♪♪
-We've had underfunded public schools for decades.
-Budget battles at public schools across the state
are heating up, with some districts
talking about layoffs and school closures.
-It became obvious we didn't have enough kids for 18
or 19 schools.
-Yay! -Yay!
-District leaders are making tough choices
after student enrollment shrank after the pandemic.
But families are worried about losing the very schools
that drew them to their communities in the first place.
-What do we do?
And these are questions
that I think we're all asking right now.
-How can our public schools meet their legal
and moral obligation to serve every child?
-We cannot keep relying on sales tax and property tax.
-We hear from the state schools chief
and the superintendent of Seattle Public Schools.
-What can we do to keep those cuts
as far away from schools as possible?
-Whatever, like, style or vibe that you like.
-Going back to the drawing board
on the future of our school system,
next on "City Inside Out."
♪♪
Welcome to this edition of "City Inside Out."
I'm your host, Brian Callanan.
Seattle Public Schools are planning to cut
dozens of staff members this fall
and are considering school closures for next year
as a so-called "budget cliff" approaches.
Dwindling enrollment numbers during the pandemic
have reduced funding coming from the state,
and federal COVID relief dollars have all but run out, too.
The forecast for new, incoming students
doesn't look promising, either.
And outside Seattle,
some schools have already been slated for closure.
It's a challenging moment for state and local leaders
and parents, students, and teachers, too,
preparing for a post-pandemic education system
that still has some serious health problems
with its finances.
Behind all the smooth sounds
from the top-rated Washington Middle School Jazz Band,
a feeder for Garfield High's acclaimed music program,
there's a sour note at the end of this school year.
School leaders say this program,
like other arts classes around the state,
could be cut next year, with all signs
pointing to a K through 12 system-wide budget crunch.
-I'm mad and sad about this cut,
and I hope you can do something about it.
-And it's not just students and families getting upset
about Seattle schools' $131 million budget deficit.
-There's nothing you can say or do to alleviate the stress
that educators are feeling during all of this.
-Jennifer Matter is the president
of the Seattle Education Association,
a union of 6,000 Seattle Public School educators
who went on strike for five days to start the 2022 school year,
calling for lower class sizes, better pay, and health supports.
-We've had underfunded public schools for decades.
-Our public schools receive funding
based on student enrollment numbers,
and our state now has 45,000 fewer students enrolled
since the pandemic three years ago.
-I got it right?
-Lawmakers in Olympia put nearly $3 billion more
into K through 12 education this session,
but inflation means that funding doesn't go as far.
Plus, a significant part of that money
comes from one-time federal COVID relief
that has now run out.
Matter is thankful for the state's investment,
but says what lawmakers call the down payment on education
this session leaves districts like Seattle
uncertain about their future.
-I get it. We do have a budget deficit.
Our state legislature needs to step up
and fully fund our public schools.
But it's not fair to make our students wait.
[ Students chanting "One more year!" ]
-One district isn't waiting to make some serious cuts.
[ Chanting continues ]
Bellevue Interim Superintendent Dr. Art Jarvis
received board approval
to close two elementary schools this fall,
saving $6 million out of a $31 million budget hole.
-It's the combination of fewer students and money.
We were looking at substantial decline.
-With multiple elementary schools going from
500 or 600 students down to 200 or 300,
Jarvis says the effective cost
to keep those facilities open doubled.
-If we don't do something,
we will be in an unsustainable budget,
and our money will be going to keep the small schools small,
and we'll lose the quality that is Bellevue.
-Jarvis says the state legislature
lost its focus on education this session,
which is forcing schools across the state
to take on the worst of all math problems in their budgets.
-When you see this number of districts
go through the throes of cutting the programs
and the people that they're cutting
and the support programs, it's dangerous.
-In Seattle, school leaders are not talking about
closing schools -- at least, not yet.
-It's a really scary and hard thing
to talk about consolidating,
and yet we need to start to have those conversations.
