New proposal reveals possible school closures in Seattle

Seattle families now know which elementary schools are likely to be on the brink of collapse in 2025.

Seattle Public Schools leaders unveiled preliminary proposals on their new Well-Resourced Schools website Wednesday. Marni Campbell, the district's well-resourced schools commissioner, said both plans would help them ensure schools are right-sized and have enough resources.

“At SPS, we seek to create a school system that is sustainable and healthy,” she said in a statement. “Our well-resourced schools plan will enable all SPS students to receive a world-class education in their neighborhood schools that meets their diverse needs.”

The “well-resourced schools” plan, also known as “Option A,” would close 21 schools and eliminate option and K-8 schools, saving $31.5 million. The following schools would be closed under this proposal:

• Northwest Seattle: Licton Springs K-8, Salmon Bay K-8, Broadview Thompson K-8 and North Beach Elementary.
• Northeast Seattle: Green Lake, Decatur, Sacajawea, Cedar Park and Laurelhurst elementary schools.
• Downtown Seattle: Catharine Blaine K-8, John Hay, McGilvra, Stevens, TOPS K-8.
• Southeast of Seattle: Orca K-8 and Graham Hill, Dunlap and Rainier View elementary schools.
• Southwest Seattle: Boren STEM K-8 and Lafayette and Sanislo elementary schools.

“Option B,” or the “choice” plan, would close 17 schools and save $26 million. The following schools would be closed:

• Northwest Seattle: Licton Springs K-8, Broadview Thompson K-8 and North Beach Elementary.
• Northeast Seattle: Green Lake, Decatur, Cedar Park and Laurelhurst elementary schools.
• Downtown Seattle: Catharine Blaine K-8 and John Hay, McGilvra, Stevens and Thurgood Marshall elementary schools.
• Southeast of Seattle: Orca K-8 and Graham Hill and Rainier View elementary schools.
• Southwest Seattle: Boren Stem K-8 and Sanislo Elementary.

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This plan calls for opening one school (grades K-8) in each region and would require the district to make an additional $6 to $7 million in savings.

The district also presented two other alternatives: one is to keep all existing schools open, the other is to scale closures from zero to 25 schools.

None of these proposals are final. The district administration is expected to present a final school closure plan to the board next month, and the board will vote on it sometime before winter break.

In the meantime, parents and community members will have the opportunity to speak out at public meetings this month and next. Each school scheduled to close will also have its own public hearing, as required by the school board.

For more than a year, district leaders have said school consolidations are a necessary step to address a persistent budget deficit. The district has an estimated $100 million budget deficit for the 2025-26 school year.

Officials have said staff cuts and other austerity measures will be necessary. The plans released Wednesday do not specifically address staff cuts, but officials note that keeping the district's current 73 elementary and primary schools would mean “significant” cuts.

In addition to school closures, both options presented on Wednesday also include restructuring of the schools. In both proposals, the schools would be converted into the following schools:

• John Stanford International Primary School
• McDonald International Primary School
• Cascadia Elementary School
• Thornton Creek Elementary School
• Queen Anne Elementary School

Under Option A, Hazel Wolf K-8, South Shore K-8, and Pathfinder K-8 would become K-5 catchment schools. Under Option B, they would all stay the same.

Both options would rebuild Sand Point Elementary and use the current building in Laurelhurst as an interim site.

RELATED: Seattle families prepare for school closures. What can we learn from last time?

The district's financial problems are largely due to declining enrollment in Washington state's largest public school system.

SPS has lost nearly 5,000 students in the last five years, a decline of about 9%.

It's hard to say exactly what caused the decline. District leaders have pointed to the low birth rate and say the lack of affordable housing and high cost of living in Seattle have forced some families to leave the city and its public school system.

And in the wake of the pandemic, more and more families are choosing to homeschool their children or send them to private school.

RELATED: One in six children in Seattle goes to a private school. Is this a factor in the problems of public schools?

Whatever the reason, public school funding is based largely on enrollment rates, and district officials say the decline has resulted in a revenue loss of about $81 million. They also have long blamed chronic underfunding at the state level.

For example, because of the state cap on special education funding, the district expected to spend $125 million more this year to provide needed services for students with disabilities than it receives from the state.

Thanks to federal Covid relief funds, the district has been able to at least partially mask these budget problems in recent years.

Yet most of those funds have already run out or will by the end of this month. And school finance experts say that's led to this pivotal moment in Seattle Public Schools and other districts across the country.

RELATED: How Seattle Public Schools' Budget Problems Got So Bad

In justifying the school closures, school administrators argued that reducing the district to a “system of well-resourced schools” would allow them to allocate resources more effectively and equitably.

They say state funding is based on the cost of operating an elementary school with 400 students. Twenty-nine of the district's 104 school buildings have fewer than 300 students.

The district cannot afford to assign additional full-time staff – such as nurses, counselors, librarians, art teachers, social workers and special education teachers – to smaller schools. These staff will likely be shared between multiple schools.

On average, the district expects to save about $1.5 million per school building closed and estimates that the overall school equipment plan would save about $30 million.

If the district does not consolidate schools, officials say they face further painful cuts and changes – such as increasing class sizes, adjusting employment contracts, and reducing or eliminating preschools, technical schools, and sports.

And depending on whether the district receives more state funding during the 2025-26 legislative session, those cuts may still be necessary.

Since the district announced the proposal to close more than a quarter of its elementary schools in May, it has faced fierce community backlash. Some parents and community members have questioned whether closing schools will actually solve Seattle's budget problems and criticized what they see as a lack of information and clarity from the district.

RELATED: Will closing schools really balance Seattle public schools' budgets? Parents have their doubts

RELATED: Tensions rise at school closure meetings in Seattle

Seattle experienced its last wave of school closures in 2007 and 2008. The measure sparked an outcry from parents and the community and led to lawsuits, safety concerns at school district events, an attempt to remove some school board members, and the resignation of the school superintendent.

In October 2009, the district experienced an enrollment boom and officials had to spend millions of dollars to reopen many of the recently closed schools.

District officials have said they have confidence in the data they are using to forecast enrollment and consolidate schools this time around.

“We've been working very carefully,” Campbell, the district's well-funded school commissioner, told KUOW in a recent interview. “We consulted with two outside agencies to review our projection numbers and make sure we're doing it in a way that hopefully really recognizes the absolute challenge of the present, but also works more toward that future.”

This is a developing story that will be updated.