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

A file photo of an empty classroom at a high school. Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images

Seattle’s public school district will likely lay off employees because of financial problems caused by plummeting student enrollments, officials announced this week.

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

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

The school district said in a recent update that its “structural deficit” has grown to $131 million for the fiscal year and noted that “enrollment has decreased” over the past decade or so while “staff has increased.” What’s more, it notes that “enrollment is anticipated to continue to trend down.”

Jones made note of the drop in enrollment, saying that data shows the student population is down 6.5 percent from 2019 to 2022. Enrollment numbers determine how much the city’s schools get from the state.

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

School board members also reiterated Tuesday that they are planning on carrying out “targeted reductions in schools” and to “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,” said Liza Rankin, Seattle School Board vice president, during the board meeting. “What I do hear is what’s most important is my child has access to this service, this instruction.”

Rankin noted 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 report, which stated that the school system is already notifying employees of layoffs.

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

Neither Jones nor other school officials attempted to elaborate on reasons why enrollment is down in recent years. However, data provided by Arizona State University’s Center for Reinventing Public Education show (pdf) that the number of homeschooled students in Washington state has sharply increased since 2019.

Since the start of the pandemic in 2020, “declines are not uniform across all types of schools,” the report 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,” the researchers said. “That resulted in a net gain of 11,212 homeschool students (27 percent average annual growth) over the two years.”

Across the United States, the average math scores saw the largest declines ever across every state between 2019 and 2022. Scores dropped five points for fourth-graders and eight points for eighth-graders, respectively, between those years, according to a National Assessment of Educational Progress report released late last year.

Reading scores also dipped to levels not seen in about 30 years, decreasing 3 points for both fourth- and eighth-graders, it also found.

As the report was released, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said the test results were “appalling and unacceptable,” while calling on teachers and officials to help students catch up following 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 told reporters. “We must treat the task of catching our children up with the urgency that this moment demands.”