BREAKING: The Superintendent of Seattle Public Schools announced in his weekly email: "The conversation around school mergers begins." He wrote, "In 1964, Seattle Public Schools had an enrollment over 94,000 students. Today, our student count sits under 50,000. Over the last half century, there have been years of growth and decades of decline." "Some of the decline was out of the district’s control, but some was self-inflicted: a lack of clarity of vision and purpose, a revolving door of disparate and problematic leadership, fits and starts of numerous programs and policies, each seemingly in contrast with the previous iteration. But through it all, there seemed to be a district that did not privilege students and their families." "Decisions seemed to be made in direct opposition to the expressed needs of our community. When parents asked for rigor, we thought of cutting advanced programming. When families asked for clarity, they got obfuscation. When we hear about the desire for more arts, music, and dual language programs, we seem to cut those first. When community members want to donate, volunteer, or support the district, we create roadblock after roadblock." He then spoke about his visits to all the schools: "Some students were in beautiful buildings with bright, airy, light-filled classrooms, while others spent their days in buildings without interior walls, traipsing through poorly lit hallways and hearing the scurry of much smaller beings in the rafters." "I saw robust learning communities with teachers who could share within their grades amongst colleagues and schools with just one second grade teacher who had to fend for themselves. I saw schools that got itinerant music teachers once a week or even once every two weeks, while others had full-time teachers firmly part of the school community. And what I saw over and over again was forced split classes. Room after room of second and third graders trying to learn together. Fourth and fifth graders struggling because of the inherent difficulty of teaching “up” or “down” or two grades at once." "I also saw a K-8 school with less than 50 students, where multi-grade classes are the norm. I saw a K-5 school with less than 120 kids trying to contort and contrive as best it could to serve our students. But no matter how great the staff is, this is an extra burden to bear." "I hear communities with very low enrollment say, “But Ben, just give us a year, give us two years, we will get students to come. Give us a PR budget and we will draw tens if not hundreds of students. Just redraw district lines and force students into our school.” I appreciate that all, but each idea takes time and would either cannibalize other schools or be based on wishful thinking. In times like these I often think of the Dr. Martin Luther King quote, 'We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. This is the time for vigorous and positive action.'" "I don’t want students to spend one more year in a building where bookcases serve as walls, if we don’t have to. I don’t want students to spend one more year in a sixth-seventh-eighth grade split if we don’t have to. I don’t want teachers to be the only teacher in the grade if we don’t have to. I don’t want to accept large class sizes if we don’t have to. So, the conversation around school mergers begins." The timeline is as follows: Senior Leadership meetings – First two weeks in September Principal meetings – September and October Staff meetings – October and November Family meetings – November and December Community meetings/public hearings – January and February Board possible action – Late February or early March