Seattle district in trouble if levy rejected: No money left in reserves

By Sanjay Bhatt
Seattle Times staff reporter

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Supporters of Seattle Public Schools worry that progress toward raising student achievement would suffer traumatic setbacks if voters Feb. 3 fail to approve the Educational Programs & Operations Levy (Proposition 1), which renews an existing levy.

The three-year levy contributes 23 percent of the district's annual operating budget, and about 80 percent of the budget is for personnel.

The district does not have enough money in reserves to survive a levy failure, having tapped those funds over the last two years to eliminate about $35 million in budget deficits. While officials with the Schools First! levy campaign haven't detected a brewing voter backlash, they are concerned about the possibility of a levy failure due to insufficient voter turnout.

If the levy failed, budget managers would have to lay off one-quarter of the district's staff, including teachers and support employees.

"One out of every four people all across the board," said Seattle schools Superintendent Raj Manhas. "It would have a devastating effect on us, and I hate to think that way. I believe the Seattle community really cares for public education and has a big heart for that, so I'm hopeful things will work out."

For Seattle voters, the $338 million operations levy and a capital levy are the only two measures on next month's ballot. The operations levy pays for school-bus service, school security and maintenance, and a host of instructional programs geared toward raising student achievement. Those include teacher training; full-day kindergarten; smaller class sizes; school librarians, counselors and instructional aides; and services for bilingual, special-education and poor students.

History provides a glimpse of what the district could face if the operations levy fails. After levies were rejected twice in 1975, the district sacked music, art and athletics programs and went through the convulsions of shedding and rehiring staff to balance its budget.

Some say the subsequent disruptions and bitterness led to an era of labor strife that lasted until the end of the 1980s.

Signs of the aftermath of the 1975 levy failures remain to this day: Classrooms are cleaned once every three days instead of daily. School days are shorter. There are disparities in the type and number of electives, such as music and visual arts, that schools can offer.

At Wing Luke Elementary in Seattle's South End, Principal Ellen Punyon said her students would lose out on tutoring in reading and math, community-service projects, dance and music programs, and small class sizes. The grants that pay for these initiatives, including the federal Title I program, require the district to provide matching funds.

"There would be much less individual attention for kids who need it," Punyon said. "It would be 32 kids in a class with a teacher."

She said class sizes are already too large: about 27 students in kindergarten, 25 in first and second grades and up to 31 in grades three to five. Wing Luke enrolls about 290 students, nearly two-thirds of whom are eligible for free- and reduced-price lunches.

Nevertheless, "most of our students leave the second grade meeting grade level" standards, Punyon said.

Over five years, Wing Luke's pass rates on state tests have fallen from 37 percent to 33 percent in math, but have risen in reading from 47 percent to 51 percent.

The school has had more success with fourth-graders who have been there for two or more years: Pass rates in math rose from 24 percent to 35 percent last year, and in reading from 52 percent to 54 percent.

During last year's budget cuts, Punyon told a reporter that if she could reduce class sizes from kindergarten to the third grade to 18 students and limit reading groups to 10 to 15 kids, every child would meet the state's learning standards. Federal law threatens schools that repeatedly fail to make adequate improvement on state tests with the loss of their Title I money.

"I have a very, very strong program here," Punyon said. If the operations levy failed, "we would lose our ability to provide it."

Sanjay Bhatt: 206-464-3103 or sbhatt@seattletimes.com

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