District officials have not said which schools will be on the chopping block—a list is expected to be released in June—but they say K-5 students would be better accommodated if the district downsized to 50 elementary schools.
There were about 385 students for every school counselor in the 2022-23 school year, a sizeable improvement from the previous year. Meanwhile, schools are still battling an ongoing mental health crisis.
Many districts in the Puget Sound region continue to record student numbers that are well below the enrollment they enjoyed before the pandemic, which has resulted in dire financial binds.
In her every-other-week private counseling appointments with teenagers, Seattle-based therapist Emily Irwin will often ask "what's on your heart? What's on your brain?" "And they'll be like.... ‘uh, I forget, I forget what happened,’” Irwin recounted.
Faced with declining enrollment and a $104.4 million deficit, Seattle Public Schools administrators will roll out a fiscal stabilization plan that could pave the way for school closures and consolidations.
"Be open, be honest, be respectful—those are words I hear from students, especially our older students who are trying to find out who they are and what they'd like to be in this world," Superintendent Shaun Carey says.
According to the district’s September count, 48,960 kids showed up for the city’s public K-12 schools. That’s down from 50,111 last September. It’s nearly 5,000 fewer students than in the fall of 2019, before the virus and the school closures touched off an unraveling.
