S2 E5 - The Story of How We Got Here

This episode of Seattle Hall Pass focuses on three main stories converging in Seattle Public Schools:

1. The Financial Story
2. The Equity Story
3. The Student Story

... and how these competing priorities create a complex, seemingly impossible situation for the district to resolve satisfactorily.

See our Show Notes.
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Transcript

S2 E5 The Story of How We Got Here

[00:00:00] Jasmine Pulido: Welcome to Seattle Hall Pass, a podcast with news and conversations about Seattle Public Schools. I'm Jasmine Pulido, the Seattle Hall Pass intern.

[00:00:15] Jane Tunks Demel: I'm Jane Tunks Demel.

[00:00:18] Christie Robertson: And I'm Christie Robertson.

[00:00:20] Jasmine Pulido: So, this past Wednesday was the first school board meeting since the school closure plans options A and B were released. Option A would close 21 schools and eliminate option schools and K 8s, and option B would close 17 schools and keep one option K 8 in each region. If you're like me, you're a busy parent who is just trying to make sense of it all.

What exactly happened that night at the school board meeting? How did we even get here? That's why I joined this podcast as a student intern, because I wanted to find out. My focus is on systemic oppression of marginalized communities, especially in the educational system, and the best place to study that is in my local school district, Seattle Public Schools, or SPS. 

The first way systemic oppression operates is by limiting access. I'm a parent of three kids of color. A high schooler, a middle schooler, and a future SPS student, my nine month old. I've been an SPS parent for 10 years and,  I'll potentially be an SPS parent for 25 years.

After a decade of engaging with the system, I can tell you that parents like myself don't understand how our educational system works. Accessing that information to understand any part of it is a frustrating and time consuming process. So many parents like me get burnt out just trying to figure out how to meaningfully engage with Seattle Public Schools. It's confusing, convoluted, contradictory at times. And has many layers. And I still don't understand it all. But, I'm going to share with you what I know so far.

[00:02:07] Christie Robertson: And Christie, Jane, as our SPS geek experts, tell me if I have it right?Absolutely.

[00:02:14] Jane Tunks Demel: We're here for it. 

[00:02:15] Jasmine Pulido: Okay. Here we go.

There are three stories you need to know to understand what happened on Wednesday last week and how we got here. The financial story, the equity story, and the student story.

Let's first start with the financial story. 

 Seattle Public Schools is in a budget crisis. It's been in a budget crisis for how many years? Christie? Jane?

[00:02:41] Christie Robertson: I don't even know how to count it. Uh, public school underfunding has been a problem in Washington State for seemingly ever, but it's gotten even worse in recent times. This'll be the third year in a row that SPS has to cut around $100 million to balance the budget.

[00:03:00] Jasmine Pulido: And we're not the only ones who have to make cuts. It's happening all over Washington State. . 

Seattle is the largest school district in the state and has a budget that is in the billions.

[00:03:13] Jane Tunks Demel: 1. 85 billion dollars to be exact, and 1. 23 billion dollars of that is for operations. Most of the time when you hear people talking about the 100 million budget shortfall, they're talking about the operations budget. 

[00:03:26] Jasmine Pulido: SPS spends more money than what it gets in revenue each year, the bulk of which comes from the state. Though, there's also money from local levies and the federal government, and while the state gives them more money each year, it doesn't cover all of their expenses. There are reasons we don't get enough money, let's do an episode soon where we break that down. 

[00:03:47] Christie Robertson: Yeah, let's do that.

[00:03:48] Jane Tunks Demel: Anyway, SPS has been dealing with the fiscal deficit each year with one time fixes. They've plugged the fiscal hole by taking a loan from its capital fund,

And that needs to be paid back with interest.

[00:04:02] Jasmine Pulido: Also spending down their rainy day fund, and there was also COVID relief fund from the federal government. What else?

[00:04:09] Christie Robertson: They've made lots of staffing cuts, including many from the central office and a few assistant principals,

[00:04:14] Jane Tunks Demel: And they've also increased class sizes at the secondary school level.

[00:04:18] Jasmine Pulido: But it doesn't solve the bigger problem, which is that the district has a structural deficit. So they have to make cuts every year. They knew eventually they'd be in a position where they'd run out of things to throw at it, which means eventually they'd consider closing schools.