-Samantha Fogg is president of the Seattle Council
Parent Teacher Student Association,
and says the district's plan to lay off 90 central staff members
and use its rainy day fund to avoid school closures in 2023
deals with only one part of the problem.
-Civil rights and access costs are inextricably linked.
-Fogg points out state lawmakers also paid down
on only half of the budget gap
on special education this session,
meaning schools across the state are using local levy dollars
to fulfill the state requirement to help special needs students.
-It's their civil right to have Special Education.
It's necessary, it's important, and our state doesn't fund it.
-Fogg wants to make sure Seattle Public Schools
are focused on equity and students of all needs,
especially when considering school closures,
which the district says is a real possibility
for the 2024 school year.
Fogg calls the current funding dilemma an impossible choice,
but says if students, parents, teachers, and the district
are all ready to listen to each other,
there's a lesson to be learned.
-In times of crisis, sometimes we get the best change.
I'd like for us to enter this with hope, with optimism,
and a willingness to partner.
-And joining us to continue this discussion,
we have with us Dr. Brent Jones,
Superintendent of Seattle Public Schools,
our state's largest school district.
SPS has more than 100 schools of grades K through 12.
We also have with us Chris Reykdal,
our state's Superintendent of Public Instruction,
overseeing the 306 school districts in Washington.
Thank you, Chris, for being here, as well.
Superintendent Reykdal,
I want to start with you first, if I could.
Can you set the stage for us?
Because our state's K through 12 system
has lost nearly 45,000 students
since the 2019-2020 year, when COVID first hit.
The pandemic is officially over,
at least that's what we're hearing.
Our schools are still suffering,
especially from a financial perspective.
Can you give us the, I guess, lay of the land here,
the state of our schools, and how did we get here?
-Yeah, thanks for having me.
It's good to be on.
As you described, the pandemic caused
a lot of complicated choices for families.
And one of those choices for a lot of them in the middle of it
was to start their five-year-olds at home
and home school primarily.
That's been the big impact on enrollments.
We're seeing those recover already.
We're only down about 3.5% of enrollment from our peak,
but it's really differential.
So there are places that are down 5%, 7%, 10%,
and some places that have grown enrollments.
And about 70% of our school budgets at the local level
come from the state based on enrollment formulas.
So if you're down in enrollment,
you're in financial distress in some way.
It certainly hit the Puget Sound much harder.
If you work for a company that allows you to work from home,
if you've got resources, those families are making
different choices than elsewhere.
So it's definitely hit our Puget Sound districts
harder than most of the rest of the state.
-Thanks, and we'll break down some more pieces of that
in just a minute.
Superintendent Jones, give us some insight on the state
of Seattle schools, because I've seen a lot of headlines,
and I know you have, too.
You're about to make some significant cuts,
and the news just doesn't look great.
-Thank you, Brian, glad to be here with you
and Superintendent Reykdal.
And as he mentioned, we are also experiencing enrollment loss.
Enrollment loss is part of our revenue.
And when we have enrollment loss,
you can see our budget
proportionately impacted by that.
So we are taking the steps to reconcile our budget,
to create a budget plan that's balanced for 2023-2024.
But we're also taking a long-term approach
to looking at a multiyear plan
to make sure that we're being good fiscal stewards
and we're using our resources wisely.
-Okay, thank you, and I do what to talk
about the short and long term here.
And maybe I can break down some of the dollars and cents
with you, Superintendent Reykdal,
because this legislative session in Olympia,
lawmakers put close to $3 billion
of new spending into education for things like nurses,
counselors, social workers, special education.
I'm going to put special ed on the side for just a minute here.
But Senate Democrats were saying this overall amount
was the largest education investment
our state has made since the McCleary Decision,
which changed the ways our schools
were funded a couple years.
But the message I'm still hearing here
is that this isn't enough.
So I'm trying to figure out
what number should that investment have been?
What does it need to be in the future?
-Yeah, our legislators worked really hard on this budget.
So all due credit to them for a very complicated time.
People always get confused between
biannual budgets and annual budgets.
