(Image: Seattle Public Schools)
Capitol Hill-area amilies working a year ago to “Save Stevens Elementary” amid the confusion of early Seattle Public Schools planning to cut campuses to address a looming budget hole were right to be concerned.
The northern Capitol Hill elementary just blocks from Volunteer Park is one of the few schools in the system to be on the chopping block in both options now being proposed by the district to cut multiple campuses and save some $30 million a year.
- Proposed Option A: Operates 52 attendance-area elementary schools. This option closes 21 elementary and K-8 schools.
- Proposed Option B: Operates 56 schools, including attendance-area elementary and one K-8 school per region. This option closes 17 schools.
The cut would impact hundreds of Capitol Hill-area families and the surrounding area around the 18th Ave E school known to many as the Stevens neighborhood.
SPS says its Option A would closed five elementary campuses in the Central Seattle area including Stevens:
PROPOSED OPTION A
Central Schools that Remain Open: Lawton, Magnolia, Coe, Queen Anne, Montlake, Lowell, Leschi, Madrona, Bailey Gatzert, Thurgood Marshall, Kimball, John Muir
-
Closing: Catharine Blaine K-8, John Hay, McGilvra, Stevens, TOPS K-8
-
School Type Changes: Queen Anne Elementary becomes an attendance area school
Options B would also shutter five but swap out the TOPS K-8 school and close Thurgood Marshall on S Irving.
PROPOSED OPTION B
Central Schools that Remain Open: Lawton, Magnolia, Coe, Queen Anne, Montlake, Lowell, TOPS K-8 (option), Leschi, Madrona, Bailey Gatzert, Kimball, John Muir
-
Closing: Catharine Blaine K-8, John Hay, McGilvra, Stevens, Thurgood Marshall
-
School Type Changes: Queen Anne Elementary becomes attendance area school
Stevens is not the only Central Seattle campus to make both lists. Families at Magnolia’s Catharine Blaine K-8, Queen Anne’s John Hay, and Madison Park’s McGilvra also seem destined to be in the middle of the changes.
Meanwhile, E Mercer’s Lowell Elementary and its around 400 students are among the central campuses earmarked to remain open.
The district changes are being planned to begin for the 2025-2026 school year.
Many of the campuses targeted for closure have the lowest enrollments in the system as population growth has shifted and, more importantly, the district has shifted attendance boundaries over the years to focus more kids at fewer schools.
The result, the district says, will help it weather the looming budget deficit. Cuts in state funding and a forecast for a continued near-term drop in enrollment has the district scrambling to cover a $131 million budget deficit for the current school year with continued financial shortfalls on the way.
“At SPS, we want to create a system of schools that are durable and healthy,” said Marni Campbell who is heading up the “Well-Resourced Schools” project for the district. “Our plan for well-resourced schools will allow for all SPS students to receive world-class education that meets their diverse needs in their neighborhood schools.”
In selecting schools for closure, SPS included priorities on eliminating its lowest attendance campuses.
APPROXIMATE DEFICIT REDUCTION
Option A: Approximate $31.5 million budget reduction
Option B: Approximate $25.5 million budget reduction (Approximately $6 million will need to be offset with other budget cuts)
| School Size | Current # of schools |
Option A # of schools |
Option B # of schools |
| 150 or Below | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 150-199 | 7 | 0 | 0 |
| 200-249 | 10 | 0 | 0 |
| 250-299 | 13 | 2 | 3 |
| 300-349 | 16 | 6 | 8 |
| 350-399 | 11 | 12 | 10 |
| 400-449 | 6 | 11 | 14 |
| 450-499 | 8 | 8 | 5 |
| 500+ | 1 | 13 | 10 |
A 2023 flyering campaign
Worries about campus consolidation and the elimination of Stevens have been growing for years. CHS reported in 2023 on the first “Save Stevens Elementary” rumblings. This summer, the district delayed the release of the planned cut list.
Now the writing is on the wall. By the 2025-2026 school year, Stevens-area kids seem likely headed for Lowell — or Montlake where Seattle Public Schools is making its capital investments in the area. With long-term projections showing continued demand for education in Central Seattle, SPS is overhauling and expanding the Montlake Elementary campus as a centerpiece in the system.
The system’s updated boundaries for attendance will divide areas currently assigned to McGilvra and Stevens. Attention will also turn to how the new boundaries are drawn.
There is also the question of what will happen to the landmarked property where a Stevens school has welcomed children since 1906. The campus buildings have been overhauled and seismically improved in recent decades. Its large blacktop schoolyard is surrounded by single-family style homes in one of the wealthiest areas of the city. Just a few blocks south, the private Catholic St. Joseph School has been working on expansion plans but those have been expected to focus on its existing land and nearby properties around its 18th and Aloha campus.
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.
