ATSS Media Statement 11/26/24

For Immediate Release – November 26, 2024

Contact: alltogetherforsps@gmail.com

MEDIA STATEMENT: All Together for Seattle Schools’ response to the school district and school board ending plan to close schools for the 2025-26 school year

SEATTLE - After a year of unified advocacy by parents, caregivers and school communities across the city through All Together for Seattle Schools, we welcome the decision to end the district’s plan to close up to 21 schools for next year. This flawed plan caused unnecessary stress and disruption for students, families and communities. Now, we can focus on creating a positive vision for a stronger Seattle Public Schools (SPS) that centers student and family needs. 

We remain committed to partnering with the district to rebuild trust and ensure a sustainable future for SPS. This includes advocating for the state legislature to amply fund public schools across Washington.

While this decision is a step in the right direction, we will continue to oppose school closures and student-facing cuts. SPS must abandon plans to “right-size” the district by closing schools in the future. Instead, we call for an audit of the entire budget, prioritizing non-student-facing cuts, including central office leadership and external consulting contracts. We will oppose any effort to pit parents and caregivers against educators and staff. We stand in solidarity opposing cuts that harm students, including cuts to educator positions.

SPS’s and the board’s actions over the past year have eroded public trust and caused significant parental and student stress–this was avoidable and unacceptable. The district must commit to meaningful engagements with families and communities, ensuring transparency and accountability in all decisions. Building trust is essential to restoring public confidence.

This is a pivotal moment for SPS to learn and grow. We urge district leaders to transform how SPS operates, partners with school communities, and shares information transparently. The school board must also improve fiscal and operations oversight, represent constituents effectively, and hold the district accountable. 

Looking ahead, SPS must focus on solutions that grow enrollment, advance academic excellence, and improve student outcomes. The district must demonstrate that it can steward public funds responsibly, prioritizing investments in student learning, and addressing opportunity gaps beyond standardized test scores. 

Over the past year, we’ve seen an outpouring of activism from families across Seattle, united by a vision of great public schools that meet the needs of every child. We strongly encourage SPS to move away from a binary and scarcity mindset and embrace opportunity through collaboration. The district must prioritize excellence in implementing programs, engaging communities, and governing with transparency and accountability. Together, we can build broad public support for a high-quality, responsive, and equitable education system that serves every student in Seattle. 

We urge SPS to align its values and actions with Seattle’s vision of a world-class city:

• Demonstrate strong leadership and accountability by developing multi-year, transparent plans that align with the city’s growth and community needs.

• Actively focus on strategies to grow enrollment and increase revenue while enhancing educational offerings.

• Expand and sustain innovative, evidence-based programs that families value and students need, such as dual language immersion, Highly Capable Cohort, option schools, and K-8 models.

• Provide an array of schools that reflect the diversity of our students, prioritizing student learning, and equitable access to opportunities.

• Commit to schools that are walkable, located near new housing expansion, and integrated with comprehensive and transportation planning. Reimagine investments within the BEX Levy to reflect community engagement and student outcomes.

We recognize that solving these challenges requires more than just local efforts – statewide action is essential. The state legislature must fully and amply fund our public schools. To drive this effort, we are partnering with parents and caregivers across Washington to launch the Billion Dollar Bake Sale campaign urging lawmakers to prioritize public school funding. Communities across the state will host real or symbolic bake sales to raise awareness of this urgent issue, culminating in a statewide Advocacy Day in Olympia on Jan. 30, 2025.

With the SPS closure plan behind us, we invite district leaders to join with us in this endeavor. Funding public education is the state’s constitutional “paramount duty” and the legislature must close the entire district budget deficit without requiring cuts in the classroom, and provide the ample resources that our kids need and deserve. The collective advocacy of families and communities across Seattle has successfully pushed SPS to reconsider its plans. By partnering with communities across Washington, we will continue to demand that the legislature fulfills its commitment to education, ensuring that budgets are no longer balanced at the expense of our children and schools.