(Image: Converge Media with permission to CHS)

The major crises of the Seattle public school system are colliding this week as a scheduled announcement of the district’s roster of planned campus closures is being set aside.

The district says it is also beginning to address strong calls from families and principal Tarance Hart for strengthened safety measures following the deadly shooting of a Garfield High School student in the campus’s 23rd Ave parking lot.

From August 2023: ‘Save Stevens Elementary’: Confusion around Seattle Public Schools as district meetings on ‘well-resourced’ campuses continue despite expected funding crisis

“The last several weeks of the school year were challenging. We lost Garfield High School Junior Amarr Murphy-Paine to gun violence,” district superintendent Brent Jones said in Tuesday’s announcement about a shift in plans for the school closure process and the list of proposed shutdown that had been expected to be presented at Wednesday night’s meeting of the Seattle School Board.

“Business as usual in the wake of such a tragedy is unfathomable,” Jones said.

in the announcement, Jones said the district is considering “several safety changes for next school year in our high schools” to “ensure the well-being of our students and staff” including increasing district security and “neighborhood safety organization patrols around our buildings,” requiring identification badges on campus, requiring clear backpacks, and closing campuses for lunch.

CHS reported here earlier this month as Garfield students returned to campus following the deadly shooting amid increased presence of the Seattle Police Department and calls from parents to do more. The Garfield PTSA is working on a Safe Schools Action Plan and voted to demand the Seattle School Board make a decision on restoring the school resource officer program and placing a dedicated SPD officer at Garfield before the start of the 2024/2025 school year. In the summer of 2020, the Seattle School Board suspended a partnership with SPD that provided five armed officers with rotations and placements across Seattle’s public schools.

‘School Consolidations’
But Wednesday night’s school board meeting will focus on the campus shutdown process, not safety initiatives and the demands from the Garfield community.

The district says Wednesday’s board session will focus on “the criteria guiding our decisions, such as budget and enrollment data, building condition assessments, program considerations, and community input.”

Jones said the shutdown process will be delayed until September with a plan for the board to vote on the “well-resourced schools” plan “before winter break in December 2024.”

The move delays what is expected to be a painful step as Seattle Public Schools rolls out Jones’s plan to shutter 20 elementary campuses across the city to address budget woes and, the district says, establish “a new foundation of stability and consistency that our students and staff need to thrive.”

A looming budget deficit had SPS promising no closures until 2024 but predicting serious belt-tightening as it expects a decade of lower enrollment. Changes in state funding and a forecast for a continued near-term drop in enrollment had the district scrambling to cover a $131 million budget deficit for the current school year with continued financial shortfalls on the way.

SPS last went through rounds of campus closures a decade ago that included cuts for Capitol Hill and Central District communities. CHS reported here in 2013 as plans began moving forward to reopen Capitol Hill’s Meany Middle School campus after it had been shuttered during a round of economic belt tightening.

In previous cutbacks, the district closed schools but kept campuses busy by shifting programs or leasing the properties to private and charter schools. By 2016, the district was reopening its shuttered or repurposed Capitol Hill and Central District area campuses. During the shuffling a decade ago, private schools like Hamlin Robinson leased facilities like E Union’s TT Minor campus until the district said it needed the properties back.

The district has not yet presented any report on the expected costs savings presented by specific campus shutdowns this time around.

The district has said the “school consolidations” would be in place for the 2025-26 school year.

Garfield families, meanwhile, have their minds on making the school safer by the time classes begin at the end of summer with ideas ranging from metal detectors, to banning phones, to adding more fences and gates around the campus. The district also faces an ongoing gun violence crisis that far exceeds its boundaries. The King County Prosecutor’s office notified the district of 70 students facing felony gun charges under a new reporting program hoped to help the district address its safety challenges.

The community is also still mourning Murphy-Paine. In a vigil on the school’s sports field, the young man was remembered as a dedicated athlete and friend cut gunned down as he tried to keep the peace. SPD has announced no arrests in the case.

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