Seattle schools chief rethinking which schools to close

The proposals about how many — and which — schools to close in Seattle continues to evolve, with new options unveiled Tuesday that would alter the lineup of schools that might move or shut their doors.

Perhaps most surprising, Seattle School Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson is no longer looking at merging Rainier Beach and Cleveland high schools just a week after raising that possibility. Now, the district is looking at perhaps moving Aki Kurose Middle into Rainier Beach High to create a joint middle-high school, or closing the Center School, which rents space at Seattle Center, and moving its students to Rainier Beach.

The district still is looking at closing six to eight buildings, one of which might reopen within a few years, and relocating 10 or 11 schools, up from nine in the initial analysis.

But a number of the names have changed.

Arbor Heights Elementary, for example, was dropped from the list of schools considered for closure, and Hawthorne Elementary was added to it.

The district now is listing "potential final recommendations" and "other options" because the moves are an increasingly complex puzzle, in which one change can affect others.

And the list likely isn't final yet.

Goodloe-Johnson said she thinks she's getting close, but wouldn't even tell parents and students at Arbor Heights Elementary or Rainier Beach High to rest easy yet.

"We can't make any promises to anyone," she said.

But the fact that the district is willing to make changes shows staff are listening as they work through all the many possibilities and complexities.

"We didn't just draw a line in the sand and say, 'that's it,' " said Board member Harium Martin-Morris.

Goodloe-Johnson reiterated her strong view that closures are necessary to avoid devastating cuts.

"If we don't close facilities, we cut people and we cut programs to the point where we really won't have quality," she said.

Operating more schools than the district needs, she said, "means we're not efficient. It means we're spending more money than we need to serve the students that we have."

Still, she said it made sense to move slower on something as big and complicated as merging two high schools, one reason why she decided to take the Rainier Beach-Cleveland proposal off the table.

There are safety concerns, she said, any time you combine students from different neighborhoods, and possible gang problems, too. And she didn't think it would be educationally sound to combine two schools with high percentages of students who need extra support without the time to make sure they'll get the help they need.

Cleveland and Rainier Beach are the two high schools with the highest percentage of students from low-income families.

Seattle Public Schools decided last month to consider closing schools as early as September 2009. Goodloe-Johnson's initial proposal called for closing seven school buildings (one perhaps temporarily) and moving nine schools from one building to another.

The district wants to close schools to save money, but it also intends to use the opportunity to improve access to special programs in some neighborhoods.

Public meetings about the closures started last week. The superintendent will make her final recommendation to the school board Jan. 6. The board will vote on those recommendations Jan. 29.

The district expects its costs to exceed its revenues by $24 million to $37 million in the 2009-10 school year, depending on how much money public schools receive from the state. There is already talk of making cuts that, in Seattle, would mean a loss of about $20 million.

Seattle's expenses are going up because of factors out of the district's control, but also because it decided five years ago to boost teacher salaries enough to make Seattle one of the five highest-paying districts in the Greater Seattle area.

The district closed seven school buildings in 2006, but that didn't eliminate all of the district's excess capacity. It's unclear how far the district will go this time. Staff members recently walked through all schools to fine-tune previous estimates that Seattle has an excess of roughly 9,000 seats.

District staff estimate the superintendent's initial closure proposal would save roughly $3.6 million a year.

The district has estimated it is saving $2 million a year from the schools it closed in 2006, counting day-to-day costs such as utilities, maintenance, and salaries.

Linda Shaw: 206-464-2359 or lshaw@seattletimes.com