Closing Seattle Schools

It is excellent training to observe how Boards and superintendents work through issues by reading the local newspaper. In this case, Dick Lilly, one of the most senior Seattle Board members, is taking the opposite side of an upcoming district issue. He obviously knows that the superintendent is looking to close schools. He knows that the news will determine how the issue is seen by the public and he is writing an editorial to move the issue toward his way of thinking. In Northshore, Dr. Forys works very hard with Board members to move toward consensus and it is difficult to conceive that Northshore Board members would take such a public stance on an upcoming issue. In general, they get all of the information available and have time to discuss and come to an understanding on all of their positions. They do not use community politics to move an issue forward.

I wonder what it would take for the Seattle School Board to work like the Northshore School Board. Could it? Would that represent the Seattle community or should there be public conflict?

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Guest columnist
Closing Seattle schools won't help

By Dick Lilly
Special to The Times

There's talk of closing schools in Seattle. It's a bad idea.

Yes, we're in a budget crunch. At current estimates, it will cost $7 million more to run Seattle Public Schools next year, maybe another $10 million the year after.

That's just the cost of doing what we're doing now, nothing new. And we have to find money for teachers' long-overdue raises, as promised in the new contract.

But closing schools. Whoa!

Our schools are tightly woven into the fabric of our city; they are at the heart of our neighborhoods. In fact, our schools and our neighborhoods have gotten stronger in the past six years since the late Superintendent John Stanford set us on a course for "quality schools close to home."

Closing schools would rip the heart out of many of our neighborhoods, north and south. Quite a few schools (10, 15?), mostly elementaries, would have to be closed to generate any real financial savings.

And there are significant disadvantages. Class sizes will rise in schools all around the closed sites as they absorb the extra students. Portables may be needed to handle crowding at the remaining schools. Schools will be larger and harder to manage, requiring more administrative staff. They will be less intimate and welcoming. Buses will be required to carry kids whose nearest school is now much farther away.

Closing an elementary school may net as little as $250,000. In contrast, just eliminating busing at the elementary level could produce 10 times that.

But the real bottom line on school closing is that Seattle Public Schools will become less desirable. More families will opt for private schools or move out of the city.

Couples planning to start families won't move here, reversing a trend of the past 10 years. Total enrollment, which has been declining slightly, could suddenly plummet. State funding, which is based on enrollment, would sink, making finances even worse.

That's one scenario, where the tipping point goes toward decline. But there's another. We can grow and retain our neighborhood schools but we must stop driving families away.

Parents want predictability. When they move into a neighborhood, they want to know where their children will go to school — all the schools: elementary, middle and high.

But Seattle Schools' assignment system leaves families always in doubt. (Even when the odds are favorable, parents worry, because after all, it's still a gamble.) On top of that, in large areas of the North End, families can't even get their children into the nearest middle school. (Some transfer to Shoreline schools.)

Uncertainty and inconvenience drive people away. Our assignment staff says people, looking for better options, start pulling their kids out of Seattle Public Schools beginning in fourth grade. Some go private right from the start. Depending on neighborhood, anywhere from 10 to 40 percent of kids do not attend Seattle Public Schools.

We have the power to change this and bring families back. Instead of closing a dozen elementary schools, we need to strategically pair some of them to create K-8 combinations, thus increasing middle-school seats throughout the city and lowering enrollment at several middle schools that are too big.

Even with that strategy, we'll probably need to open a small middle school in the North End, possibly using the now-closed Wilson-Pacific campus near North 90th Street and Aurora Avenue North.

We also need additional high-school capacity in the middle of the city, possibly at the old Lincoln High building or in the Magnolia-Queen Anne area.

We must give parents predictability. The School Board is reworking the assignment system as part of its five-year plan and the new assignment plan must, at last, be family-friendly. Based on where they live, parents should know what elementary, middle and high schools their children will attend.

On top of that reassuring predictability, we can continue to offer alternative-school choices and, I believe, some additional choice and mobility for kids from low-income families, reinforcing diversity.

Changing to a guaranteed assignment system means dramatic savings in busing costs, particularly at the elementary level, which will keep our funding stable for the next few years. (Unfortunately, not forever. That's still up to the Legislature.) But the changes I'm proposing here will bring families back to Seattle Public Schools.

More students mean more money from the state. In this scenario, the tipping point changes from decline to growth.

And that means better schools and stronger neighborhoods.

Dick Lilly is a member of the Seattle School Board. The opinions expressed here are his own