With so many unknowns, it’s hard to predict how next year’s budget for the Seattle Public School District is going to affect schools, teachers, and students.

According to district statements, it seems plain and simple: the district is facing a $34 million dollar budget deficit and has to make cuts to close the gap. So far, these have included closing schools and merging--or ending--programs, reducing central office staff, changing start times, reducing transportation, switching to bulk food for student's meals, and laying off 172 teachers.

However, to teacher’s union representatives, parents, and now unemployed teachers analyzing the district’s decisions, it’s not as straightforward as they would make it seem. The district budget and plans for next year have been changing almost every week.

As budget estimates change, and new figures are revealed, the district sends out new statements that stir up a whole new set of issues. The most recent of these announcements was the Reduction In Force list. West Seattle High School was one of the hardest hit schools
in the district, losing a total of its 10 teachers.

This was a step that Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson said was one of the district’s last resorts to close the budget gap. However, the teacher’s union believes that there were other options, such as using more reserve funds and delaying the adoption of the new math curriculum. But the district continues to refute these claims.

Another inconsistent aspect of the layoffs is that many south-end schools received no layoff notices. These schools include Rainier Beach, Cleveland and Chief Sealth. Because the school district has contributed so much money to help, budget controversy continues to confuse
some of these struggling schools, they did not think it wise to remove their teachers regardless of seniority (which was the decider for teachers were let go).

However, the question comes up, is this fair? If there are going to be cuts, should the district only follow the rule of seniority in some schools?

This supposed seniority that they are using to decide who loses their job is not necessarily going to be used in the rehiring process. The district anticipates that there will be some retirements over the summer, which, could result in the rehiring of some of theRIFed teachers.

However, to decide which teachers get their job back, they first call teachers back out of order if their jobs remain open and then call back to the remaining jobs based on seniority. Yet another unclear point of the district’s proposals for next year is the amount of “central” staff cut.

The district says that they are reducing the number of staff at the John Stanford District headquarters, however many of those employees have teaching credentials and may replace teachers who have been let go.

It seems that they’re cutting all around, but really it’s the in-class teacher positions that are being mostly lost. In addition to teachers who have been let go, there will be a change in transportation for next year.

In attempt to streamline bussing costs, the district is changing start times for schools to streamline routes. The district is also working toward “neighborhood schools,” which would take away many transportation needs. This would involve students getting assigned
to the nearest school without the “top three” choice of the past.

There would be a process for students to apply to go to schools outside their neighborhood.

At recent School Board meetings, some parents expressed their favor for neighborhood schools, feeling that they would create more of a sense of community. Others feel that neighborhood schools would be taking a step back in time and lead to a less diverse student body.

One thing that everyone can agree on is that people will just have to wait and see how this budget works in action next year. With information changing every day, it’s not going to be something anyone can predict in the near future.

About the only thing being predicted as of now is larger class sizes for this little district, hit hard by the economy.

Mattie Bess is a West Seattle High School journalism student and this article appears originally in the school newspaper, The Chinook.