Harger: 21 Seattle schools could merge. Superintendent Ben Shuldiner is leveling with families about why
Oct 28, 2026, 7:34 AM | Updated: 3:13 pm
About 150 parents and community members filled Robert Eagle Staff Middle School Monday night to talk with Seattle Public Schools Superintendent Ben Shuldiner and his staff. They asked about academic rigor, school safety, and what comes next.
One dad, David, told KIRO 7 he feels more accepted by the district’s communication than in past years. He still wants “clear next steps on how to make sure kids are learning.”
Families have plenty to ask about. Twenty-one Seattle schools are now part of the district’s merger discussion, grouped into 10 possible mergers, from Licton Springs and Salmon Bay in the north end to Sanislo and Highland Park in West Seattle.
Shuldiner set the tone for all of it just before the meeting, in a letter to families announcing that mergers are back on the table. In it, he wrote this:
“Some of the decline was out of the district’s control, but some was self-inflicted.”
That’s the superintendent talking about his own district.
In 1964, Seattle Public Schools had more than 94,000 students. Today it has fewer than 50,000. Shuldiner blamed part of that on forces nobody in the district controls, like the Boeing Bust and the region’s wealth pulling families toward private schools. Then he blamed the district itself.
A revolving door of leadership. Programs that reversed course every few years. A district that, in his words, “has been known to close a building only to open it again, even though very little changed.”
Bad news, delivered straight.
Ben Shuldiner describes Seattle schools as they are
He described what he saw visiting schools. A K-8 with fewer than 50 students. A K-5 with fewer than 120. Buildings where bookcases serve as walls. Room after room of second and third graders crammed into split classes, and teachers who are the only one in their grade, with nobody down the hall to lean on.
He also told parents something they didn’t want to hear. Some low-enrollment schools asked for one more year, a PR budget, or new boundary lines to steer students their way. Shuldiner wrote that each idea “would either cannibalize other schools or be based on wishful thinking.”
Most superintendents would bury that in three paragraphs of process language. He used one sentence.
Back in May, he told KIRO Newsradio the district was “still bankrupt,” facing an $87 million budget gap. Same guy, same tone.
Seattle school mergers will test that candor
The hard part is coming. The district has emailed families at all 21 schools. No decisions have been made. Shuldiner laid out the order. Senior leaders drew up a draft list in early
September, right after the teachers’ contract was settled. Principals at the possible merger schools heard in September and October, and the list changed after those meetings. Staff meetings at those schools started this week and run into early November. Family meetings at each proposed receiving school follow, from November to mid-December.
Only then does the list go to the school board and the public, with public hearings in January and February. The board could vote in late February or early March.
Some parents will see that order as keeping them in the dark. I see why he did it. If families hear about a merger before the principal does, the principal has nothing to tell them. The people who have to answer the questions should get the answers first.
Save Seattle Schools, a parent group, told KIRO 7 that heavy-handed closures “would be a colossal mistake just as optimism about the district was starting to build.” Those families love their schools, and they’ll be heard.
The enrollment numbers don’t bend to optimism, though. Washington’s public schools lost nearly 67,000 students between the 2019-20 and 2022-23 school years, according to a KING 5 analysis of state data. Homeschooling jumped about 43%. The State Board of Education found private school enrollment up about 11% at the schools it tracked. Birth rates keep falling. Seattle can’t market its way out of that.
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Seattle teachers need clarity and stability from the top
I’m a dad, and both of my kids have come up through public schools. My son is a freshman in high school in Auburn. I know the pressures public schools and their families are under.
Teachers will feel this first. Their job is hard enough already. On top of the teaching, there’s the paperwork, the meetings, the emails from parents, the hallway and lunchroom duty, and all the other work nobody sees.
They keep showing up anyway. And every few years, there’s a new boss at the top. Shuldiner is the fourth person to run Seattle Public Schools since 2018, including an acting superintendent, and every new leader brings a new set of senior leaders, new priorities, and a new way of talking to the people in the classroom.
Teachers deserve clarity from the people at the top. They also deserve stability.
Shuldiner also made a promise: once this round is done, “I never want to do this again.” I hope he’s leveling with teachers when he says that. The real test is the hurt that’s coming from families about to lose a school they love. Based on how he’s started, I’m hopeful he follows through with the clarity and transparency this community deserves.
Charlie Harger is the host of “Seattle’s Morning News” on KIRO Newsradio. You can read more of his stories and commentaries here. Follow Charlie on X and email him here.