[00:04:37] Jane Tunks Demel: And there could be other ways that they could cut costs. Danny Westneat from the Seattle Times just wrote an article suggesting that they cut salaries across the board 4%, which would save $30 million if you use the district's math. 

Also, the special education department spends a hundred million dollars more than it gets from the state. So maybe they could look for some efficiencies there.

[00:05:01] Christie Robertson: but that's potentially even harder than closing schools because it would mean reworking the entire special education system. 

[00:05:06] Jane Tunks Demel: They're both hard. But, but the point is that school closures aren't the only option, even though it seems like that's the only option being presented to the board.

[00:05:16] Jasmine Pulido: Mm

[00:05:16] Christie Robertson: I feel like we should also point out that a lot of people are saying just ask the legislature, but that's also easier said than done. The legislature is historically incredibly stingy and they say no quite easily.

[00:05:29] Jasmine Pulido: Well, whatever the reasons, the school board gave the superintendent and district staff the task to come up with a plan to close schools and present it to the board for approval. 

[00:05:39] Christie Robertson: But the plan the superintendent and his staff presented was a WHAT and not a HOW. It showed WHAT they would do, WHO would be affected, WHEN it would happen, WHERE they would close schools, but they aren't clear yet on HOW it will be executed. 

[00:05:55] Jasmine Pulido: How many months did they have to come up with a plan for closing this many schools from start to finish?

[00:06:02] Jane Tunks Demel: Well, here's how Vice President Sarju put it.

[00:06:04] Michelle Sarju: We started this in December, and here we are now trying to crunch into three months, what we've had nine months to actually do.; 

[00:06:16] Jasmine Pulido: and originally, the board was on board with it? 

[00:06:20] Christie Robertson: Yes, The district claimed that these mega schools fit what parents asked for in the well resourced schools community meetings. And the superintendent checked in with the board over the months repeatedly, making sure "you're really okay with closing all these schools, right?" The number 20 was given in May of this year and it caused very little stir in the abstract. The board directors were receptive and very supportive of the idea of large well resourced schools

[00:06:49] Jasmine Pulido: Right, the superintendent tried to deliver on what they wanted, but let's come back to that. That would bring us up to speed just before Wednesday night's school board meeting. Overall, the problem is that our district spends more money than it receives, and even if we close schools we will still have to cut an additional 64 million dollars. And that's just for next year. So we either need to ask for more funding, cut costs, spend less, spend more efficiently, or maybe some combination of all four of those to dig us out of this hole.

Or, will the district go bankrupt?

[00:07:32] Christie Robertson: Yeah, basically. That's what happened to Marysville. They now have Art Jarvis, who was supposed to help develop Seattle's closure plans last year until they postponed it. He's since left Seattle and now is in charge of trying to tackle the massive cuts to get Marysville budget in line so that the school district can even survive.

[00:07:53] Jasmine Pulido: Hmm, sounds like a really hard position to be in. And since we've been in this position a while, we are trying to do most of these things to some extent, but it's not enough. So, since the problem isn't solved, caregivers, families, PTAs have been trying to fill the fiscal gaps in funding by raising funds for their local school.

[00:08:15] Jane Tunks Demel: And this year, the PTA funds going to help schools are $5 million. And even though it's only 0. 4 percent of the billion dollar plus operating budget, it's still really inequitable.

[00:08:29] Christie Robertson: Yeah, one thing about that is that it's often in areas that are really visible to students and parents, like the kind of nice things that schools have on the side.

[00:08:40] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah, the, wealth and income across the city are varied in different parts of the city, resulting in some schools having a better, more funded quality education while others are not. 

Which brings me to our second story, and that is the equity story. It goes something like this. 

the promise of public school education is that every student is guaranteed a quality education. That's not happening, and it's especially not happening for those students from marginalized communities. The Seattle School Board is trying to fix it.

Things came to an intense rise on this issue during the pandemic, where the national demand for racial equity in particular was called for in all of our systems, including public school. So the same racial equity lens and equity in general was used to start to scrutinize our programs and services in the Seattle Public Schools.

