How closures would affect demographics of Seattle schools

In a gentrifying city and socioeconomically segregated school system like Seattle’s, closing 20 elementary schools could trigger a demographic shake-up.  

Free lunch is guaranteed for all at schools where at least 30% of families are low-income. Multilingual teachers are stationed where English learners attend. Certain schools offer cultural programs that cater to students’ heritage. As the district makes plans to redirect thousands of students to new buildings, it faces pressure to preserve certain programs for kids who need them the most. 

Seattle Public Schools says it is prioritizing making schools “well-resourced” and diverse without exacerbating existing segregation. A 2023 Seattle Times investigation found Seattle schools are more segregated now than they were in the 1980s, with some school attendance zones mirroring areas that were once redlined to keep residents of color boxed into certain areas. 

District officials say that, according to their understanding of state law, districts are required to do a demographic analysis of the schools they are considering for closure. 

“And I would say we are going above and beyond that, knowing that there’s racial segregation and socioeconomic segregation in our city,” said Marni Campbell, SPS executive director of operations.  

Experts say there are several ways to go about designing an equitable process for school closures that avoid the pitfalls seen in other districts. 

“There’s a tragic story of school closures: One in which the schools close, and the resulting dissolution of the surrounding community” hurts the local population, said Francis A. Pearman, an associate professor at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education who is consulting with the San Francisco school district on its school closure plans. 

Pearman’s advice to the district is to go about the process slowly and involve community feedback as much as possible. He also urged the district to look for ways to preserve the public nature of the soon-to-be closed school buildings. Closed schools could be converted into medical clinics, for example. 

The district should be especially mindful of how the loss of a school will affect areas dominated by communities of color, Pearman said.

Pearman’s research has found that schools with higher concentrations of Black students are more likely to be selected for closure, even if their enrollment and academic performance trends are the same as other schools without large numbers of Black kids. 

Seattle doesn’t have many elementary schools — just four — where Black students make up the majority of the student population. But the district needs to be cognizant of the trend nonetheless, said Pearman.

And if the schools selected for closure are ones that tend to be underenrolled or lag in academics, that’s an opportunity for reflection on why some schools don’t receive as many resources. 

“The questions districts don’t ask themselves are why some schools are underenrolled and better performing than others,” he said.

Explore Seattle elementary school data

Here’s what SPS will look at in deciding which schools to close

A majority of the most underenrolled schools — with fewer than 250 students — serve a higher share of students of color than the districtwide average, which is 55%. Seventeen schools have fewer than 250 students and 70% of them enroll more than 55% students of color. Enrollment, specifically at schools with fewer than 300 students, is one factor in deciding which schools would close. Capacity is also a factor. A school with a smaller population but room for more students and strong ratings in other areas might well stay open.

SPS officials say they are not considering the academic performance of a school in their decision-making. A Seattle Times analysis shows that test score performance doesn’t appear tightly correlated with how schools scored on the district’s rating system for the various school buildings’ physical conditions and learning environment. Among schools that scored poorly on the district’s measures, some had high test scores, some had low test scores and many were somewhere in the middle.

Avoiding fragmentation

When redrawing school boundaries after a closure, districts should also be thoughtful about who they’re including and excluding from school communities, said Tim DeRoche, the executive director of Available to All, a nonpartisan organization that advocates for open enrollment policies. 

“If you have certain areas where low-income folks are concentrated and vice versa, and you also have strict attendance boundaries, you are setting yourself up for racial and economic imbalances,” said DeRoche. 

School closures can be an opportunity to address racial segregation that is caused by the positioning of an attendance zone, said Pearman, though he cautioned any boundary changes should be handled with care. A large body of research shows integration can improve academic outcomes for students, but if not done thoughtfully, it can also fragment a community. 

Districts should try to keep students from a closed school together as much as they can to preserve community, Pearman said.

There are areas in West Seattle, the Central District and in North Seattle where the demographics of schools right next to each other are in stark contrast. Some schools wrap around an entire low-income housing development or overlap with a historically redlined area, and end up having much less affluent student populations than neighboring campuses. 

DeRoche said the district should consider offering displaced families the option of choosing their next school through the district’s open enrollment process.

In San Francisco, where there aren’t any attendance zones, the district gives preference to families residing in historically marginalized areas. 

SPS officials say there are no plans so far to give families affected by closure priority in the city’s more limited open enrollment process. However, Liza Rankin, the Seattle School Board president, said the board would consider a proposal to that effect if it’s shown to be in the interest of students. 

Time to talk equity is now

Conversations about equity needed to happen sooner, said Uti Hawkins, a former Seattle teacher union leader with a child at Concord International Elementary School. 

Hawkins said not enough information has been released about how SPS is considering each community’s needs, or what those needs are. Or how it plans to handle integrating new communities into an existing school. Without this information to “chew on,” she said, “We’re going to be arguing amongst ourselves in this segregated city about what our communities deserve.” 

SPS should focus on how these closures will better meet families’ needs for child care, commute and other factors, she said. 

“There is plenty of space to approach this in an intentional, thoughtful way, so that communities can talk about how this is happening and why this gets better,” she said. 

Rankin said the board’s priority is to make sure these closures result in well-resourced schools. In the current system, small schools are always at risk of cuts because a small fluctuation in students can trigger a staff cut, she said. Increasing elementary school enrollment to 400 students per school or so will act as a buffer against such fluctuations, she said.

Rankin also hopes the redistricting will help ensure students with disabilities can receive services at their neighborhood school. 

“We’re not just moving around little numbers on a page to make them fit neatly on a page. We’re really thinking about the ways communities would be reconstituted,” said Rankin. “And we need to make sure everyone has the full ability to participate and feels ownership over their new school community.” 

In September, the district is set to propose a list of schools to close. It will then go back out to the community for feedback. The board does not expect to approve a final school closure plan until December.