Before Closures, SPS Needs to Show its Work
So put your little hand in mine
There ain’t no hill or mountain we can’t climb
I got you babe
I got you babe
Remember how Bill Murray woke up to that verse, over and over, in Groundhog Day?
I feel like I’m in my own version of the movie, except my alarm clock goes like this:
So the district really is broke this time
We’re gonna close your school (won’t save a dime)
Sucks for you babe
Sucks for you babe
Unfortunately, “you,” in this case, is all of us.
In 2009, SPS tried to close Sacajawea Elementary. Parents fought back and the school remained open. I moved into the neighborhood several years later.
In 2024, Sacajawea—colloquially known as Sac—was one of the four schools that the district concretely attempted to shut down. This time, Sac was “my” school. I was initially on board with the closure. I believed that it was a necessary sacrifice to stabilize district finances.
As I (and others) dug deeper into the district’s reasoning, though, we realized that the benefits were imaginary. Their financial assumptions were wildly unrealistic. So we pushed back. The plans were eventually abandoned, but the whole experience was a disaster for both the district and for our community.
Now, in 2026, the alarm clock is ringing again.
Superintendent Shuldiner spoke with both KOMO and King5 news on Thursday—one day after resolving teachers union negotiations—about the district’s financial problems. In both interviews, he pivoted directly from highlighting the budget deficit into a discussion of school closures. Over the summer, he discussed the financial impacts of school mergers with the board.
Sucks for you, babe.
***
School closures create a loss–of community, certainly, but also of neighborhood shared space, of the idea that SPS is invested in neighborhood schools and walkability, and, in some cases, even academic achievement.
Such losses may indeed be worthwhile if they create gains elsewhere in the system.
But here’s the problem: I don’t see evidence (yet?) that there would be any system-wide upside to closures.
Districts cite either savings or “increased resourcing” as the upsides to closure. Sadly, closures have been repeatedly proven not to yield meaningful savings. And “increased resourcing” is an ambiguous benefit. It usually means operational efficiencies (mostly job consolidations), which is just another way of saying savings. Sometimes it means a shift from older facilities into existing newer ones. It almost never refers to an actual increase of staffing or material resources available to students.
Maybe there really will be a clear upside if (when) closures are announced this year. Unfortunately, my community’s 2024 experience destroyed any benefit of the doubt that we had previously graced the district with on this topic.
We know now that the devil is in the details and that the district has a history of estimating those details incorrectly.
So, in 2026, I will repeat what we said in 2024: Show your work!
If thoroughly-researched and transparently-shared work shows that closures will create meaningful savings, I’ll be likely to support them. The precarity of SPS’s finances is not exaggerated. The financial bleed must be stabilized, and that will require ongoing, unpleasant sacrifices.
On the flip side, if the work doesn’t show a clear budgetary benefit to closures, I will be unlikely to support them. Any plan that breaks apart existing communities and contributes to the perception that SPS is an unstable district demands a crystal clear upside. So does any proposal that risks the creation of abandoned school buildings in Seattle’s neighborhoods.
I can’t support or reject any upcoming closure proposal until I understand the details. Neither should Shuldiner, neither should the board, and neither should you.
Here are the details I think the public most needs clarity from SPS on if (when) the district proposes closures:
These aren’t the only questions, but they’re the biggest ones. They’re the ones whose details will reveal whether a specific plan is a path to prosperity or a robbery of time, trust, and community.
Skip around to whatever interests you using the above links, or read straight through. Let’s do this!