards in city government. 

[00:32:00] Christie Robertson: Wow. 

[00:32:01] Alex Wakeman Rouse: Of all flavors. Like really specific ones, and then really broad ones, like the one I was on, Transit Advisory Board.

So it is interesting that Seattle Public Schools doesn't have that, because it feels very Seattle to have community participation and collaboration. 

Other pieces of the solution

[00:32:17] Christie Robertson: So would you say that, broadly, you propose looking at the budget and looking for non-student-facing cuts, and then the rest of it should come from the legislature? 

[00:32:29] Alex Wakeman Rouse: Oh, yeah, it has to involve the legislature. We already are not in a good situation with middle schools and high schools. Their staff-to-student ratios are too high, from what I've heard from a lot of folks. So we're not in a good financial situation to begin with.

And even though I think there are opportunities to make sensible cuts that are at district admin or contracts, All Together still opposes cuts in the classroom or in the schools that impact students. So we don't want to see teachers laid off or pay be cut, but we also don't want to see larger class sizes or fewer programs.

So I think, all in all, it has to involve additional state funding. Or, as you know, with a budget, there's two options. You can cut spending, or you can increase revenues. Increasing revenues for Seattle Public Schools can be getting more funding from the state or some other entity, like the feds. Or you can grow enrollment because every student you bring in brings money from the state. And that is one piece that a lot of us have not seen from the school district or even questions really from the school board of, is there a way to help this budget crisis be less bad by bringing in more students?

I know there are often comments about birth rates declining. We haven't seen a lot of information on that. I know a consultant report on this was much more detailed. But it's not just about birth rates. 20 to 25% of Seattle kids go to private school or charter school. The kids are there. They are here. 

I also, I'm not sure they are taking into account migration. We have a lot of mobility in our community in Rainier Beach. We have a few tiny home villages and low-income housing buildings. There's a lot of folks moving here from other countries as refugees. And also there's a lot of housing growing up. Just in our tiny school zone at Dunlap Elementary, we have two gigantic low-income apartment buildings that are almost complete. 

Anyway, the revenue side also, I think, has to include something related to enrollment.

[00:34:47] Jasmine Pulido: More specifically, cuts to the budget that are non student facing combined with funding either from the legislature or increasing enrollment.

[00:34:59] Alex Wakeman Rouse: Yeah, I think all roads lead to the legislature. But I think there may be opportunities again to identify some cuts that are not student-facing or school-facing.

[00:35:10] Jasmine Pulido: What else would you like to add? 

[00:35:13] Alex Wakeman Rouse: I think the one thing I will add is that there are some good governance budget decisions we think the district should be doing regardless of this budget gap. That's what you would expect from every government, is that every year, they are being mindful of their spending and their investments. Are you getting the outcomes you're intending to get? And if not, are you going back to the drawing board or are we just going to keep doing the status quo? So, I think the district has been doing some of those things. But I think we'd like to see more of that, especially as it relates to the contracts and transparency.

What if the answer is no

[00:35:50] Jasmine Pulido: Let's say the district and the school board directors agree. “We're not gonna do closures. There's no student-facing cuts. So we're gonna go to the legislature.” You go to the legislature, legislature says no. What happens after that?

[00:36:04] Alex Wakeman Rouse: Yeah, that's a really good question. We have been asking for more public engagement and involvement and collaborations in responding to proposals. Not just coming with a fully baked plan. All Together for Seattle Schools has been saying thissince we started because there was a lack of information and public engagement on the October shuffles a year ago, the massive ones, more massive than usual. And “Well-Resourced Schools” is a good example. I feel like those meetings asked families to dream with a blank check. And I think there's a lot of work the district could do to be bringing families along. Here's how we work together to try and get the legislature to fund us. But if we don't, let's talk about what the trade-offs are, what our options are, and let's involve you families on what you would be comfortable with accepting as a cut and as a change. 

Because I think it's possible that there are school communities who, right now, are overwhelmingly okay and interested in closures. And I'm not going to tell them to not pursue it, but the district has not brought anybody along or done any of that authentic community engagement. I think we would be in a really different place in conversation right now if they had been doing that for the last year. 

So that's what I would like to see is start that now. Start that conversation now. And Dr. Jones has said, I think in May at the Garfield meeting that I was at, “Are you with us? Will you come to the legislature?" And we were all like, "Yes! We were there this year! Of course!" We are in it with him. And I think we just need more from him and his leadership that actually demonstrate that they trust and listen to families.

[00:37:57] Jasmine Pulido: So the community meetings would maybe look more like, instead of saying, "What would you dream about with a blank check?" It would be something like, "These are the real limitations that we have to deal with. Can we all brainstorm together?" If we are completely transparent about what we as a community agree on, given the situation we're in.

[00:38:21] Alex Wakeman Rouse: Yeah. And I've heard all sorts of ideas from people. Like I've heard people say, “You know what? Maybe if we keep our small school, we'd be willing to give up music." Or I heard this great idea from one community. It was like, "Why didn't you let us figure it out? Give us a budget for our community, and we can figure out what schools should stay open or closed or, like, how to configure our schools." So, I think involving community and having community wrestle with trade-offs is really important. 