One instance is in regards to the education of students receiving highly capable and advanced learning services. Seattle used to group students who are identified for these services together. And the same school or classroom or the cohort model. But because every step of the way into the program was extremely racially inequitable the school board decided to disband the cohort model by phasing it out intending to roll out the curriculum at every school to increase access to make it a more equitable program. 

But it never happened. Here's testimony about how this shift never happened.

[00:10:16] Stephanie Gove-Yin: My name is Stephanie Gove-Yin. I'm the parent of a second grader at Cascadia elementary and two future SPS students. Since the board approved a policy in 2021 to move highly capable services out of the cohort schools and back to the neighborhoods, the district has not provided parents with any comprehensive plan for making it happen. Instead, we have watched the elimination of existing neighborhood advanced learning services and heard only whispers of pilot programs with no details, no outcomes data, no impact on students. Parents are watching.

[00:10:46] Jasmine Pulido: After effectively dismantling the highly capable program. The school board has started looking at option schools to decide if they are inequitable. Our option schools and equitable. Well, what is their origin story? There are conflicting interpretations. Were option schools created as a way to entice white families to stay and invest in the public school system. Or were they hippie institutions to handle kids who didn't fit in at traditional schools? Or maybe some combination of both. Previous president Chandra Hampson and current president Liza Rankin fit squarely in the former belief system. Denny Westneat wrote an op-ed in the Seattle Times that embraces the latter belief. 

This feels personally relevant to me because I too am an option school parent. Additionally, I've also dedicated a lot of my previous writing to racial equity for BIPOC communities, including writing a three piece series on the highly capable program when plans were first starting to roll out. I'll link those in the show notes if you're curious. 

The district has its own story about options schools. Here's what it says on their website. 

[00:11:57] Jane Tunks Demel: Option schools historically provided capacity relief for overcrowded schools. Today they draw enrollment and resources away from neighborhood schools. Both option and neighborhood schools develop unique instructional models to serve their students and communities. option schools disproportionately serve students who have traditionally had additional access to additional educational resources. Most option schools serve a smaller proportion of students who are eligible for free and reduced school meals compared to the demographics of their geographical zone. 17. 6 percent of K 5 students attend option schools. 

[00:12:44] Jasmine Pulido: So when the district decided to close schools, they came out with two plans, close schools. Or close more schools. Which schools? Both lists would include closing small and large K to five schools. And for option schools, option a would eliminate all K eight or option elementary schools and option B would leave just one K eight in each region.

Similar to how the district handled the highly capable program, the district promises to make the programs and services that were available at option schools accessible in every neighborhood school. However we know what happened with the highly capable program. And since the district doesn't know the how of that yet, the public is not convinced they'll execute it the way they've presented it. 

During last Wednesday's public testimony, families and students from option schools came out to talk about why getting rid of them for the promise of an equal access approach is inequitable. 

[00:13:42] Taryn Longhurst: My son is eight years old and hard of hearing. He has finally found a home at TOPS. We spent the last few years in our neighborhood school, a well-resourced 500 plus new building in a beautiful neighborhood school. And I spent eight months fighting to get out of it and come to TOPS. And now I'm there and facing the reality that it might close. 

 Because he has the right resources and the right teachers in the right building that is already prepared for these students. We cannot close option schools that are already prepared to serve these children. Who says we want them in our neighborhood school. I want my kid in a centralized program with other deaf and hard of hearing. Kids. I was at my neighborhood school.  

[00:14:29] Jasmine Pulido: Here's another parent who is a DEI consultant as she teases apart the definition of equity in testimony. 

[00:14:37] Cessalee Smith-Stovall:  I define equity not as a systems to create equal processes, but instead, a set of considerations, evaluations, decision-making, and processes that are created to elicit equal outcomes. Outcomes, like growth, community, good humans, cultural celebration, representation, and an authentic consideration of the needs of a very unique set of young people. As I currently see this issue, drawing staunch boundary lines, and assuming that the same policies can apply to all of the schools and processes leaves a massive gap in equity, not only for students in dual language programs like mine, those who are heritage speakers, but also socioeconomic standing, students who have been more impacted by COVID closures, those who are currently behind the learning curve and will continue to experience shifts for their last years of elementary school, those in need of additional support, those who thrive in smaller spaces, learning opportunities, and those who are geographically and financially excluded from particular neighborhoods. Neighborhoods like mine. 

