SPS Practices Result in Inadequate Staffing

by | May 13, 2025 | advocacy, featured, news

Local PTA leader and SPS parent Kaitlin Murdock has been crunching the district’s own numbers, and what she found is alarming. In the letter below, which she recently sent to the Seattle School Board, Kaitlin lays out how years of flawed (and at times manipulated) enrollment projections are starving classrooms of teachers, destabilizing Option Schools, and depriving students with disabilities of the support they need to succeed. She calls on directors to step in before the May 14 board meeting to correct the staffing and budget decisions that flow from these faulty projections.

Why does this matter to the Special Education community? When enrollment math is wrong, special‑education and inclusive programs are often the first to lose staff, services, and stability. Kaitlin’s data‑driven plea is a blueprint for how the board can honor its policies, restore trust with families, and make sure every student, especially those who rely on specialized support, starts the 2025‑26 school year with the resources they deserve.

Read her full letter and Call to Action below, share your thoughts with the board, and join us in demanding transparency and accountability for all SPS students.

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Dear School Board Directors,

Years of harmful practices by the SPS Budget Department and SPS Enrollment Department, in contradiction to published Seattle School Board Policies, and behind closed doors, have led to inadequate staffing levels at schools across SPS. The Enrollment Planning Update in the 4/23/25  Board meeting presented a false and dangerous narrative as proven by analysis of publicly available data1. Enrollment in SPS increased by 14 students from last year (‘23-’24) to this year (‘24-’25), despite a projected decline of 751 students. This is an overall under-projection of 1.55%, and a budgetary discrepancy of approximately $22.4M (assuming a per pupil expenditure of $29,292). Staffing discrepancies in both neighborhood and Option Schools:

  1. Create unnecessary unreliability in the basic functioning of SPS.
  2. Disrupt student learning by interrupting the most basic learning unit: the student-teacher relationship.
  3. Are a significant factor in families’ distrust of the District and
  4. Drive students that would otherwise enroll to other districts or to private schools. In 2024 alone, 20% of students who did not get into their choice school did not enroll in the District, and 24% of those who did not get into Option Schools did not enroll in the District. This led to a loss of 449 students (4/23/25 Enrollment Planning Update), or an estimated $11.8M in lost revenue. 

Published individual school “projections” for the ‘25-’26 school year indicate that these practices continue a pattern of inaccurate enrollment “projections” for neighborhood schools, a continuation of targeted covert actions to drain Option Schools of resources, and a blatant disregard for the public guidance of the SPS Board. For a description of these practices, and their real-world effects, please see the attached analysis.

Board Policy 6010 “School Funding Model”2 requires that “budgetary formulas and staffing standards determining school budgets within Seattle Public Schools be reviewed annually in the budget development process” by the Board. Yet devastating enrollment “projections” for Option Schools in the ‘25-’26 Schools’ Funding Allocations have been released, and principals have been required to submit building staffing plans already. Displacement letters have gone out to an estimated 35+ teachers. This has a disproportionate impact on inexperienced teachers and APs, leading many to seek employment in other districts. The District is enacting a budget that has not been seen nor voted on by the Board. With School-Based Allocations representing 52% of annual expenditures, this is in-practice overriding the budgetary authority of the Board, and potentially violating Washington State Law. 

We are asking for immediate corrective action, for introduction and action at the May 14th Regular School Board meeting to bring SPS in compliance with Board Policy 6010, theStudent Assignment Plan (approved by the Board 2/9/22), and in alignment with Guardrail 4: Engagement. Namely:

