Seattle Public Schools Announces No School Closures for 2025–2026 School Year
King County Seeks Information About Damage From Bomb Cyclone
10th Annual Seattle Public Safety Survey Seeks Your Feedback on Crime and Safety
Seattle Public Schools (SPS) has determined that there will be no school closures within the upcoming 2025–2026 school year, after many months of proposing and postponing potential elementary school closures within the SPS system.
In May, SPS proposed the potential closure of up to 20 elementary schools for the 2024–2025 school year, in part because of a projected budget deficit. The district was able to balance its budget two months later, in July, through a $27.5 million short-term interfund loan that comes out of SPS' capital fund and must be repaid by June 30, 2026. This balancing of the budget allowed the school closures to be postponed by an entire year, as the 2025–2026 school year remained with a projected deficit of $94 million.
The deficit comes in part because the state funding model for elementary schools is based on enrollment of 400 students per school, and the district is underresourced because its enrollment numbers fall far below the state average. SPS has 70 elementary schools that serve 23,000 K-5 students — or an average of 317 students per elementary school. Of those schools, 29 have fewer than 300 students.
The 20 affected schools were not clearly determined from the start but were to be selected based on community discussion and meetings. The goal was that the closures would allow SPS to consolidate services and retain a higher level of student support across the schools that remained open.
“We are now out of significant one-time options and will need to make more systemic changes to stabilize the system going forward," SPS Superintendent Brent Jones wrote in July, citing one of the largest determinants to be the outcomes from its 2025 legislative session, which will take place later this year in Olympia. "We can make further cuts to services, staff, and supports in all schools, or we can maintain and plan to enhance student services and supports with a reduction in the number of elementary schools to match elementary school enrollment. We must consider which is the greater priority — the location of the school building or the services and educational opportunities available to students when they are at school."
After months of extensive feedback from parents and concerned citizens, SPS decided in October to lessen the number of school closures to five. Even that reduced number was met with concerns from some of the board members, however.
On Tuesday, Nov. 26, the SPS School Board finally voted to avoid all potential school closures during the 2025–2026 school year, following Superintendent Jones’ announcement that he no longer wishes to pursue the closures.
“This decision was not made lightly and reflects the Board and my shared priority: the needs and well-being of our students, families, and community,” Superintendent Jones wrote in a letter to parents on Monday. “While our Board recognized the vision for the proposed changes, and many in our community understood the need for stability behind them, this decision allows us to clarify the process, deepen our understanding of the potential impacts, and thoughtfully determine our next steps.”
The projected savings from the closures were estimated to be around $5.5 million. SPS now must look to close the 2025-2026 school year’s budget shortfall in other ways. In Jones’ letter, he suggested that legislative advocacy in Olympia and a streamlining of “operational efficiencies” within the district could be solutions.
King County is in the process of determining whether it may be eligible for disaster relief funds from the state of Washington or the federal government following last week’s bomb cyclone and windstorm, which left over 600,000 Western Washington residents without power, at times for days.
The King County Office of Emergency Management encourages individuals who had businesses or residences damaged by the incident to fill out an online survey detailing their damages.
Questions can be directed to the King County Office of Emergency Management at 1-800-523-5044 or 206-296-3830 during regular business hours.
Severe power outages caused by the bomb cyclone led to over 130 canceled blood donor appointments on Wednesday, Nov. 20, significantly impacting the region’s blood supply.
“Bloodworks Northwest needs 1,000 donors a day to support hospitals in Western Washington and Oregon, and with Thanksgiving on the horizon, donations are more critical than ever,” said Tracy Rabsky in a statement to the Emerald. Rabsky works for GreenRubino, the firm that does public relations work for Bloodworks Northwest.
Donors of all blood types are encouraged to book appointments either via phone by calling 800-398-7888, online at www.BloodworksNW.org, or by texting “bwapp” to 999-777 to download the Bloodworks App for booking.
Individuals with Type O blood and platelet donors are especially encouraged to donate. Centers will be open on Thanksgiving Day from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Olympia, Puyallup, Renton, Vancouver, Everett, Central Seattle, and Silverdale.
Individuals who donate between Nov. 24 and Nov. 30 will earn double entries in Bloodworks Northwest’s Music’s In Our Blood campaign raffle for a trip to New York City, which includes tickets to a Broadway musical.
Seattle University (SU)’s 10th annual Seattle Public Safety Survey is seeking comments from South End residents regarding perceptions of crime and safety in Seattle.
The 2023 survey showed that top concerns within the city were traffic safety, police capacity, property crime, homelessness, and community capacity. Each year’s survey results are used to help inform the Seattle Police Department (SPD)’s Micro-Community Policing Plans (MCPP), which endeavors to recognize that no two neighborhoods in Seattle are the same. MCPP hopes to bring together “community engagement and crime data together and direct police services to address the individual needs of each community.”
“The voices of all who live and/or work in Seattle are needed to understand how crime and public safety impact quality of life in Seattle neighborhoods,” explains Jacqueline Helfgott, director of SU’s Crime and Justice Research Center (CJRC), on the survey webpage. “No neighborhood in Seattle is alike when it comes to crime and public safety. Data from the annual Seattle Public Safety Survey provides important information for the city to help the Seattle Police Department and the community work together to identify priorities and strategies to improve quality of life in Seattle neighborhoods.”
The survey is conducted independently by a research team at SU’s Department of Criminal Justice, Criminology and Forensics, in collaboration with SU’s CJRC and SPD.
Responses are due by Nov. 30, and the survey is available in multiple languages.
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