So $3 billion is a little less
than that over a two-year period.
-Right. -So when you kind of scale
that out, it's maybe a 5% or 6% increase, which is great.
What I think they have been real candid about is over half that
goes to cost of living adjustments
and inflationary adjustments.
So persistent inflation is eating a path of that growth.
And then they did make really important investments
in student supports
and supporting students with disabilities.
So there's some really great things
that came out of this session.
What it should be, of course, is the total and final elimination
of anything that looks like basic ed
paid for out of local dollars, and that's what we asked for.
They did make progress.
But there are districts all over the state, including Seattle,
still subsidizing special ed a lot from local levies,
transportation from local levies, and other things.
Again, good progress this year.
But until that is fully done,
unfortunately when districts face enrollment challenges,
they're going to lose some state funds.
And then in many districts that also means
eventually when they run a levy,
it'll also be less levy money potentially
because those are based on your enrollment.
So it's a bit of a double whammy, inflation,
lower state investments on the things
that should be paid for by the state,
and then, of course, the federal dollars
that we've been using one time are going away.
Huge compliment to districts
who did not overprescribe those dollars.
They've been very careful about that,
and they have not committed those to permanent things.
And that's been wise, but it still hurts when they go away
because it's been what's used to backfill
those lower enrollment dollars.
So almost the perfect storm in a couple of places.
-Thank you.
And, Superintendent Reykdal, just a quick follow-up on that.
I've seen this amount -- "Hey, look at the amount
that we're paying per student here
in the state of Washington compared to other states.
It looks like our amount is a lot higher."
How do you respond to that?
I know a few people have brought that up.
-Yeah, those are really meaningless
unless you adjust for cost of living and housing.
So you can teach somebody
for a lot less money per student in Mississippi
than you can in Washington or California
or New York and the Midwest.
And so when they make those adjustments, we do okay.
We're a little better than average.
If you compare what we're investing relative
to the private sector economy --
so how much of our economy do we put back in schools --
we are well below the national average.
That's a more meaningful measure to me.
It means we're doing a good job.
We're not great yet, and we're trying to catch great.
There are states around the country
who invest a much bigger share of their economy
back in their public schools, and that's what I shoot for,
not this unadjusted dollar amount.
-Thank you very much for that.
Superintendent Jones, I want to talk to you about this.
So now the state session has ended,
what was your reaction to what the legislature allotted
to districts like Seattle?
What do you want state lawmakers
to know about that amount that you were given?
-Yeah, so we are grateful for the amount of money that we got.
Our biggest challenge has been in
our special education funding, transportation funding,
and in our multilingual funding.
In those areas, we don't have enough.
It's not adequate to pay for the cost of living adjustments,
to pay for the salary.
87 percent of our budget is salary and benefits.
So when we don't have enough funding to pay for those,
then we're by definition in a deficit.
However, our Seattle delegation was strong.
They understand.
They went to bat for us in terms of what do we need.
We were able to get an amount that's going to help us
to close the gap, but we certainly need more.
And we understand that there's a lot of competing interests.
But to fully fund education in Seattle
is going to take a lot, as are our sister districts, as well.
So we did get some gains but certainly not enough yet,
and we're grateful for what we got.
-Thank you.
Let me break down the special education
piece with you if I could.
Superintendent Reykdal, I'll start with you
because it sounds like some money
was put towards kids with disabilities this session.
Senate Democrats were calling this
a significant investment of more than $400 million.
But that, again, makes up only a part of the budget gap
that I think your office actually identified
in special ed.
What happened this session with special education?
Because I think a lot of lawmakers
went in saying this is a top priority.
What came out of that?
-Well, obviously, nearly $400 million
in additional investment, which is great.
Again, that's over a biennium, so you can more than
cut that in half for a single fiscal year.
So good gains, important gains in places.
We certainly had a higher number
that we calculate that's being subsidized
by local school district levies and local dollars.
So we don't think the job is done, but it was bipartisan.
There was a lot of emphasis to do this.
