Rantz: Seattle may close 20 elementary schools due to avoidable problems

Seattle Public Schools (SPS) appears ready to close 20 elementary schools. The impacted students will be consolidated into nearby schools. This crisis didn’t need to happen.

Superintendent Dr. Brent Jones reminded parents at a community school board meeting last week that the cuts are imminent. There will be a vote on its consolidation plan in the Winter. These closures come after a remarkable decline in enrollment and the budget cuts that came along with it. The superintendent said the school lost around 4,000 students since 2020. Students in K–5th grade saw the steepest enrollment declines. This created, in part, a $100 million budget deficit that cannot be handled without significant closures.

SPS blames the enrollment shifts on COVID, which has become the go-to reason to excuse poor results. However, COVID isn’t directly to blame for the enrollment crisis. Seattle Public School officials chose politics over students.

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Why are there fewer students enrolled in Seattle Public Schools

The enrollment crisis impacting Seattle Public Schools can be boiled down to political decisions administrators and staff made.

The Seattle Education Association (SEA) kept Seattle’s kids out of school far longer than was necessary, using the pandemic as a political weapon to wring more funds out of taxpayers. It was never about the science—if it were, our kids would have been back in classrooms long before other districts nationwide.

Children were the least impacted by COVID. Virtually the only children who were severely impacted were those with serious pre-existing health conditions. And we knew this almost immediately.

The union exploited the fear and uncertainty of COVID-19 to push a self-serving agenda, putting their own interests over the education and well-being of your children. While they paraded safety concerns, it was clear they were angling for more money, not safer schools. Too many teachers prioritized their own preferences of working from home and avoiding traffic, over your kids.

The long-term damage to our kids’ education and mental health will be felt for years, but SEA got what they wanted: more cash and control. But the district saw declining enrollment as a result. But this wasn’t the only reason.

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Seattle Public Schools prioritized wokeness

Remote learning made it increasingly difficult for students to grow academically. Making matters worse? Wokeness took priority over education.

Instead of focusing on math, reading, and science, teachers and administrators became obsessed with pushing a political agenda centered around Black Lives Matter and so-called “antiracism” training. This ideological indoctrination came at the expense of the basics, leaving parents furious and pulling their kids out of SPS in droves.

The district replaced standard curriculum with radical lessons that taught kids to see everything through the lens of race and oppression, alienating many families who simply wanted a good education for their children. They taught kids that cops were the enemy, math is racist, and that white supremacy infects every aspect of society.

The result? A mass exodus to private schools or out of the district altogether.

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Asian students, in particular, left in droves

By mid-2022, the damage had been done. SPS saw significant enrollment declines, led by Asian and white families (13% and 9% declines respectively). When you prioritize politics over learning, you lose students, and that’s exactly what happened in Seattle.

Culturally, Asian families have long placed a strong emphasis on education, rightly viewing it as the key to success and stability. They generally prioritize academic achievement, often encouraging their children to excel in school. This cultural value on education is rooted in a deep respect for hard work, discipline, and the opportunities that a good education can provide.

Once SPS stopped focusing on academics, pushing left-wing wokeness instead, Asian families started a “quite” movement to remove their kids from public schools.

Making matters worse, white students, which represent the largest demographic in the district, left too. There’s only so much self-loathing Progressive parents are comfortable instilling in their white kids every day they go to school.

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But wait, there’s more…

For some parents, they learned that the School Board doesn’t care for their kids.

Then board-directors Chandra Hampson and Zachary DeWolf dismissed concerns from parents at Broadview-Thomson K-8 over a dangerous homeless encampment on campus property. Despite open drug use, at least one fatal overdose, violence, and prostitution literally feet away from the school’s playground, the School Board wouldn’t allow the city to sweep the encampment. Seattle Public Schools affirmed that position, at the time stating that “simply removing them from district property won’t result in a permanent solution,” given that campers often “move between city and district owned properties.”

As the homeless population earned a higher priority than the students and staff at Broadview-Thomson K-8, some parents had enough.

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Seattle Public Schools chased students away

Seattle Public Schools is now reaping what it sowed.

The looming closures of 20 elementary schools aren’t merely the unfortunate consequence of an unavoidable crisis—they’re the direct result of a series of political choices that put ideology and union interests above students’ needs. SPS embraced wokeness, sidelining core education in favor of pushing a radical agenda that alienated families and drove them away. They allowed union leaders to manipulate the pandemic for their own gain, keeping schools closed long after the science said otherwise. Meanwhile, the district leadership turned a blind eye to the safety concerns of parents dealing with homeless encampments on school grounds.

The fallout? A mass exodus of students fed up with SPS’s priorities. Now, the district is left with a $100 million budget deficit and, soon, an even more shattered trust with the community. Seattle’s kids deserve better than this. They deserve an education that focuses on learning, not on leftist indoctrination. Unfortunately, the damage has been done, and it’s the students who are paying the price.

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