[00:15:33] Jasmine Pulido: Those speakers were parents Taryn Longhurst and Cessalee Smith-Stovall, respectively. Is redistributing the services and programs at option schools to all neighborhood schools delivering on equity? Based on what definition? Or maybe it doesn't matter because there are no details. And as we saw with the highly capable program, it may not end up materializing. That's where we are today.

 And then there's this third story. Arguably the most important one. It's the story of our students. 

 I think I'll start the story at the introduction of Student Outcomes Focused Governance, or SOFG. If you want to hear about this theory of governance more in depth, we just released an episode hosted by Dawson Nichols that covers that in season two, episode four.

But here's a short rundown. The Seattle School Board is essentially the boss of our superintendent. The superintendent is the boss of the district staff. The Seattle School Board didn't have a structure that guided their work and practice. So former president Chandra Hampson introduced one that the board adopted in what year, Jane?

[00:16:55] Jane Tunks Demel: That was 2021. 

[00:16:58] Jasmine Pulido: Anyway. What Student Outcomes Focused Governance does is that it points to school boards focus in one direction, and that is student outcomes. The school board gets to decide what student outcomes to focus on.

[00:17:13] Christie Robertson: Well, theoretically, they are deciding what the student outcomes to focus on are based on community engagement.

[00:17:20] Jasmine Pulido: Right. And the goals, there are three. 

[00:17:23] Christie Robertson: Yeah. They're third grade reading, seventh grade math, and college and career readiness specifically for black boys and students of color furthest from educational justice. And you can read about them all on the Seattle Schools website, Goals and Guardrails.

[00:17:38] Jasmine Pulido: And only one of these is related to the K five students who will be affected by the closure plans. That's third grade reading. We'll come back to this point later. SOFG requires the school board to review the progress of each of these outcomes throughout the year, but it was skipped on the agenda twice last year. At Wednesday's school board meeting, they skipped it again, because there were no numbers on which to measure progress. If you look at the time use evaluations, and I did the math, less than 10% of the total time across the span of the entire 2023-24 school year was spent on student outcomes at board meetings. Despite the fact that SOFG is meant to center their attention on student outcomes as their first priority. 

SOFG is also supposed to increase engagement with the community as one of its five pillars, but in fact, engagement with the community has significantly decreased since its introduction. If you look at the school board's time use evaluations for last year, the time spent on direct community engagement is zero. For the entire year. 

Listening to public testimony doesn't count. Since school board directors only listen, they don't respond. And public testimony has been cut in half recently, with the school board, reducing meetings. from two to only one meeting per month. 

The current school board director is no longer hold regular meetings to talk with the public. Except for Gina Topp, who has monthly community meetings at West Seattle libraries. 

[00:19:17] Christie Robertson: So this year there's been a change there. They've actually done a round of community engagement last spring to inform the next strategic plan, but they haven't had any community meetings just checking in with how folks are doing and what they're thinking about what's happening right now. So I think they've gotten pretty out of touch with community sentiment.

[00:19:37] Jasmine Pulido: I will say that our newly appointed school board directors, Mizrahi and Clark, held meetings last week after the school closure plans were released. 

Here's the other piece, though. Students aren't just their outcomes, students are human beings. We just went through a pandemic which caused a major disruption in learning, forced communities apart, and has had massive implications for student mental health.

Students also need to be safe when they attend schools, and there have been multiple school shootings. While none of these other pieces are academic outcomes for students, they very much impact their learning. 

On the academic front, part of the school closure plans pledged to produce, quote, well resourced schools, by consolidating schools into larger buildings and offering programs and services from option schools in all neighborhood schools. In these plans, the district assures us that this will deliver on better student outcomes because there will be more access to resources in these buildings and it will save us 30 million. But will it? There's a few problems. 

Number one, the district doesn't yet know how it will migrate option school programs and services to every building or the costs. So how will the plan successfully foster student academics. 

Number two, the well resourced school plan won't lead to a more well resourced school, because there will still be cuts in staffing to balance the budget whether we close schools or not. 

