8:35 PM: When Seattle Public Schools took an enrollment count after classes started for the year, district managers discovered more than 700 fewer students districtwide than they had planned for. So the district has announced that they’re shuffling teachers. After principals got the word from HQ, they shared the news with staff and students’ families. We’ve received a copy of the letter sent to families at one affected local school, Arbor Heights Elementary, thanks to an AHES parent. Principal Christy Collins wrote:

I need to let you know about a new situation that we have been made aware of that affects our school.

While our enrollment at Arbor Heights has grown significantly since last fall, it has not grown as much as the school district projected that it would in June. Because of this fact, we were notified last night that we will have to move forward this year with one less teacher.

To help you understand how these situations come about at this time of year, I think it would be helpful to share a little more about how state and school district funding for teachers works. The winter before a given school year, the district projects how many students our school will have in each grade level and then, tells us how many teachers they expect us to have based on that enrollment projection. The state, however, only gives funding for teachers in the district based on the number of students that show up at our school that fall and that is the amount of funding that the district has for teachers at each school. That timing and process is what causes changes with teachers and classrooms in the fall to happen more often than we all would hope.

Last fall our fall enrollment for grades K-5 was 521 students. This past February when schools are told their projected budgets, our enrollment for this year was projected by the school district to be 543 students for grades K-5. This enrollment projection along with state funding for smaller class sizes for grades K-3 resulted in a projected increase of 2 classroom teachers.

Then in June, the school district increased the K-5 enrollment that they were projecting for Arbor Heights to 588 students. At the time, Seattle Public Schools increased our FTE by 2.5 additional teaching positions. Again, although we have grown significantly since last fall, our current enrollment of 552 students is less than the 588 projection. 552 does not include our 40 preschool students. Before hiring for these additional positions that were given in June, I double and triple-checked with the district to ensure these projections were accurate, but eventually, we moved forward with the hiring of teachers to ensure we found excellent candidates to fill the openings.

I hope this additional information helps you to better understand how these situations come about in schools at this time of year, I know that it does not remove the significant disruption that these changes can cause for our community. We will do everything we can to minimize this disruption and support students, families, and teachers through this process. While we have learned that we must reduce our staffing by one teacher, we are required to work through our school decision-making process to determine the specific changes that will happen here at Arbor Heights to accommodate that reduction. As soon as those specific changes have been determined, we will share the next steps with our families.