Our position
- Keep great public schools open. Schools anchor communities. Families need stability to plan years ahead. Closure threats weaken trust and push families away.
- Closures won’t fix the budget. Other districts have lost students and funding to large-scale closures. Promised efficiencies haven’t fixed their budgets.
- Make public schools work for everyone. Maintain academic excellence and support every learner. Keep families from every socioeconomic background invested.
The evidence
The case for keeping
our schools open.
Schools anchor communities. We oppose closing them as a budget strategy and support a public system that families from every socioeconomic background choose and trust.
Explore the school recordsKeep great public schools open.
Families plan homes, work and childcare around schools years ahead. Seattle Public Schools’ survey finds that belonging, nearby schools and strong teaching help families stay, while closure uncertainty causes concern. A UChicago study of Chicago’s 2013 closures found broken social ties and lower math scores that persisted for four years. Protecting these relationships helps sustain enrollment; families deserve stability and a real say in their school’s future.
Closures won’t fix the budget.
A 2026 Stanford study found that California school closures reduced enrollment without improving districts’ financial standing on average. Pew’s review of six urban districts found small short-term savings relative to their budgets. D.C.’s auditor found $8 million in closure costs beyond the $9.7 million first reported. Seattle needs a full accounting of lost revenue, transition costs and continuing expenses before treating closures as a budget fix.
Make public schools work for everyone.
Academic excellence and support for every learner keep families invested in public schools. Families with more means have more alternatives. A UC Davis case study found that closures discouraged middle-class investment in district schools while increasing burdens on disadvantaged families. Seattle should avoid a cycle of departures, weaker funding and further cuts. Public schools must work for wealthy and poor families alike, with more help where needs are greatest.
Capital invested in the schools named for closure: figures and source records
How we work.
Start with original records.
Use SPS and OSPI reports, NCES data, board documents and public archives. When a community group hosts a district-authored document, identify the district as its author and the group as its host.
Keep unlike measures separate.
Keep enrollment headcounts separate from annual-average FTE, and budgets separate from actual spending. School costs may include central allocations; reported spending does not equal savings from closure.
Distinguish observations from interpolation.
Mark interpolated gaps with dashed lines, hollow dots and table labels. Preserve original observations. Never treat missing data as zero, estimate suppressed results or combine incompatible assessment eras.
Preserve the date and the context.
Keep every claim tied to its date and context. A past closure proposal is not a current decision, and a historic photo does not show today’s building condition. Our first research release was Oct. 7, 2026.