Here's Director Mizrahi, talking about it at the school board meeting. The person affirming him is Director Hersey.

[00:21:19] Joe Mizrahi: Your point is that even with the school closures, even with the option a. You might still end up with staff reduction. So, 

[00:21:26] Brandon Hersey: Right. 

[00:21:27] Joe Mizrahi: So, so we're in this cycle where, even with the largest footprint approach, we may not be providing a school that has more resources. We actually may be providing schools that have fewer resources. 

[00:21:38] Jasmine Pulido: Number three, the breaking and consolidation of 17 plus communities, the elimination of the K 8 structure in option schools will have huge impacts on student well being.

[00:21:51] Christie Robertson: I want to jump in here and add that the alternative curriculum at some of these option schools has been a literal lifesaver for neurodivergent kids or other kids who don't fit the mold that has, intentionally or not, been characteristic of our neighborhood schools.

[00:22:06] Corrine Van Guero?: I'm Corrine Van Guero. I'm a product of Texas Public Schools. While I was exceptional at memorizing and taking tests, my brother struggled and was labeled a bad, disruptive kid. He was not bad kid. He was neurodivergent and unsupported. Both my sons now are twice exceptional - gifted in some areas, but also with learning disabilities. Both boys have IEPs and receive specialty and special education services at Thorton Creek. My oldest started at a traditional school and experienced total burnout in a single semester. We are part of the 66% of IEP families that can't stay at our neighborhood school. But that's okay, because we've found our perfect fit and community in Thornton Creek, where my sons are not viewed as problematic, but rather valued members of the community 

[00:22:54] Jasmine Pulido: let's call that number four. Number five, will it actually save $30 million? Committee members have totaled the numbers, and many have expressed a concern that this is an overblown estimate. Former school board president Michael DeBelle, from the last round of mass school closures in 2009, commented on this in a Seattle Times op-ed saying that 30 million figure is quote, highly suspect because moving thousands of students and staff costs lots of money. He also talked about how, when they close schools last time, it didn't save as much as they expected. And lastly, he states that if just 10% of students leave as a result of the closures, the budget savings are cut in half. And if 20% of students leave, they might not save anything and instead increase the deficit. 

In short, the proposed round of school closures could potentially accelerate declining enrollment and further exacerbate our deficit problem, which could cause a vicious, downward spiral of Seattle's public education.

[00:24:07] Christie Robertson: Director Clark tried to ask about whether the savings is net of costs, and Assistant Superintendent Buttleman said this. 

[00:24:14] Kurt Buttleman: So when I'm looking at the blue section, school consolidations, the 31.5 million with option a and the 25.5 million with option B, are those projected savings, is that a net savings? Or, like, have we factored in some of the potential costs to close schools into these numbers? The costs of maintaining closed or differently used buildings going forward, yes. 

[00:24:54] Sarah Clark: I'm sorry, could you repeat that? I did not hear that. 

[00:24:56] Kurt Buttleman: Yes. It's a net estimated savings.

[00:25:01] Jasmine Pulido: The reason Director Clark is asking specifically about if it's net savings is because she wants to determine if the amount the district is referring to is the amount remaining after deductions are made. And what kind of deductions is this estimate accounting for? It sounds like, based on the answer assistant superintendent Buttleman gave, it covers the deductions made for the cost of the buildings. 

[00:25:29] Christie Robertson: Net of the operating costs to maintain buildings. But does that include all the work to shut down the school and move everybody and deal with the thousands of individual needs of everybody who has to move? Does that include transportation cost differences for kids that need to get bused further? It sounds to me from Buttleman's answer that the answer is no. And it's just wild that we don't know that yet.

[00:25:55] Jasmine Pulido: The last thing I'll add is that the shifting around of teachers and students is already happening every year on a smaller scale with the October shuffle. Every October, teachers are moved and classes are split to adjust classroom configurations based on enrollment. As teacher Tyler from ORCA K 8 said at the time, it's exactly how to break a school. And even on this smaller scale, it has major impacts on our youngest students who are trying to find a sense of belonging within the relationships they build in their learning environments. We cover the stories of specific schools who have gone through this in Season 1, Episodes 6, 7, 18, 19, and 20. 