Investments in private education in the area, meanwhile, continue. CHS reported here earlier this month on the next plans for expansion for 10th Ave E’s Bertschi School as it prepares to add a new three-story schoolhouse. The school, which opened as a single pre-kindergarten class in 1975 has grown to an enrollment of 244 students from pre-K through grade 5. School officials say the renovation is not driven by a plan to expand enrollment, though admit it will grow the student body by 22 students.
Just over 150 kids were enrolled at Stevens for the 2023-2024 school year.
The district says it is collecting feedback on the options with a plan for Superintendent Brent Jones to make his recommendation for the cutback plan in October.
Public hearings required by policy for each proposed closure would follow in October and November with the Seattle School Board expected to vote on the final plan just before winter break.
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This is what happens when you don’t collect a state income tax and fetishize a tax shelter mentality!!!!!!
I just love having our public amenities stripped bare by the wealthy so they can send their kids to the Bertschi school for networking opportunities.
EDUCATION ONLY FOR THOSE WHO CAN AFFORD IT.
100% agreed. Education is a right guaranteed under Article IX of our state constitution. Not having an income tax infringes on that right. Not having an income tax is therefore unconstitutional.
Why do you believe that you have some sort of entitlement to other people’s children?
Parents decide where their children go to school, a child sent to Bertschi does not take money from the public schools. There is no money that is collected from taxes that is sent to Bertschi. There is no money collected for this child.
The sort of entitlement you are expressing is out of date, to be polite. The point to Targeted Universalism is to use the public school to reach students who have traditionally been underserved. To focus public money on these children.
Children coming from wealthier families, or from demographics who have paths to other means of education? Stop focusing on trying to attract them, put the attention on those who are most in need.
Another way to consider this, “if you cannot afford a lawyer one will be provided”.
So your argument is that some children have more value than others, based on the circumstances of their birth?!?
I am entirely unsure of how you come to this conclusion. Can you explain?
First of, your original argument is false, since school funding relies on enrollment and property taxes, when parents send their children to private schools it is at the expense of public schools.
More over, you’re advocating for a two tiered system of schooling similar to the public defender program in our judicial system that is horrendously tilted towards those with money and resources.
Please explain yourself further and why you think pay to play is a successful method and not what has brought down many great civilizations?
Somehow someway we need to switch from property taxes to an income tax if the region will ever meet it’s needs.
Seattle Public Schools per-pupil spending in 2025 is forecast to be $26,292. So the budget for Stevens at 150 students is roughly $4mm. Note that spending does not include buildings and maintenance, which are on a separate budget. If you include that, the per-pupil spend seems within striking distance of many private elementaries in the city.
So it doesn’t seem to be an issue of funding specifically. It’s what’s being done with the funding.
https://www.seattleschools.org/news/budget-development/#:~:text=Seattle%20Public%20Schools%20enrollment%20for,are%20projected%20to%20be%20%2426%2C292.
True, but then add the additional needs public schools pay for, such as special education and free/reduced meals. Right now SPS is spending 100 million more that it receives via taxes in special education costs alone.
fundsps.com
This article especially helped me understand the history of public school funding issues state wide, which I’ve been trying to piece together for a while. I’m stoked the author Shaun Scott is running to represent us in the 43rd district. I hope we’re able to elect some new folks into the legislature this November and create some real change. How to End the Class War on Washington’s Classrooms – The Stranger
Just raise property taxes if we need more revenue. Much more progressive than income taxes anyway and avoids creating an entire new bureaucracy that doesn’t exist now.
Other than only half the population directly pay property tax, the other half who are renting may not directly understand the financial impact of the endless spending propositions added annually. An income tax would be far more explicit
Eh, I care much more about tax incidence. Property taxes are much more progressive AND also have fewer distortions and opportunities to cheat.
Almost no correlation between income property value!!
That’s simply incorrect… property tax is a regressive tax…
Property tax, sales tax, excise taxes are all regressive taxes. Everyone is taxed at the same rate regardless of their income.
Federal income tax is a progressive tax. The more you earn the larger the percentage is paid. Higher income earners pay a higher percentage…
State Income taxes are often proportional – everyone is taxed at the same rate, with higher income earners paying more, though not a larger percentage.
Sorry, no. In spite of the right wing ads about little grannies owing big tax bills, it has been proven many times over that the incidence of property tax is far more progressive than any other tax, including income tax. Guess who owns the most property and especially the most expensive property and how that lines up with income and wealth? It’s not hard to see. You’re making the claim that because the person with the $250k house and the person with the $5M house and $2M vacation home both pay the same percentage on those amounts that it’s somehow not progressive? That’s outlandish.
Sorry, but no, a basic definition in economics and you are using it wrong.
I’ll explain this in simple terms…
Whether a tax is progressive or regressive has nothing to do with the ultimate dollar amount you pay… It has to do with the percentage of your income/earning potential and the effect on your financial health the tax has….
