Our manifesto
Keep the
public promise.
Seattle deserves a public school system that families choose, trust and stay in. Protect the schools that hold our neighborhoods together. Make an honest financial plan. Give every child a reason to thrive here.
Keep great public schools open.
A school is part of the life a family builds. Treat that commitment with care.
Keep the neighborhood together.
The walk to school. A teacher who knows your child. A playground full of familiar faces. These relationships draw families into Seattle Public Schools and help keep their children there. They take years to build. Closing a school puts that trust—and the enrollment it sustains—at risk.
Give families a future to plan.
Parents plan housing, work and childcare around school. Repeated closure threats make that planning harder and give families with other options a reason to leave. Apparent savings to the district can become daily costs to families: longer journeys, more crossings and less time together.
Community consent comes first.
We oppose closing a school without its community’s consent or at least real consultation. Start with the families, students, staff and neighbors who know it. Include the receiving school, too. Give them the information, time and real influence to shape a plan before a closure list is drawn.
Our askGive school communities stability and a real say in their future.
Closures won’t fix the budget.
A smaller school system is no victory if the financial problem stays.
Count what actually goes away.
Seattle Public Schools should show which costs a closure would eliminate. Allocating central-office spending to a small school can make its per-pupil figure look expensive. Moving those students does not automatically remove that overhead. Publish actual school costs, avoidable costs and the costs of the transition.
Lost students mean lost revenue.
Stanford’s California study found that closures triggered enrollment losses. Urban districts cut spending but also lost revenue, without a significant improvement in their financial position. A plan that counts savings while overlooking departures leaves out a central part of the equation. [2][3]
Learn from other districts.
Pew examined large-scale closures in Chicago, Detroit, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C. Short-term savings were small relative to district budgets, and the largest savings involved substantial layoffs. Empty buildings also proved difficult to sell. Promised efficiency needs evidence behind it. [4]
Our askShow durable net savings, including lost revenue and every transition cost.
Make public schools work for everyone.
Public schools must work for everyone to keep everyone invested in them.
Make excellence the promise.
Strong academics, challenging work, great teachers and the support to succeed should be available to every child. Keep families from every socioeconomic background invested in public education. Direct more help to students who need more, while maintaining high expectations and opportunity for all.
Let different schools flourish.
Neighborhoods have different strengths and children have different needs. Language immersion, K–8 communities, the arts and other distinctive models give families reasons to choose public schools. Work with communities, try promising ideas, evaluate what helps children and grow what works. Administrative uniformity is not an educational goal.
Build support. Don’t shrink it.
Families with the means to leave have more ways out. A UC Davis-published case study described middle-class parents switching to charters after closures, while disadvantaged families faced harder journeys and lost community resources. Seattle should avoid a cycle of exits and cuts: invest in quality, welcome families and make our schools’ strengths known. [5]
Our askMake a plan to attract and retain families, with academic excellence at its heart.
Build a future families can believe in.
Keep great schools open. Make the finances add up. Earn families’ trust with excellent public education in every community. These are the commitments we want Seattle’s leaders to make.
Get to know our schools