Seattle School District May Lay Off Employees Due to Dropping Student Enrollment

Officials announced this week that Seattle’s public schools district will likely be cutting back on employees due to financial problems resulting from declining student enrollments.

“This week … we’ve issued some notifications to employees about they’re being considered for ‘RIF’ and displacement so that is happening,” Dr. Brent Jones, superintendent of the Seattle Public Schools, said, at a school board meeting Tuesday. RIF is another name for layoffs.

“We’re in that phase right now,” Jones said Jones, according to reports.

According to a school district update, its “structural deficit” It has risen to $131 Million for the fiscal year, and it was noted that “enrollment has decreased” The past decade has been a great one. “staff has increased.” It also notes that “enrollment is anticipated to continue to trend down.”

Jones pointed out the drop in enrollment. Data shows that student populations have fallen by 6.5 percent since 2019. How much money the state provides for the city’s schools is determined by the number of students enrolled.

“We really have to be proactive around understanding our special education services, our English language learning services—transportation,” Jones warned according To view local reports. “All of these. We’re not gonna get enough funding this year.”

Tuesday’s statement by school board members was also a reminder that they plan to carry out the project. “targeted reductions in schools” To and from “consolidate into a system of well-resourced schools.”

“I know the idea of consolidating schools sounds really disruptive and scary, but I have yet to hear anybody say what’s most important to me is my child attends school at this specific building no matter what,” During the meeting, Liza Rankin (Vice President of Seattle School Board) spoke. “What I do hear is what’s most important is my child has access to this service, this instruction.”

Rankin stated that “we can’t afford to have buildings that are half-enrolled, and it wouldn’t provide what I consider to be a well-resourced school,” According to a Seattle Times reportThe school system has already notified employees of layoffs, according to the report.

According to figures provided by the Seattle district, the fund balance at Seattle Public Schools was $139.9 million as of December 2022, while the ending fund balance was $151.8 million for the previous year. Those figures also showed that revenue for this year is $317.6 million while expenditures for this school year are  $353.5 million.

Possible reasons why

Jones and other school officials have not attempted to provide more information on why enrollment has fallen in recent years. The Center for Reinventing Public Education at Arizona State University shows ().pdfThe number of Washington homeschooled students has risen sharply since 2019.

Since 2020 saw the outbreak of the pandemic “declines are not uniform across all types of schools,” The report was noted. “Private schools, charter schools, and homeschools gained more students since the start of the pandemic, while traditional public schools experienced two years of enrollment declines.”

“Homeschool enrollment nearly doubled, increasing by 91 percent (18,999 additional students) from September 2019 to September 2020 but then declined by 20% (7,787 fewer students) from September 2020 to September 2021,” According to the researchers. “That resulted in a net gain of 11,212 homeschool students (27 percent average annual growth) over the two years.”

Between 2019 and 2022, the United States saw its largest ever drop in math scores. Scores fell by five points for fourth-graders and eight for eighth-graders between these years. according The National Assessment of Educational Progress Report was published late last year.

It also found that reading scores dropped to levels not seen for 30 years, with a decrease of 3 points for fourth- and eighth-graders.

As the report was released, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said the test results were “appalling and unacceptable,” while urging officials and teachers to help students recover from the pandemic.

“A once-in-a-generation virus upended our country in so many ways, and our students cannot be the ones who sacrifice the most in the long run,” Cardona stated this to reporters. “We must treat the task of catching our children up with the urgency that this moment demands.”