I think the challenge when you come into a session like this
is we're not the only ones facing inflationary pressures.
General government, higher education,
all of that consumes a lot of the extra money legislators had.
And then look around.
We have an opioid addiction challenge that is massive.
We have a homelessness challenge that is massive,
a mental health challenge.
So they had a lot of competing priorities.
We understood that it's always hard to get everything done.
We'll be back.
I think they're still committed to doing more.
So it is always about relationship building
and making progress.
Unfortunately for some districts,
without enough progress this year they're going
to continue to make reductions to balance their budgets
because that's what responsible school boards do.
They always balance their budgets.
So we're on a little bit of a race for time
to get back into session
and get a little extra investment.
Again, my goal isn't an artificial number.
It is to make sure that what the legislature has prescribed
as basic ed is fully funded by the state
and only the enrichment activities
are being funded by levies.
We're getting closer and closer to that,
but we're not there yet.
-Got it.
Dr. Jones, I just want to make sure I asked you about
how the special education issue is playing out in Seattle.
The Seattle chapter of PTSA talked to me about this,
said there's the matter of civil rights for students.
And they're saying the system simply isn't working properly.
-Yes, we have a moral and legal obligation
to serve our students fully and effectively.
For example, our cap on special education is 15%.
Our legislature moved it up from 13% to 15%,
but we still have more students that need those services.
To really be effective in providing the wide range
and array of services, we need full funding.
And so we are happy about that,
but there's also called the "multiplier,"
and that's how much money we get per student.
So we need that amount increased.
We are grateful for the cap to be lifted up to 15%,
but we need again more funding
to provide the full range of services for our students.
-Thank you very much for that.
Is it a situation, Dr. Jones, where levy dollars end up
paying for these special education programs?
I've heard about that in some districts.
-Yes, not only levy dollars but any type of one-time funds
that we get, we use them to supplement our services.
And we've had extra dollars, the federal dollars.
We've had what we're calling "hold harmless dollars"
from the legislature for our lower enrollment.
And then we've had even transportation dollars
that we've had.
But these are one-time funds.
When those go away, we have to get really creative and specific
about those other funding sources to pay for the services.
-Thanks very much.
Dr. Jones, let me stick with you.
I want to talk about the budget plan that you've just released
for Seattle Public Schools.
You're discussing cuts of some central staff positions
this fall and possibly closing some schools
in the fall of 2024 to save some money
and maybe using some of SPS's rainy day fund
to stabilize the budget here.
Explain this plan, why you think it's the best course of action.
-So, for right now, we are focused on 2023-2024,
but we understand that beyond 2024-2025
that we need to have a multiyear plan.
We are not going to be able to tackle all the issues
regarding our structural budget deficit in year one.
So for 2023-2024, we are taking measures to ensure
that we submit a balanced budget.
I'm obligated/our district is obligated to submit
a balanced budget every year.
And from that, we've been focusing on
what are our central office services
or cuts that we can make, what can we do
to keep those cuts as far away from schools as possible.
But that's what we're going to do in 2023-2024.
In 2024-2025, we're looking to have a multiyear plan.
We're looking at the out years, what can we do.
One of those elements may be consolidating schools.
But what we want to do is start out with a concept
that we want to develop with community
around well-resourced schools.
We want to develop that concept
to say what is the ideal elementary school?
What is the ideal middle school or ideal high school?
And work backwards from that.
-Right. -So somebody has said,
"Don't waste a good crisis."
We want to make sure that we understand that
and we build even more ideal schools.
Seattle schools is a great investment right now.
But right now, we have to make sure
that we're good fiscal stewards going into the future.
-Got it. Well-resourced schools
meaning they have the music programs,
they have the PE programs,
and more kids can get involved with them.
Is that kind of the idea there?
-Adequately staffed, adequately resourced,
with the type of programs, the type of class offerings,
and a wide range of experiences for our students
to matriculate through our programs.
-Okay, thank you for that.
Superintendent Reykdal, you've heard about Seattle's plan here.