  1. Staff neighborhood schools for the ‘25-’26 school year at a minimum guaranteed staffing floor based on current enrollment (the most recent P223 enrollment data available) and in accordance with the Weighted Staffing Standards as currently publicly published. This will allow neighborhood schools stability, should enrollment exceed projections as it did in the ‘24-’25 school year.
  2. Staff Option Schools at the levels of the CURRENT ‘24-’25 Adopted Budget. This will:
  • Provide enough seats at Option Schools to attract or retain the 24% of students that otherwise leave SPS when they do not get a seat. (4/23/25 Enrollment Planning Update)
  • Allow for Option Schools to “provide continuity of programs by attempting to retain core staff levels from year-to-year” (Board Policy 6010 #8:), and begin to reverse a years-long policy of starving Option Schools by enrolling below published staffing capacity (despite waitlists).
  • Avoid “School staffing reductions [that] further destabilize schools and would have a negative impact on student learning outcomes” and “Potential negative impact on SPS future enrollment” through staff reductions at highly sought-after Option Schools. (Preliminary Budget Proposal, 1/22/25)
  • Provide “a transparent school funding model that schools, families, and community members can understand” (Board Policy 6010 #2).
  • Allow SPS to continue on our “Roadmap to Sustainability,” which includes Enrollment, Capacity, and Student Assignment Review to take place in ‘25-’26 (Preliminary Budget Proposal, 1/22/25).
  • Uphold the spirit of 10/1/25 email from Superintendent Jones regarding Option Schools: “It is also clear our families value many of the offerings we have in our district. Under the revised plan, K-8 and option schools – including those with specialized service models like Deaf and Hard of Hearing and Dual Language Immersion – are not under consideration for [consolidation in] the upcoming school year.” 
  • Send a clear message to the future Superintendent and district staff that the Board retains oversight and accountability over budgetary decisions that impact progress towards SPS’ Goals and within the parameters established by Guardrail 4:: “The Superintendent will not make major decisions… without first implementing an engagement strategy that includes students, parents, teachers, and community members.”
  1. Move choice waitlists with transparency and accountability to the full staffing capacity of any school as soon as vacancies arise, and in accordance with, and only with, the policies published in the most recent Student Assignment Plan (approved by the Board on 2/9/22), namely the tie-breakers of 1. Sibling 2. Geozone and 3. Lottery. 
  2. Review and revise staffing needs in June-August: moving teachers as necessary when 1 FTE equivalent is needed (not 2),using the most up-to-date enrollment and in accordance with recommendations 1-3 above. 
  3. Engage in good faith negotiations with SEA and other relevant labor representatives to eliminate October staffing shuffles that disrupt new teachers and disrupt student learning. 
  4. Immediately convene a Community Task Force on Enrollment, Capacity, and Student Assignment in anticipation of providing analysis and recommendations to the full Board in ‘25-’26 as a part of the “Roadmap to Sustainability” 

Now is a critical time to act: families are currently making decisions about enrollment in SPS for the Fall, and displaced teachers are looking for other assignments or other districts. Immediate action to increase enrollment in SPS, is in the District’s best interest to retain and attract students. 

Thank You for Your Consideration,

Kaitlin Murdock

SPS Alumna

Concerned Parent of 2 SPS Students

Voting Constituent

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1 The Enrollment Planning Update as  presented in the 4/23/25  Board meeting presented a false and dangerous narrative:

  1. Evidence counters the reason given to not move waitlists: 
    • A call to district staff on 9/17/24 indicates that the decision to not move waitlists at Option Schools was made in February 2024, while families were still filling out Choice Applications. These families then waited for 6 months in anticipation of a dream that would never be realized.
    • The data shows that Option Schools were categorically targeted. There is no way to see the disproportional enrollment declines (-547 projected students vs. +1,426), divestment of staffing (-34.5FTE vs. +144.5), and budgeted funds (-$5.6M vs. +$23M)  planned for next year as anything other than a targeted attack on Option Schools.
  2. Moving waitlists does NOT remove resources from neighborhood schools (all or most of the time):
    • The mechanisms of enrollment projections and applied Weighting Staffing Standards mean that schools are not staffed evenly: one child’s attendance in one particular grade is not likely to reduce staffing in any one particular school. Because projections are made before waitlists are established, this is known to the Enrollment Office. It does devastate Option School communities, however: this is illustrated by the story of the Pathfinder kindergarten.
    • 24% of students left on Option School waitlists (and 20% on waitlists overall) leave the District. The approximate 5.5M that left the District last year did not flow into neighborhood schools.
    1. Enrollment projections and school budgets released by the Enrollment Planning Department are grossly inaccurate and unreliable:
      • For the ‘24-’25 school year were off by -1.55%, a budgetary discrepancy of approximately -$22.4M. If we assume the same error rate, we can assume 758 students will appear in the fall to overcrowd under-staffed schools.
      • Unbalance staffing districtwide for 1 full year: Staffing is based on projections made in February off of October counts (the previous Fall). If these projections are off, they must be off by 2 classes for the possibility of amelioration in October. If not, they must wait until the following September to shift staffing.
      • Unbalance staffing for 2 years if students arrive after October: if students arrive after October, they are not included in February projections. They are not counted again until the following October, to be included in the next February’s projections and budget. If a student arrived after October this year (‘24-’25) they will not be included in staffing until ‘26-27 school year.
      • Are incentivized to be manipulated for budgetary reasons: the PROJECTION (not necessarily the enrollment) of 1 child in one grade can lead to a school losing a full time teacher. This creates a strong incentive for The Enrollment Planning Department to manipulate enrollment projections. In Option Schools we see evidence that not moving waitlists is the mechanism by which the Enrollment Department has manipulated enrollment projections. It is unclear if this is also happening at other schools. 

    6010SP can be found here: https://www.seattleschools.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/6010SP.pdf