Seattle School District: looking ahead rather than over their shoulders

SEATTLE Public Schools' plan to close six schools and move or co-locate nine others offers a sweeping strategy that moves the system to action rather than reaction.

Closing schools is an economic necessity. Enrollment has been dropping for a decade, leaving half-empty schools in parts of the city. Seven schools were closed in 2006 but officials knew that was just the beginning. This year, the district dipped into reserves to forestall red ink. But next year's shortfall could rise upward of $40 million.

Estimated savings from closing schools: $300,000 to $600,000 a year for every elementary school closed and $600,000 to $1.2 million for every middle school. Just do it!

The plan would fill an academic need as well. Fully enrolled schools have more resources, partly because funding is apportioned on a per-pupil basis and because the city's school-choice system means full schools are its most popular, drawing involved families. More resources pay for librarians, a teaching corps large enough to offer instructional styles and enrichment classes such as music, foreign language and art.

The crisis in education funding is an opportunity for bold thinking and leadership. Both can be found in Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson's plan.

• Moving the Bilingual Orientation Center for secondary students to Meany Middle to share quarters with NOVA, an alternative school offers educational synergy. The center's immigrant students could benefit from NOVA's English-speaking population and NOVA's students could interact with students from all over the world.

• The Accelerated Progress Program for gifted students has been bursting at the seams at Lowell Elementary School. Goodloe-Johnson recommends closing the decrepit building and dispersing 500 students to Thurgood Marshall and Hawthorne Elementary schools. The proposal moves a gifted program farther south but few options were available in the overcrowded North End schools. As a special program, students in the gifted program are guaranteed transportation to their new schools.

• T.T Minor Elementary is to be closed but its popular kindergarten through third-grade Montessori program saved and moved to another school.

Some proposals raise questions about their workability. For example, Rainier Beach High School is one of the district's most under-enrolled schools. If buildings with too few students to pay for themselves were the criteria for closures, this school would have been shuttered. Instead, it will receive an infusion of students from Summit, a kindergarten through 12th-grade school.

From an academic standpoint, this proposal has merit. Summit is an alternative school with a strong arts program; Rainier Beach has a state-of-the-art performance hall and renewed focus on the performing arts. But how elementary-age students fare at Rainier Beach is an important question for the superintendent.

The school closures plan has many moving parts. It ought to be viewed in the context of a long-term plan to reposition the district as a smaller, more robust system with academic quality in every neighborhood. This plan continues the march forward.

Learn More: A series of workshops and public hearings will be held on the school closures. For more information, go to http://www.seattleschools.org.

The information in this editorial, originally published Dec. 1, 2008, was corrected Dec. 1, 2008. The gifted program at Lowell Elementary School is called the Accelerated Progress Program. A previous version of this editorial incorrectly identified the program as the Advanced Placement Program.