And you've seen districts around the state
already start to talk about closing schools.
We highlighted Bellevue earlier in this show,
but there are others considering closures too.
I know these are all local decisions
for each of these districts and very hard decisions at that.
But is there any sort of advice you're giving the schools
that are in the middle of these types of decisions?
-Well, I attempt to support them through tough decisions.
They are local. It's not advice.
It's just making sure they understand
the guardrails of basic education first and foremost.
So that means really avoiding cuts to the classroom
as much as possible when we're delivering basic ed services.
And really, all of our instruction
for the most part is basic ed.
It's just you run out of variables at some point.
Districts have made hard choices already
in their district offices.
They made hard choices in transportation.
They make hard choices
in the way they support their educators.
So that's what we'll do.
We'll make sure basic ed's being satisfied,
make sure that all the dollars that are sent
by the legislature through our office to districts
that are earmarked for things stay in those earmarks.
We want districts to follow the accounting rules and laws.
And then we're going to, obviously, give them
as much technical assistance as possible.
When they say, "We're trying to do something innovative here
to save resource," we've got examples.
We say, "Talk to this district," or "Work with your local ESD.
They're aware of a district doing something similar."
So that's part of our role.
I will say every one's a little different.
So there are districts who have the luxury
of having a lot of schools
and not very many students in each of those schools.
And that's a pretty expensive model,
and they're thinking about consolidation.
Others have spent a lot of money moving kids
within their district to choices for families, school choices.
That's a high transportation-cost model.
We have districts who are going to balance their budgets
by figuring that out a little bit
and getting back to a little bit more neighborhood school.
We have districts who unfortunately
have had double levy failures.
So they've done really nothing wrong.
They've done nothing in their programming
except be as efficient as possible,
but they're going to lose 15%-20% of their revenue
for a year in some places around the state.
So every one is in a slightly different place.
Our job is to support them.
As long as they're focused on basic ed first and foremost,
that's what matters.
-Dr. Jones, can you go a little bit further
into this whole idea of consolidating schools?
I know this discussion is a year off here, but how do you do it?
It doesn't sound like it's exactly
a math equation of this school
has lower enrollment/this one has higher enrollment,
so let's close the one with lower enrollment
and put kids elsewhere.
Can you talk about it a little bit more,
about what would go into a decision like that?
-Yeah, we have to look at multiple factors.
We have not decided that we're going to consolidate schools
because we have to -- we're a very large district.
We have many schools that could be considered
to be under enrolled.
But it's not just the under enrollment.
It's that course offering.
It's the service offering.
It's how do we have comprehensive services
for our students.
We have to step back and, again, really understand
what is a well-resourced school.
The cost savings probably isn't as much as we think it is
when you consolidate schools because we'll still have staff.
We'll still have expenses.
You could think that that's going to reduce
expenses somewhat,
but it's not really the way to balance our budget.
So we're looking at, again, multiple factors.
But we're really focused on
what's going to yield student outcomes.
What's going to make our educators
have the best resources to teach?
So as we look at that,
we're trying to lead with our students first.
What do families want?
What is a well-resourced school?
And if consolidation can facilitate that,
then we will go with consolidation.
But it's just one piece of the puzzle.
-Thank you. Superintendent Reykdal,
I wanted to talk about possibly some signs of hope
for education funding going forward here.
A few advocates have talked to me.
They're feeling good about the fact that the Supreme Court
upheld the tax on capital gains back in March.
So is that type of funding a long-term answer here?
What are you thinking here?
-A little bit. Capital gains,
the first $500 million will be dedicated to early learning
which we really, really need.
We've got incredible providers around the state.
They too were deeply impacted by COVID
and the subsequent sort of return to people's homes.
They had less clientele, and so they need support.
They're certainly collecting a little bit more
than originally forecasted,
so there's some opportunity there to invest,
mostly in capital budgets.
Because that tax source is a little volatile,
the legislature wisely said anything above $500 million
will go to capital budgets.
