u/cascadia1979

Trying to do more of a newsletter update with this one, covering three topics:

1. Shuldiner spoke more directly about school closures on KUOW this week. And it kind of sounded to me like he contradicted himself at times, saying we're in a "budget crisis" and we can't take ideas off the table, but then that closures are "not really about budget." I heard echoes of Brent Jones and Fred Podesta in 2023-24 right there, honestly. But Shuldiner doesn't have concrete plans and says he doesn't want to do closures "by fiat." We'll see what happens...

2. At Wednesday's board meeting Shuldiner took a moment to encourage people to push the state legislature to raise levy caps. He's right, but it's also going to be controversial, for reasons I get into in the article.

3. SEA sent a letter to Shuldiner expressing "deep concern" about Anitra Jones being appointed principal at Adams and that SPS hadn't properly investigated her at Rainier View. blukoff posted about that letter here earlier this week.

Apologies it took a week to get this one written up and published, but it's a big and important article. I thought what Shuldiner presented last week was a genuinely major update on SPS budgeting, signaling *potentially* major changes to what the district funds and how it operates.

I emphasized the word "potentially" there because it's not yet entirely clear what specifically is going to change in the coming years. There's $30M in savings projected in 2027-28 and who knows exactly where that comes from (changes to the SEA contract? closing schools? something else?).

But if Shuldiner is serious about a genuine "per-pupil" funding model, sometimes known as "student-based budgeting" then the impact could be far-reaching.

It's also possible that it could cause a strong pushback. SEA is already clearly unhappy with the current staffing changes and is speaking out in large numbers at tonight's meeting.

Whatever happens in the future (months of conflict? kumbaya and happy days?), I think 1) this is a significant moment and 2) it was really good to see a no-BS budget presentation from SPS leadership for a change.