Task force removes four schools from Shoreline district closure list
Saturday, June 1, 2024
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| A map from the Shoreline school district website shows the current nine elementary school boundaries |
By Oliver Moffat
An advisory task force removed Meridian Park, Cascade K-8, Parkwood and Briarcrest from its list of Shoreline elementary schools they will recommend be closed in 2025. At the May 30 meeting, the task force continued the work of winnowing schools from the list and will reconvene within two weeks to identify more schools to spare.
With enrollment dwindling, districts across the state are closing schools to fill budget shortfalls and closure announcements in Seattle and elsewhere have caused controversy.
Seeking to avoid the kind of acrimony and distrust deep budget cuts caused in 2022 and 2023, the Shoreline school district assembled three advisory groups comprised of parents, staff and members of the community:
The Budget Advisory Team meets monthly to review detailed presentations on the districts financial situation.
The Strategic Planning Coalition has been working since January to help draft the district’s first strategic plan which was reviewed by the school board at the May 21 meeting and is scheduled to be voted on after hearing public comment at the June 4 meeting.
And in February, the district assembled the School Capacity Review and Closure Consideration task force to make a recommendation on whether or not to shutter one of the district’s ten elementary schools and if so, which one.
At the May 16 meeting, the 21-member school closure task force, removed four elementaries from its list of schools it will recommend be shuttered.
The task force struck Meridian Park (the district’s largest elementary) from the list because, as District Academic Officer Mike VanOrden said, “if you were to close Meridian Park there simply wouldn’t be enough space to put those students in other schools.“
Because it serves both elementary and middle school students, closing Cascade K-8 Community School would have saved less than half the amount of money compared to other schools and so was removed from the list.
The task force chose to spare recently-rebuilt Parkwood and currently-being-renovated Briarcrest because they will have lower building maintenance costs compared to other schools.
Now the task force must pick more schools to save while minimizing the impact a closure could have on historically marginalized communities, making the choice of which schools get spared next more complicated.
State and federal funding for lower income students could be impacted.
More than 40% of Ridgecrest students currently qualify for free meals, which (under current state and federal rules) means the entire school receives lunch and breakfast at no cost.
A new Washington State law (House Bill 1238) lowers the threshold to 30% and next year four additional Shoreline schools will qualify for school-wide free meals: Briarcrest, Echo Lake, Parkwood, and Meridian Park.
Closing a school will relocate kids and change school demographics, potentially lowering the percentage of students who meet the eligibility requirements below the 30% threshold in the all-kids-eat-free schools.
Ultimately, the district’s budget, academic priorities and the final decision on whether to close a school and if so, which one, will be entirely up to the elected School Board and Superintendent Dr. Susana Reyes.
The closure decision and any new school boundaries is expected to be finalized in time for Kindergarten open enrollment in January of 2025.
Information on how to attend a school board meeting and submit public comment is available on the district’s website.
School Board meetings are televised here
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