Seattle Public Schools is once again considering closing schools and merging them with others as the district faces declining student enrollment and budget issues.
Superintendent Ben Shuldiner announced the plan — framing it as a series of mergers" rather than "closures" — in his weekly newsletter to families Sunday. He said discussions about which schools will close and which schools will receive new students will be a monthslong process. After the district finalizes a plan, the Seattle School Board will make a final decision in late February or early March, he said.
“I know school mergers are fraught with a myriad of feelings, mostly negative, especially in light of recent attempts,” Shuldiner said in his newsletter. “I do hope with this approach, together, we can meet with positive intent and an open mind.”
It’s unclear as of now how many schools would be affected. Shuldiner declined to share the complete draft list of schools that have been identified by the district as possible targets for a merger.
Even before Sunday’s newsletter, rumors had begun to swirl among parents and staff. Principals at schools tapped as potential “receiving” or “sending” schools began sending out emails to families last week, notifying them of a possible merger and an upcoming “family conversation” community meeting with Shuldiner to discuss.
The Seattle Times reviewed joint emails sent Friday by principals at View Ridge and Decatur elementary schools, principals at Highland Park and Sanislo elementary schools, and principals from Montlake and Stevens elementary about possible mergers between schools. In those cases, View Ridge, Highland Park and Montlake would be the receiving schools.
A spokesperson did not respond to a Monday request for a full list of schools identified for potential closure or merger.
The district faced intense debate over potential school closures two years ago. Seattle Public Schools had proposed in October 2024 closing four elementary schools the following year as a means of addressing its nearly $100 million budget deficit.
Under that plan, the district would have closed Sanislo, North Beach, Stevens and Sacagawea elementary schools and consolidated them with Highland Park, Viewlands, Montlake and John Rogers, respectively. It was a scaled-down version of an earlier plan that would have shuttered up to 21 schools.
Crushing public pressure and criticism from families led former superintendent Brent Jones to scrap the plan, even as concerns about the district’s dire financial situation remained.
Facing an $87 million budget deficit, the Seattle School Board approved about $50 million in cuts this summer to help balance the budget. But without additional changes, Shuldiner warned, the district’s money troubles will persist.
Lana Bear, vice president of the PTA for Highland Park, said she understands many parents at schools proposed for closure, including Sanislo, may be frustrated by the process. Sanislo, which had about 120 students enrolled last year and was slated for possible closure two years ago, would send its students to Highland Park, which had 340 students enrolled last year.
Parents will have questions about how their kid’s drop off will change, whether beloved programs will transfer over and if their teachers will stay with the district, Bear said. Highland Park families may also have concerns about whether their school can accommodate the increase, Bear said, though she believes class sizes won’t be too affected, given Sanislo’s already-small enrollment.
Bear stressed the importance of the district remaining transparent about its decision-making, but said she believes mergers may be beneficial. Some parents have already moved their children from Sanislo to Highland Park over the last years, having viewed the merger as inevitable, she said.
“Knowing that the ultimate goal is both saving money, but also helping all kids have the same access to resources, it feels like a good move,” said Bear, whose two children attend Highland Park.
The Seattle Public Schools student population hovers just under 50,000. The district, like public schools across the country, has been grappling with shrinking enrollment in recent years. That's down from roughly 56,000 students prepandemic, and nearly half the enrollment the district saw more than 60 years ago.
Declining birthrates are largely responsible for enrollment declines nationwide. But educators note some families with the means and resources, and in search of specialized programs and a high-quality education, are eschewing their local school system for neighboring school districts, private schools or homeschooling.
Some of the reduced enrollment at Seattle Public Schools was “out of the district’s control,” Shuldiner said in his newsletter, but “some was self-inflicted.”
"Decisions seemed to be made in direct opposition to the expressed needs of our community," he said. "When parents asked for rigor, we thought of cutting advanced programming. When families asked for clarity, they got obfuscation. When we hear about the desire for more arts, music, and dual language programs, we seem to cut those first"
Since Shuldiner started in February, he has hinted at the possibility of school closures.
Educators, families and advocates all have varying and sometimes conflicting perspectives on the impacts of school closures and mergers. Some point out students benefit from attending better-resourced schools and potentially experiencing greater racial and socioeconomic diversity. But some students may fall behind at larger schools, be disconnected from their friend groups or see beloved teachers laid-off after the shuffle.
Shuldiner said the draft list of mergers was borne out of conversations over the last few weeks among district leadership and principals. Starting this week through the beginning of November, Shuldiner and district leadership will visit all possibly impacted schools to discuss what the merger would entail.
After that, the district will hold meetings for families at each proposed “receiving” school, wrapping up those meetings in mid-December. All those conversations will shape the final plan Shuldiner will present to the Seattle School Board for consideration.
“The last thing anyone wants is for me to present a half-baked plan eviscerated by the people we are purporting to serve,” he said in his newsletter.
To help ease the transition and accommodate families, Shuldiner promised in his Sunday newsletter the district will extend its transfer period to one week after a possible board decision to allow families to apply for open enrollment to option schools, which is a lottery system.
Students transferring from a school being closed will get priority during open enrollment over families who want to transfer but are not impacted by mergers.
It’s unclear whether the merger shuffle will lead to rezoning school boundaries, which Shuldiner did not touch on in his newsletter.
It also remains to be seen whether teachers and other workers at closing schools will remain on staff. Bear said in discussions with district leadership, principals were told last month that all staff members of a closing school would transfer to the receiving school and remain employed for at least one school year. Shuldiner did not address the issue in his newsletter.
Shuldiner said part of the purpose of these mergers is to correct the disparities between schools within the district, such as the contrasting quality of buildings from one neighborhood to another.
In his visits to all of the district’s schools earlier this year, Shuldiner said he saw some schools use split classes — putting second and third graders or fourth and fifth graders into the same room to learn together because the classes were so small. While some schools had full-time music teachers, others got a traveling one. In some cases, an entire school would have only one teacher for a grade.
“I don’t want students to spend one more year (under those conditions) if we don’t have to, Shuldiner said.
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