So, even though a wealthy person with multiple properties may ultimately pay more, the tax has a far greater impact on a person of limited means and likely takes a far greater percentage of that person’s income.
Federal income tax is a progressive tax – the less money you make the smaller percentage of your income you pay in. Property tax would only be progressive if the income of the property owner were taken into account and the rate at which properties were taxed was different for those at lower incomes.
Um, yes? Property taxes paid can be indexed to income? Please show me the study that property taxes paid are a higher percentage of a low income person’s money than a high income person’s money.
The amazing part of property taxes is that you don’t have to look at income, because the amount and value of property owned tracks very closely with income. So simply raising property taxes ends up being progressive when measured against income.
Stop with the right wing propaganda on keeping property taxes low to benefit billionaires.
Puleez. How about you stop the ridiculous name calling. Your not understanding economics doesn’t in any way make me right wing 🙄…
And whether or not property tax could be indexed to income is irrelevant when it is, in fact, not. Any tax in theory could be linked to income, but theory is meaningless unless it becomes practice…
And yes, there’s plenty of studies that show property taxes are regressive and that your assumptions are quite wrong. I shouldn’t have to do your research…. But anyway.
Here you go, this outlines all of the taxes here in WA. You’ll note this is not in the slightest bit a conservative organization…
https://www.opportunityinstitute.org/research/post/who-really-pays-an-analysis-of-the-tax-structures-in-15-cities-throughout-washington-state/
Here’s another from the University of Chicago that addresses not only the regressive nature of property tax, but also the disparity is property valuation that make it even more so.
https://propertytaxproject.uchicago.edu/
The Democrats have control of both halves of the state legislation and hold the governors office.
If you want to see more money going to fund schools across the state? They have the power to do this. Arguments about creating new taxes? They can increase the ones they have today.
Can we have an end to all of the nonsense about McCleary? Children across the state deserve equal access education no matter where they are born.
The power to increase funding for education is in the hands of the Democrats so go and ask your state legislators to make it a priority. There is nothing stopping them.
If funding increases do not occur? Blame them and yourself if you continue to elect the same people. ( FWIW, I like Jamie Pedersen )
I know that The Stranger continues to push the idea that children born in one area should receive more funding then those children living in other areas, please push past that idea and accept that children across the state deserve equal access to education.
They should start by figuring out which are most likely to collapse in a quake – I’d put Washington Middle school on that list.
This is just the list of elementary schools that are being closed, in the spring we will see the list of middle schools, high schools, and alternative schools.
Washington MS has had no upgrades and the building condition is listed as poor. There is another middle school that will be opened soon that has a capacity of more than a 1000 students; additionally the current middle schools are not at capacity.
The hole in the budget cannot be met by closing just these schools.
Seems like SPS is in a downward spiral, due to several key factors including enrollment growth in private schools. Queue private school rant in 3, 2, 1:
Private school is unethical. Parents who make make the choice to send their kids to private school are creating “haves” and “have-nots” from a very young age. Private school parents tell themselves they “still pay their taxes” which funds SPS so that they can sleep at night. But if their kids were in the public school system they would have skin in the game and actually lobby for meaningful improvements in public schools. Also, my understanding is that public schools receive funding based on how many enrolled students they have, and so removing your child from public schools is actively hurting public schools’ financial health and thus their ability to provide exceptional education for all.
There are circumstances where private school has a role to play, maybe if you have a child with severe special needs for example, but this isn’t the case for the most kids enrolled in private school.
I’m willing to learn and to be wrong and welcome a different perspective.
And, SPS’s plans are going to exacerbate the move to private and parochial schools (and our few charters).
By the way, severe special needs are a case where private school would not make sense, as they do not have the same legal requirement to educate your kid as the public school system does.
I have been involved in school legislative affairs in the past, but keeping my kid in sps when I can provide her other options where she will be challenged, where her social needs will be met and where she is not at risk of gang violence and murder – is unethical.
You can fix the enrollment issue by simply doing what other communities do; Washington tracks the number of children in both public and private schools, so provide schools with funding based on total number of children in the district.
This would align under Targeted Universalism by providing a greater means of equity being made possible.
“By the 2025-2026 school year, Stevens-area kids seem likely headed for Montlake where Seattle Public Schools is making its capital investments in the area.” Actually, the SPS’ address lookup tool shows that the Stevens-area kids will be split up, with roughly half of them going to Montlake and the other half going to Lowell. Same for McGilvra-area kids, which will be split into half going to Montlake and half going to Madrona. So not only are these kids’ schools being closed, but on top of that their friend groups/communities are being fractured into two. This is unfortunate.
Thanks. We’ve updated the post to clarify and correct. Appreciate the comment.