The city does this all the time. Other government entities do this all the time. You go to a Parks Department playground planning project, right? And you put your stickers for what you prefer. Or they're like, "We can only do one. Which is the one you want to do?" I think that they could really push some of that down to community to better understand trade-offs so that they can present a proposal that folks are more willing to accept. 

[00:39:17] Jasmine Pulido: One of the things I'm thinking about is how Superintendent Jones had said that they would have to go to the legislature, in the end, but that they would need to demonstrate that they did something, and school closures was going to be the way to demonstrate that. And so I guess if they were able to go through the budget and look for these non-student-facing inefficiencies. Could that possibly be the best way to demonstrate that we're doing something about it instead of closing schools? What do you think? 

[00:39:50] Alex Wakeman Rouse: That's a really good question. And I get the bind that the district is in. I've heard that they've heard concerns about district mismanagement and lack of transparency and hesitancy on the side of the state to fund Seattle Public Schools. So I have heard that it is real that they need to show that they are making some good financial decisions. 

I don't think making financial decisions on the backs of students and student outcomes is the right decision. I think that they could have chosen a different route. Imagine if they said, "We're spending so much in special education services, our outcomes are not great for our kids. We really need to figure out what we're doing for our kids and if what we're doing is right" and being vulnerable and tackling something as sticky and Challenging and controversial as that. 

This sort of feels like the easy way out, and I don't feel like it really reflects the type of financial decisions that will demonstrate to the state that they're managing their finances well. When we know it'll drive families out, and it probably won't save as much money. Like that doesn't seem like good financial decision. 

And yet, I recognize there are people behind these decisions. This is a monumental challenge for the district. And I have a lot of respect for the people who are really digging in and working to find solutions. I think a lot of us are just really worried that the solutions that they're proposing are not going to result in better outcomes for our kids. Will harm kids who have been harmed from remote schooling and COVID. And we're really hoping that there might be some other ways to address their budget gap without harming kids. 

Follow up

[00:41:52] Christie Robertson: We conducted a lot of this interview with Alex Rouse in the early days of the district’s Option A and B proposals to close up to 21 schools. And then we got so caught up in everything that was happening around then that we weren't able to complete and air this interview. So, we checked back in with Alex to get updates on what she had learned since the first time that we talked to her. 

[00:42:18] Alex Wakeman Rouse: So I have a little update on the "purchased services." I will say, I stand by my statement that it's really difficult to understand what's in the SPS budget according to their own budget documents. But now that you pointed me in the right direction to look at the  OSPI website, I know a little bit more about "purchased services". I remember I said, "There's like $147 million. What the heck is that paying for?" Pupil transportation, the contracts, that's considered a part of this "purchased services," which makes sense. It's a contract with, I don't know the details. Zum?

[00:42:54] Christie Robertson: Yeah, First Student and Zum, it's split right now. 

[00:42:58] Alex Wakeman Rouse: Insurance is in here. So the 8 million we pay for insurance, 16 million for utilities.

And then this is the one that I was most interested about. And I still have questions about. $43 million of "purchased services" is considered a "teaching activity." And I looked into this, and they said, like, “teaching that's not under salaries or benefits is services provided by those not on the school district's payroll.” And I don't know because it's hard to find, but I think that could mean online education or other sort of contracted services. But for Seattle Public Schools, $10 million of teaching for basic ed is a "purchased services." $25 million of special education is "teaching purchased services." And almost $8 million of "other instructional programs," which I'm not sure what those are exactly, are "teaching purchased services." So that is really interesting to me. Who are those entities? What is it for? Why is it not school staff? Maybe there's good reasons for it. 

Another thing I thought was interesting is there's $4 million of "purchased services" under the school board. And I'm not sure what that might entail. 

And that's what I found about "purchased services." So there's still no list of like consultants. Or, they don't even say the word consultant. It's just "purchased services". 

[00:44:33] Jasmine Pulido: So you got a little bit more detail, but you didn't get that much more detail. 

[00:44:38] Alex Wakeman Rouse: No! Sorry, I got you guys excited as if I was going to get a consultant list! 

[00:44:44] Christie Robertson: I think that's really helpful, but it narrows down 

[00:44:52] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah, and can I add that we just released an episode about the audit committee? And they are thinking about making a change of putting community members in instead of school board directors. And I guess I wonder, would you consider being part of the audit committee? 

[00:45:05] Alex Wakeman Rouse: I, that is a fascinating question. Yeah, I would definitely be interested in doing it. I'm not sure I have the time, but I think it would be really important, and I'd encourage any listener of yours who really cares about this and likes data and numbers and asking information to really consider it. We know that the school district is just as good as those of us who get involved.

And we think it's a great school district that could be made even better as long as we all continue to show up and work together on tackling these big problems.