Apparently, that disruption in schools' communities, doesn't cause the district to stop the practice, despite its deeply felt impact on students. Instead, they'll now propose we do that again, but on a more massive level across all of our elementary schools, driven by the same kinds of financial imperatives. 

What criteria does the district and school board directors use to weigh the social emotional impact of students against the financial needs of the district? When is the impact on students deemed negative enough to stop reorganizing our kids like numbers on a paper, not humans with their own sets of histories, lived experiences, and learning profiles?

Here's Director Hersey, Director Briggs, and then President Rankin. All grappling with these questions. 

[00:27:25] Brandon Hersey: How do we make sure that, through this process, all of that learning, all of those relationships, all of those special things that make that possible that are largely latent in community, are not lost with the closing of a physical space?

[00:27:40] Liza Rankin: I mean, a lot of these answers too are just, they feel like words on a page. you know, "SPS will offer more inclusive learning environment for all students." Okay, great, how? What does that look like? Um, "Services and programs will be equitably distributed across Seattle Public Schools, honoring historic placement and community populations." Great, how? We can't just say this stuff. And we can't just say we're centering student outcomes when we're clearly not. We can't keep saying it and not doing it. What you're doing is, is maybe gonna be hard and how you do it really, really matters when you're talking about people's children. Um, and I really just can't understand how we don't have the academic team at the table. I can't understand why a well resourced system wouldn't create a better structure to serve students with disabilities. why we would plan a massive systemic change and still keep the, yeah maybe now they'll be at every school, but the model itself, I, I, I can't, we can't keep talking about it. 

[00:28:50] Jasmine Pulido: So this brings us to where the fiscal story, the equity story, and the student story all crash into each other. 

 Phew. Still with me? Christie? Jane?

[00:29:04] Christie Robertson: Yes. 

[00:29:07] Jane Tunks Demel: Yes. Sorry, 

[00:29:09] Jasmine Pulido: I know I, I lost Jane. I lost Jane.

[00:29:12] Jane Tunks Demel: Here I am.

[00:29:14] Jasmine Pulido: Finally, let's talk about what happened at last Wednesday's school board meeting.

 Superintendent Jones was given an impossible task with no one time fixes left. He was asked to come up with a plan to fix the structural deficit while also improving student outcomes. Remember, they already agreed earlier this year that the proposed plans would include closing up to 20 schools.

Here's Director Topp acknowledging the position Dr. Jones is in.

[00:29:51] Gina Topp:  I think we've also given an impossible task to staff to say, "Hey, you know, we have to cut the budget by a hundred million dollars but get better outcomes for our kids." Let's just be fair. That's what we're saying, 

[00:30:02] Jasmine Pulido: Now that option A and B plans for school closures have been released, Superintendent Jones and district staff came before the board to provide an update on these plans and to receive feedback. The student school board representatives Colin Bragg and Sabi Yoon gave comments about how option A and B were affecting students. 

[00:30:24] Colin Bragg: Students are definitely feeling the tension in the district. Um, the trickle down effect of both attention of budget cuts and what is currently happening with decisions and what will be happening over the coming months is something students have felt 

[00:30:38] Sabi Yoon: At Ballard high school, where I'm a student, the potential closure of Salmon Bay K-8 has raised particular alarm. Many of my peers attended Salmon Bay from K through eight and have siblings currently enrolled or planning to attend. With over 600 students enrolled, and considering that it's impacted so many generations, students have expressed that its closures would not only displace students, but also dismember the community that has been built over the years.

[00:31:09] Jasmine Pulido: In the last hour, the school board gave their feedback on the option plans. 

Hersey said he needed more specifics on this plan.

Briggs said this plan was a skeleton, a shell of a plan.

Vice President Sarju wanted to know how it was going to improve third grade reading outcomes and that she didn't understand the plans enough to vote on it, but that she was for school closures. Actually, I would say, multiple directors did say there were for school closures in general.

Is that right? 

[00:31:41] Christie Robertson: Yes. Yeah. They said it's a necessity.

[00:31:45] Jasmine Pulido: Um, or at least three of them said that. Okay.

