Seattle school closures: Don’t eliminate successful programs

Re: “Which Seattle schools could close? District unveils 2 proposals” [Sept. 12, A1]:

Seattle Public Schools’ proposed closing of option schools and shifting to cookie-cutter assembly-line education is a retreat to standardization of a bygone era that has been shown to leave students behind. Option schools — offered to students throughout the district — were created to meet varied learning styles and needs.

The proposals ignore these programs’ unique benefits, including that Thornton Creek is a national model for expeditionary learning, fostering abstract thinking and in-depth learning. The option program increases racial diversity at the school, which will be less diverse as a neighborhood school. They dismiss that Louisa Boren STEM K-8 features a science emphasis, is minority white and serves immigrant populations. It closes the district’s only deaf and hard-of-hearing program at TOPS, even though the district asserted at a spring meeting the program “would absolutely not close.”

The district’s tactics were deceptive — reducing the number of students it allowed to attend option schools this year, and then claiming the schools are under-enrolled.

Rather than looking for reasonable solutions, SPS eliminates successful programs that do not deplete resources. We expect a school district to be guardians of public education, but in these proposals, the district acts as its dismantlers.

Nancy Dickeman, Seattle