Group files suit over closures of Seattle schools

Seattle Public Schools wants Central Area residents to participate as the school district prepares to close a second school in the neighborhood. Instead, a group of prominent community leaders sued the district this week, accusing the superintendent and School Board of circumventing state law and its own processes to make racially motivated decisions about which schools to close.

Brenda Little, a former school-district attorney, is representing an African-American community group that includes a former president of the Washington State Bar Association and several ministers. The group, SOCKED — Save Our Children/ Kid's Education Defense Fund — has the support of at least one School Board member. Sally Soriano wrote part of the court filing.

Members of the group say some of the closing schools had been struggling for years due to a lack of attractive programs, deferred building maintenance and shrinking enrollment boundaries. District officials, the group argues, had determined which schools to close before hearing from the community.

The board voted to close six school buildings in fall 2007; another, Martin Luther King Elementary, closed at the end of this past school year. More than 80 percent of the kids at elementary schools on the closure list are students of color, compared to about 60 percent districtwide.

The School Board plans to vote by Nov. 1 to close one school each in West Seattle, North Seattle and the Central Area. The district scheduled three community meetings about those closures but canceled them, opting instead to meet quietly with individual school communities.

"If the discussion is about the ends we're trying to achieve, we want to be at the table," said the Rev. Carl Livingston of Grace United Methodist Church. "But if the discussion is about school closures, we don't think those discussions should be going forward. We think that there should be a study about the impacts it's going to have on all of Seattle's educational system."

Superintendent Raj Manhas is expected to make recommendations Sept. 18. "The real racism lies in the fact that if we keep schools with low population and don't provide the services in the classroom that they deserve, that's a fundamental issue," Manhas said.

School Board President Brita Butler-Wall said the larger community has had plenty of opportunity to talk about school closures. Now the district needs to talk with principals, parents and teachers at specific schools. And regardless of the lawsuit, she said, the district can't afford not to go forward with closures.

"I don't think the students are very well-served when we have more schools open than we actually need," she said. "I, personally, think it would be immoral not to" close schools.

African-American leaders say the early closure of MLK Elementary stung. Even though the school's principal volunteered to merge with nearby T.T. Minor this fall, the school's parent-group president and some teachers say they didn't get to play a role in the decision.

James Kelly, president and CEO of the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle, said he's not sure the district's closure decisions were racially motivated, but he does think the district violated its process, especially with the MLK closure. He's not alone, and that's going to make future discussion about school closures tough, he said.

"If people don't feel like their voices were heard — and they don't — then that makes that conversation more difficult," he said.

Emily Heffter: 206-464-8246 or eheffter@seattletimes.com