The district faces funding issues for the upcoming school year.

By Finian Guinney

On February 28th, Seattle Public Schools announced that it is currently facing a budget deficit of $131 million, which will lead to reduced funding for schools around the district. According to Seattle Public Schools, this deficit comes as a result of decreased student enrollment, closure of programs put in place during the pandemic, and a general lack of funding from the State.

Seattle Public Schools Superin tendent Dr. Brent Jones released a state ment explaining the reasons and implica tions of these changes. He also assured that the district is working on a plan to address the budget defi cit. “This spring we are working to develop comprehensive, multi-year, bal budget that incorporates solutions,” Jones said. Historically, Seattle Public Schools is notorious for being underfunded. The SPS budget has lacked sufficient funding for school leadership, nurses, social and special education workers, security, building maintenance, and student technology. The majority of these areas rely on local levies for funds.

Garfield teacher Jared Sessink is the co-chair of the building Leadership Team, and plays a role in managing Garfield’s funds. He explained the impacts the budget deficit could have on Garfield. “In terms of an overall discretionary funding to support Garfield, through various ways we spent that money in years past, we’re looking at an over two-hundred thousand dollar difference for this next school year,” Sessink said. In other words, Garfield will be receiving over two-hundred thousand dollars less than last school year. One way this budget reduction will affect the school is that the school will no longer receive money for Running Start. Garfield used to get money from the district in order to support students who were in Running Start, but also took classes at Garfield. “In general, we’re on a tight, tight budget. We have to be really, really careful that we’re not spending more than we have allocat ed,” Sessink added.

One other result of budget cuts is the certainty of staff layoffs. Seat tle Public Schools stated that they notified some staff that they may be laid off. Sessink believes that Garfield will lose two teachers. “To be honest I thought it was going to be worse. I thought we were going to lose four or five teachers,” he admitted. In terms of who is most likely to lose their position, it’s pretty unclear at the moment. The decision will be made by Dr. Hart and the Instructional Council, and will be based on what credits are needed by