Not yet said about Stevens:
When voters are asked in February 2025 to approve the next construction levy of possibly $1 billion (“Building Excellence VI”), will we be bothered by closures of buildings that were recently built or modernized?
The most glaring example (apparently) will be Licton Springs, an indigenous-peoples-oriented K-8 program that was moved in 2021 to the Webster building after a $40 million renovation. The building would close (and program disappear?) under both options for closures. This SPS building is known to many people as the former Nordic Museum.
To see the projects potentially in BEX VI, check out its environmental impact statement.
The kids in private schools will learn calculus and Latin.
The kids in public schools will learn about 24 different genders.
I’m going to blame Bill Gates and the rest of his family, for running public education. That nonprofit caused nothing, but hardship.
Ok this comment is really weird and just wrong lol. Sorry you hate trans people tho
I have kids in public school here, do you? If you do, then you know they are not “learning about 14 different genders.” The homework I helped with last night was Algebra.
Grow the fuck up.
If you are going to hit every lame right wing talking point about public education in one post, don’t forget to include that all the students will be using litter boxes.
“Option A” keeps more schools with Special Education programs open, “Option B” keeps the K-8 schools which are “option” schools.
This has been crafted to set one groups of parents against another.
So much for the “not closing any schools with enrollments under 300 students”.
Neither of paths cut enough money from the budget, the second set of closing which involve the Middle schools and the High Schools will come in the spring.
We have been approving BEV levies for years that have lined the pockets of the developers, building bigger schools while completing upgrade projects on the existing schools, knowing that enrollments are dropping.
Seattle recently approved a levy which includes rebuilding a sports stadium that the District does not need, each of the High Schools that have sports program have their own fields.
Unsurprised about Stevens (my son was there k-4, and it felt like the writing was on the wall even a decade ago), but I’m genuinely shocked to see TOP K-8 in Option A. Such a great school, with a major wait-list and great history.
SPS is a poorly managed school system which pays very little attention to the needs of it’s students, and even less attention to those of their parents. Some individuals within the school system provide excellent education and most teachers do try, but the district is a big obstacle. As for budget, SPS budget has been increasing quite rapidly over the past decade. Everything went sideways with covid and the obvious problems associated with the district’s response. Parents are voting with their feet and heading for private schools, which continue to expand. Those here who blame those parents, the lack of an income tax, or some other lame excuse have little understanding of the actual situation and just want to advance a social and political agenda.
Well said. SPS is mismanaged and has pursued bad policies, for example SPS is going down the wrong path by closing the highly capable cohort program.
This city council is near MAGA level and people just don’t care
Lol just a touch of hyperbole there, James, you sound to be nearly hysterical.
Not sure why Mcgilrva is closing and Madrona is staying open. Most Madrona families would jump at the chance to attend Mcgilrva (we did when given the chance), while the opposite is not true. Plus Mcgilrva had a major building expansion only 5 years ago. So most Mcgilrva families will opt for private schools, a dumb, bad outcome for SPS.
Please keep in mind the school closures are not final, but we need to take action now!
The community will continue to advocate for a better outcome for our students and our community, and we need you to take action with us today, ahead of the School Board meeting on October 9. The district’s plan is not in the best interest of the city, the district, our schools, or our children. We know this because every major US school district that has executed on a mass closure plan has experienced fallout with student and teacher attrition, disruption that harmed student outcomes, and cost savings that were far less than projected. (See page 6 of this Pew Report for examples.)
You can take action in the following ways:
1) Take 30-seconds and sign the latest All Together for Seattle Schools form letter that urges SPS to design a student-centered school system full of diverse, high-quality schools, not attempt to solve a budget crisis at the expense of our students.
2) Take 1-hour and join All Together for Seattle Schools and rally before the upcoming school board meeting on September 18. The group will gather at 3:45 p.m. on the south lawn in front of the John Stanford Center. Bring your kids if needed and show your support for your school and every SPS school.
3) Forward this article and talk with neighbors, friends, and local businesses who to gain their support and advocacy. Encourage them to speak out.
4) Reach out to [email protected] if you want to get involved or have any contacts in the mayor’s office, the state legislature, the SPS central office, media, or the governor’s office. Creative, out-of-the-box ideas are welcome.
Now is the time to speak out. It is up to each of us to advocate against the mass closure proposal to keep schools open and communities together.
Disagree in part. Madrona is a great school with many happy families who live in walking distance. I would not take that option if offered, perfectly happy at Madrona. Don’t disagree that it’s likely McGilvra families would go private rather than come up to Madrona.
SPS is responding like virtually all failing businesses respond: by focusing on cost cutting, and completely ignoring why their customers are fleeing
Even more incredible, unlike a business, this is FREE product that SPS struggles to give away
These closures will cause further enrollment declines, and revenue loss from the state