Mizrahi, pointed out that well resourced schools will not be the result of these plans and asked about continuity of programs. 

Marni Campbell, the person in charge of the well resourced schools plans, couldn't give many answers to the directors.

[00:32:01] Joe Mizrahi: So if we were to pick scenario A, how many students will have continuing enrollment?

[00:32:07] Marni Campbell: I, I can't tell you that right now, but I could. Yeah. 

[00:32:10] Colin Bragg: What, what is that transition plan? 

[00:32:12] Marni Campbell: We have not yet fully developed that, but identify that as a really key thing to do. Yes. 

[00:32:17] Sarah Clark: I would love to learn how, if it's possible to take a similar approach as you all have done with dual language, to be able to get very specific about, other programs in buildings that are set to be closed. How we would maintain those and how students would be able to continue to participate in them.

[00:32:43] Marni Campbell: So these things are underway, just weren't shared tonight, but we can absolutely bring that to you. 

[00:32:49] Jasmine Pulido: Topp tried to motion for an option C to close four to six schools but was denied by president Rankin and legal because they said it violated the Open Public Meetings Act. Topp, who is a lawyer, disagreed, but decided to drop it. This time. Sarah Clark chimed in to say that according to Robert's rules of order, Topp should be able to make a motion. 

 President Rankin called some of Campbell's answers gaslighting.

[00:33:17] Liza Rankin: I would like to recommend that we move right past the initial assumptions and concerns because, to be quite honest, that feels a lot like gaslighting. They have these concerns. Oh, it's not a concern because this is this. Like, looking through it, it is a concern. So don't tell us it's not a concern.

[00:33:32] Jasmine Pulido: President Rankin also expressed dismay, saying the timeline to get this plan executed was too tight and she feared that they may be pushed to vote on this plan in December. Superintendent Jones pushed back by responding that they were not trying to force the board into a corner with this plan and that they needed more time. It was tense. 

[00:33:53] Liza Rankin: This is longstanding. And what has happened in far back history and in, you know, mine and Brandon's time on the board definitely is the board being backed into a corner and being expected to vote to approve something that doesn't pass muster because, "Well, then what are we going to do about this?" or "what are we going to do?", or "that's the state deadline." and I, I want to make as clear as possible right now that I don't believe this board will vote on something to save anybody's butt except for children. 

[00:34:24] Brent Jones: Respectfully, I categorically reject the notion that we would intentionally back the board into a corner. I I need to say that. 

[00:34:34] Jasmine Pulido: and that was the end of the meeting. So. We still don't know what to do about our deficit. We don't know what progress has been made on student outcomes. What will happen to option schools? Are they inequitable? And if they are, how do we plan to address it? 

Okay. Here's my assessment of the meeting. The reason that this task from the board was an impossible task for the superintendent is because there is absolutely no way for school closures to support third grade reading outcomes. There is research that says, in fact, that school closures can have a lifetime of detrimental effects, especially for those students that come from marginalized identities. But they want to get rid of option schools because they believe they're inequitable and the structural deficit is a good way to justify that. However, Superintendent Jones has said in the past that he wanted to close schools even if there wasn't a deficit. Is that right?

[00:35:36] Christie Robertson: yes. That's been said repeatedly and also by President Rankin.

[00:35:41] Jasmine Pulido: That's where I think these stories start to clash. If we close schools, it will hurt student outcomes. If we don't close schools, we need to do something else to close the deficit. But if they keep option schools, it's inequitable. There's no way to do all three and actually get everything they're wanting. The well resourced schools plan was an attempt to bridge all three with the idea that the product of all the rearranging would be the best learning environment possible with the money they have to work with, and thus would positively impact student outcomes. 

And the community was clear in calling BS on this premise, saying that night that school closures will hurt students in the short term, in the long term, academically, socially, emotionally. "The well resourced school plan is not about building a better school. It's about closing schools," they said. 

And that's it. That's what happened that night. Did I get that right?

[00:36:44] Christie Robertson: Yes, it was completely wild and unexpected based on all the past agreement of everybody on closing schools. So, um, I'm very curious to see what happens from here.