[00:45:40] Jasmine Pulido: If there's anything that's coming out of this, I think it's that a lot of community members are so activated now, and I think they're not going to just deactivate. I think they're going to continue to be involved with public education for years, which is wonderful. And it's on the record now that if you want Alex Rouse to be on your committee, there it is. Okay.

[00:46:03] Alex Wakeman Rouse: Yeah. 

[00:46:04] Christie Robertson: I was actually surprised. One of the, disadvantages that they said about potentially opening it up to community members was they were worried about getting people to serve on it. I think at this point, this would be a great time to start up some task forces because I think there's people who are ready and willing and able to help.

[00:46:25] Alex Wakeman Rouse: I wish this was said more clearly in publications or in news. So I'll say it here. My takeaway from the whole backlash against school closures, one of the big takeaways is that a lot of us really love Seattle Public Schools. We love our schools so much. We are going to take time off work. We are going to skip all the things we do in our regular lives to show up at 345 in SODO to advocate for our schools. There are some magical, incredible people working in Seattle Public Schools. We need some task forces to keep that momentum, to build it, to just bring community along. 

Because I feel like this narrative is that we have to close schools because people aren't showing up. But people are, and I'll say this again: the families are here. And if you just involve them and listen to them and bring them along, it'll really go a long way.

[00:47:23] Christie Robertson: Also, I feel like the one of, you're, we're just hearing all these stories, all these great stories from the schools about really special relationships and really great learning and things that if we do decide to really market our schools at this point, we've got a lot of people ready to promote their schools and bring more people in, 

[00:47:46] Alex Wakeman Rouse: Yeah, and I think things are different now. We have to. I live in South Seattle, where there's two charter schools that take elementary school students and then another one that takes high school students. And when I go to community events, the charter schools always have tables. And they're always in community. And the staff are talking to family members and interested community members.

And SPS isn't there. And I think that's a missed opportunity. I think that we could put in a little more of a coordinated effort to just remind folks that we're here and that our schools are really special, too. I think that those sort of small efforts will really go a long way.

And I think that's part of the hope with the Billion Dollar Bake Sale is that people are going to be tabling in their own communities. They might also be selling baked goods. And they get to talk about all the amazing things about their school, and why their schools are worth fighting for, and why other schools are worth fighting for, and why public schools are worth fighting for, especially given the tenor of the federal government and potential changes.

[00:48:54] Jasmine Pulido: Not only do families and caregivers and everyone in the community love their public schools. Not only that. And not only are they special, but what we've heard in testimony is how our public schools have been a form of educational justice for families. And I think accentuating that point that the schools that we have, the programs and services we offer are forms of reparation for some communities. And so it's not even just a matter of, "Our schools are nice." Our schools are doing real healing for these communities.

[00:49:36] Alex Wakeman Rouse: Yeah. And they serve every kid. And there's certainly things that Seattle Public Schools can do better. And I know community members have let them know and have been on task forces in the past and given their feedback on how Seattle Public Schools can better serve their students, whether they're LGBTQ students or black students or students receiving special education services. So I know it's both. The district has to serve these kids. They're working hard to serve them well. And there's room to grow. But yes, I wholeheartedly agree, Jasmine. 

And it's been fascinating as part of this work. I've been joining a lot of like national kind of advocacy efforts. And there are some real threats to public education occurring in other states. And this could be a really great opportunity for Washington State to really solidly say that it's our paramount duty to fund K12 education. And we not only want to do it, we want to be a leader in what it means to provide public education for kids in Washington and in this country. We want to show others how we can really do it in a way that provides civil rights for students, that protects their rights, that helps families, that goes above and beyond. 

And I think there's a strong case for it financially. Compared to all the 50 states, we have the third highest GDP per capita. But we spend the second lowest percentage of GDP in public ed. So we are generating a lot of revenue, and we're not, like, coming close to even spending a lot of it on our kids.

So, if we really care about kids and we really care about democracy and public education, I really hope the state puts money where their mouth is and funds our students and funds our future.

[00:51:30] Jasmine Pulido: Well said.

[00:51:32] Christie Robertson: Thanks so much, Alex.

[00:51:34] Alex Wakeman Rouse: Thank you. 

[00:51:34] Christie Robertson: That concludes our Rainy Day Recess deep dive with Alex Wakeman Rouse. 

[00:51:42] Jasmine Pulido: You can find our show notes at our website, www.rainydayrecess.Org, or you can also subscribe so you don't miss future episodes. 

[00:51:49] Christie Robertson: If you like our work, please consider donating at our website. The price of a cup of coffee once a month is so helpful to us. And thank you for our current donors. 

[00:51:58] Jasmine Pulido:  You can also leave us a review wherever you get podcasts. Special thanks to Lester Mayo and Manzana Movement for our music. 

I'm Jasmine Pulido. 

[00:52:04] Christie Robertson: I'm Christie Robertson. Stay curious, stay cozy and join us next time for Rainy Day Recess.