ATSS Frequently Asked Questions

Who is All Together for Seattle Schools?

We are an all-volunteer group of parents from across Seattle. You can view our board members and committee chairs, as well as a list of people who have helped us do the work over the last 12 months, here.

We’re an inclusive group that welcomes participation. If you want to help build a great school district for every child, we have ways you can help! Contact us here to volunteer.

Who funds All Together for Seattle Schools?

Nobody. We’re all volunteers and we don’t even have a bank account or a legal structure. Anything that we’ve spent money on, like signs or a mass emailing service, has been paid for out of pocket by volunteers.

Are you really against any closures of public schools?

Evidence from around the country shows that permanently closing a public school causes harm to student learning. Given that fact, we don’t think closing schools makes sense as a budget solution, as we oppose budget solutions that undermine student learning. The numbers don’t add up either. SPS estimates that at best closing 21 schools saves $30 million, but that’s out of a budget deficit of nearly $100 million, and SPS plans to make cuts to classroom programs and lay off teachers even if they close 21 schools. Closing just 4 schools saves maybe $5 million. That means the remaining schools will not be “well-resourced” and will have even fewer resources than they have today – but will have more students. It’s a recipe for harm to student learning.

This is not to say SPS should never close a school. There may well be other reasons for a school to have to close. But we don’t think it should be done to close a budget deficit. We also don’t think SPS should force a school to close against the will of its community. If a school community reaches a genuine consensus on their own that closure is what they want for their kids, that’s different.

We do think that many of the reasons that may lead a parent or a school community to consider closure are really problems stemming from mismanagement at the district office, and a lack of resources stemming from the state legislature’s underfunding of our schools. It’s better to seek those resources and solve the underlying problem, rather than close a school. If a school is in disrepair, for example, that’s not a reason to close it – it’s a reason to properly fund maintenance and renovation or replacement of the school building.

There may also be ways to address school boundaries or bring other community service providers in to help at the school. We’re not arguing for the status quo – we want to build a better district and are eager to partner with school communities to address problems.

Finally, we do not believe SPS has shown the ability to effectively manage a school closure process without doing harm to student learning. We do not believe the district has shown the amount of trust required to engage in such a disruptive and damaging process.

Isn’t SPS losing enrollment and therefore needs to close schools to right-size itself?

SPS lost enrollment between 2020 and 2022, but since then enrollment has leveled off. In 2024 enrollment began slowly rising again. Danny Westneat at the Seattle Times and Seattle parent Albert Wong have both covered this in detail.

This strongly suggests that the decline in enrollment we saw at the beginning of this decade was a temporary phenomenon stemming from the various impacts of the pandemic, like the spike in inflation. There is every reason to believe that enrollment will continue to grow, as long as SPS leadership does not chase away families by closing schools and eroding educational quality.

Unlike San Francisco, which has lost both public student enrollment and overall population, Seattle is still growing. We have nearly 800,000 residents according to the latest state estimate. That’s a record number for Seattle since it was founded as an American city in 1851. It’s also 6% higher than the city’s population in 2019. In 2009 SPS closed five schools, but had gotten enrollment projections wrong and had to reopen them just a few years later.

Seattle and Washington State are also pursuing policies designed to make it easier to build housing that is affordable to families. We believe that SPS’s closure plan runs the risk of not providing adequate space for the students of those families.

Further, 25% of Seattle’s school-age population is enrolled in private school. We believe it’s far more productive for SPS to recruit those families into the public system rather than close schools and push more families out of the public schools. 

As to the school buildings themselves, we believe that there are many possible and valuable uses of any extra space. Washington’s likely next governor, Bob Ferguson, has pledged to fund smaller class sizes, and that means SPS will need classroom space. Many schools still do not have before and after school care programs, or a preschool program, and those could be housed in extra available space at SPS schools.

Doesn’t SPS have to close schools because of the budget deficit?

No. The budget deficit for 2025-26 is estimated to be $94 million. Closing 4 schools would, at best, save $5 million and likely even less than that. Closing 21 schools was estimated to save $30 million at most. Either way, SPS would still have an enormous budget deficit left to close, meaning the remaining schools would still face significant budget cuts and would not be well-resourced.

Closing schools creates significant new costs as well. Those costs include maintenance on a closed building, as well as the costs of transitioning students to a new school and integrating the kids currently at the school along with kids coming to the school from one that closed. However, SPS will not have money to provide these costs given the remaining budget deficit.