[00:36:58] Jane Tunks Demel: And I really love, Jasmine, how you underline the disconnect. It's impossible to close 21 schools and also improve student outcomes in reading. So I really feel like the superintendent has been given an impossible task, and that the school board's not setting him up for success. And it was a little concerning for me that they've been briefed every step along the way for this plan, and now all of a sudden, they're unhappy with them.

[00:37:28] Christie Robertson: I think now that it's 20 some schools, reality has hit. And. It's real kids now standing in front of them from real schools with real relationships and real communities. And there's just no way you rip those things away from kids and improve their academics.

[00:37:49] Jane Tunks Demel: And with the lack of community engagement, the school board directors have really isolated themselves from the public. And so I think it's only now that they're realizing that the public does not support this plan. 

[00:38:02] Jasmine Pulido: Let me ask you something, Christie and Jane. Who do you think the villain in this story is?

[00:38:07] Christie Robertson: Who's the villain? That is a hard question. I think what most of us are pointing to, and the easiest thing to point to is the state legislature for underfunding our schools for so long. And also because they're kind of remote to the situation so they're easy to blame. But is the villain something more complicated? What do you think, Jane?

[00:38:31] Jane Tunks Demel: Is the villain our attempts to deal with inequities by tearing things down rather than fixing them? Or maybe the villain is just that the systemic racism that has ignored inequities prior to that.

[00:38:45] Christie Robertson: Or maybe it's operations in the district, longstanding siloing and, and operational deficiencies within the administration or poor relationships between the board and the superintendent for years and the constant churn of both.

[00:39:04] Jane Tunks Demel: One thing I know is that the kids are not the villain and they are unfortunately going to bear the brunt of all of this. 

[00:39:12] Jasmine Pulido: I think depending on who you ask, people will give you a different answer. Which I think is worth thinking about. If we can't definitively pinpoint who the villain is, could the system be the villain? Pitting us all against one another by forcing us all into a scarcity mindset? 

Another way systemic oppression works is that it distracts us by keeping us busy, pointing fingers at one another, so we don't band together as a community and demand changes to the system itself. And when I say system, I don't mean the state necessarily, but the system the state is operating through. And if it is the system, then there are things we can do to change it, as a community. 

I'll tell you something else though, and then I'm done. One of the major reasons I decided to study the educational system in particular is because if you look back in history, there are two places that are hotbeds for systemic change. One place is within religious movements and the other is schools. Maybe that means in all this adult havoc, in the end, our students are and always will be the heroes. 

Here are some of our student voices at the school board meeting that night.

[00:40:37] Liat Reif: Um, my name is Liat Reif, and I'm here today to implore you to reconsider your proposal on school closures and elimination of option school programs. I'm a seventh grader at Hamilton International Middle School and an alum of John Stanford International School, where I studied in the Spanish track. My parents are both Venezuelan immigrants and we live in Ballard. In other words, outside of the geozone for John Stanford International School. And next to me are my friends and alums from JSIS, whose families are also immigrants and heritage speakers. We all live outside of the JSIS geozone. Without spending half our school day at JSIS learning and practicing Spanish, I don't think I would be able to have the connection I have with my family. 

I understand that SPS needs money and is looking for opportunities to save, but there has to be a better way. As kids, we look to adults to set an example of how to be inclusive and foster equity.

[00:41:31] Christie Robertson: So what happens now? Whatever it is, we'll cover it. Stay tuned.

[00:41:38] Jane Tunks Demel: If you have thoughts, concerns, or questions about this episode, ideas for what we should cover next.

[00:41:44] Christie Robertson: Email us at hello@Seattlehallpass.Org. And be sure to check our show notes at our website. 

[00:41:51] Jane Tunks Demel: Follow us on Twitter at Seattle Hall Pass. We're hoping to live tweet a few of the upcoming meetings. 

[00:41:58] Jasmine Pulido: But wait, Jane. They actually canceled the community meetings like an hour ago. So we're going to have to talk about that in the next episode.

I'm Jasmine Pulido 

[00:42:11] Jane Tunks Demel: I'm Jane Tunks Demel.

[00:42:13] Christie Robertson: And I'm Christie Robertson.

[00:42:15] Jasmine Pulido: Thanks for listening to Seattle Hall Pass.