We don't want to rely on those dollars
on regular programming,
or we're going to be hiring teachers
and letting them go, hiring and letting them go.
So it's one small solution.
I will say in a state that under invests in education
as a share of the economy,
we cannot keep relying on sales tax and property tax
and B&O tax to do this.
We are going to have
to push through these hard conversations.
And that means people who have been a little bit comfortable
are going to have to ask, "How would I contribute
differently in a way that balances the tax
cut a little bit more, still stimulates the economy?"
But this is not sustainable for long.
But thankfully, there's always a little hole that's being plugged
with a little tweak, which is keeping us above water
but it is not the long-term solution.
We will have to have revenue that's progressive in a state,
or we will start looking like other states
in terms of our level of investment.
-Thank you for that.
Dr. Jones, some thoughts about the future of education funding?
Should it be coming from capital gains,
or what do you see in the future?
-Yeah, we just need to be fully-funded.
I'm not -- Excuse me, I'm agnostic
about where the funds come from,
but capital gains would be tremendous.
We just have a gap that's growing,
and we need to make sure that we're being very diligent
about dedicating resources to the various programs.
Our students --in Seattle,
we have a very aggressive strategic plan.
And though we talk about our students
that are furthest from educational justice,
which requires us to do things a little bit differently.
So we need to have some assurance that funding
is going to come on a regular basis.
We're going to right-size our schools to make sure
that each one of our schools can provide the adequate service.
But we're just looking for funding that's sustainable --
that we don't have to rely on local levies every single time.
We're fortunate that we have those means to do that.
But a steady stream, a dedicated stream of both federally/locally
from the state would be tremendous
to have that expectation year after year after year.
-Yeah, tough to plan a budget without that.
We need to wrap up the show.
And, Superintendent Reykdal, maybe some final words
for parents, teachers, families out there
who are concerned about what's next for our public schools --
students, too. What do you want to tell them,
30-second version, if you can?
-Yeah, this stuff is coming in waves.
Just as the pandemic hit us
and we didn't know a lot about it
and we had to make early health and safety decisions
and then sort of get through the health side of this,
now is the fiscal wave of this thing.
What preceded though is return to school now
for two straight years.
Assessment scores are back on the climb.
Enrollments are climbing again.
There is more investment.
So here we've got really positive things.
But for some districts,
the financial risk to this thing isn't quite over.
And it will take a year or two to stabilize budgets,
especially as one-time federal dollars go away.
So a huge thank you to Superintendent Jones
and his peers around the state, school boards and educators.
They are all in this for our kids.
That's the focus.
Stay focused on supporting students.
We see really bright lights here,
but unfortunately we're not quite through
the fiscal impacts of all this.
-Got it. Dr. Jones, I'll let you wrap up.
I know you're in the middle of some
big budget discussions right now.
What are the thoughts you want to leave students, families,
and teachers with?
-Well, I do want to give credit to my board of directors.
They have been relentless in focusing on students.
They've said any adjustments we make to our budgets,
any reductions we make to our budgets,
we must keep students in mind.
We've followed that lead.
We've been making the adjustments,
and we've again tried to center students
in all of our decision-making.
The other thing I just want to say,
oftentimes we don't say this enough,
but our public schools are great.
Seattle Public Schools
is a nationally-recognized school district
for the arts, our academics, our athletics.
So I would hope that the community continues
to want to invest in us
and trust us with being good stewards of their dollars
and of their students and their families.
Seattle Public Schools is on the rise.
-Okay, all right, thank you both for this input here.
And remember, folks, there is a public hearing
for Seattle Public Schools
when it comes to budgets coming up on June 21st.
We'll be right back.
♪♪
What are people saying on social media
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One person writes...
But another person says...
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Send us an e-mail at contact@seattlechannel.org
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Coming up next week, it's our season finale
as we wrap up production until the fall.
We are convening some of the city's top reporters
for an inside scoop on the summer's biggest headlines.
That's next time on "City Inside Out."
I hope you join us.
♪♪