Closing schools also likely will trigger a new round of enrollment decline, further eroding SPS’s revenues. Nor does closing schools create lasting financial stability. After Chicago closed 50 schools in 2013, their deficits grew while enrollment dropped.

Of course, the biggest costs are not financial. They are costs to student learning, to student outcomes, to student wellbeing, and to the overall health and vitality of the communities whose schools are closed.

We reject the idea that school closures are a good or even necessary way to close the budget deficit. We oppose any budget cuts that would impact students. Instead, we should all come together to make the state legislature close SPS’s budget deficit and all school district budget deficits across the state, and amply fund our public schools as the constitution requires. The state legislative session runs from January 2025 to April 2025, and SPS adopts its budget in late spring. There is no need for SPS to approve any school closures or other budget cuts before giving us a chance to make the legislature solve this without harm to students.

Are you against any budget cuts, even to the central office and district administration?

We don’t oppose budget cuts at the central office or to district administration. We oppose cuts in the classroom that impact students. We don’t want to see teachers laid off, or their pay be cut. We don’t want to see larger class sizes or fewer programs and services. 

However, as far as we can tell, there is not $30 million in savings at the central office (the amount SPS claims it will save by closing 21 schools). There’s certainly not $100 million in savings at the central office. SPS cannot close its budget deficit by itself. Only the legislature can solve it.

SPS is mismanaged. It needs major management changes and reforms, and there are surely ways that this will save the district money. We don’t have transparency around contracts and consultants. We don’t have insight regarding how supplies are purchased. There are unnecessary layers of bureaucracy in the central office that get between the Superintendent and principals. We need an independent audit of the district.

Shockingly, the school board raised the threshold for approving contracts from $250,000 to $1 million. This means any contract less than $1 million doesn’t require board approval. SPS lacks some of the basic fiscal controls needed to help the district navigate these budget challenges.

We believe that these should be urgently addressed, as a matter of good governance. But we have to be clear: none of these reforms will solve SPS’s budget crisis, and they probably won’t even make a major dent. $100 million is a lot of money, and only the state legislature can close it without hurting our students.

If you oppose closing schools, does that mean you support laying off teachers?

No, because we oppose all budget cuts that harm student learning. We reject these kinds of false choices and instead agree with neighboring school districts, who are also facing budget problems, that the solution lies not in cuts but in going to the state legislature and making them amply fund our public schools as the state constitution requires.

We would also note that under every budget proposal SPS has shown this year, they will still lay off teachers even if they close schools.

What happens if the state legislature does not amply fund our public schools in the 2025 legislative session?

That would be a disaster. But we also are not going to plan for failure. There is a groundswell rising across the state to demand that the legislature step in and solve school district budget deficits and provide schools the resources they need to educate our kids. There were nearly 1,000 people in attendance at an Education Funding Crisis town hall in Edmonds on 10/23/24, just one example of the energy that is out there to push legislators to act. We will work with others across Washington State to go all out to push the legislature to act, and bring mobilization and organization to this issue like we have not seen in many years.

Still, it’s always possible that the legislature will say no. If that happens, we will urge SPS to handle the 2025-26 budget differently than they have in the past. SPS should adopt a truly participatory budgeting process where district leaders work with families, educators, students, and community members to determine priorities together and decide together how to address any future budget deficits. SPS leaders must no longer simply make these decisions themselves in a top down and exclusionary way.

What will All Together for Seattle Schools do if and when the state fully and amply funds our public schools?

It is clear that SPS is systematically mismanaged and in need of reform. There also needs to be a strong voice of families and community members who are committed to a great public school district that meets the needs of every child. We plan to continue pushing to reform SPS and help fix the mismanagement woes so that our educators, families, students, and communities can work together to support our students.

Which schools and communities have been actively involved with All Together for Seattle Schools?

We have volunteers from every part of the city, at dozens of schools. We do not claim to speak for these schools. But we do seek to ensure that parents and students at these schools are heard and included in decisions that impact their future.

What is All Together for Seattle Schools’ relationship with other education advocates?

We partner with Washington’s Paramount Duty, Fund SPS, SCORE, school PTAs, educators, and individual parents/caregivers. Some of our volunteers are members of those organizations and/or their boards. The Board Co-Chairs of All Together for Seattle Schools, Alex Wakeman Rouse and Erin MacDougall, are not.

Is All Together for Seattle Schools trying to elect new school board members?

No, our organization is not doing any electoral work. We’re focused on community engagement, policy, management, and funding.