Thousands of parents in the Bellevue School District are banding together to demand answers about the data being used by the district, leading it to say that three schools need to be closed.
A few dozen parents and their students stood outside district headquarters Monday evening holding signs with their messages to the district to save their schools from closure, to slow down the process, and to look at alternative solutions to closing three schools.
"They’re saying start moving process in May, and we were told no plans have been made, so we’re kind of feeling like the district is speaking out both sides of their mouth," said Kelly Smith, who has three students in the district schools right now, her fourth child, a graduate of Newport High School.
“They kind of set it up like a hunger games,” mother Erika Navara told KOMO News Monday, in advance of the 4:00 p.m. rally outside district headquarters.
Navara's daughters are in first and fifth grade at Phantom Lake Elementary School, one of seven schools on the Bellevue School District's possible closure list.
“We felt like we’re being put against elementary schools to plead our case why we should be spared, and then we all came together and said wait a minute this makes no sense why we're even playing this game,” said Navara.
Stuart Reynolds' son is also a first grader at Phantom Lake Elementary school, and he’s another parent who says he doesn’t understand why their school made the shortlist.
“We have two-thirds minority enrollment. We have 30% low-income enrollment. It serves people extremely well from the top 15 to 20% in the state, and now the district wants to close it, so we look around and say what the heck is going on?” Reynolds told KOMO.
Reynolds said he questions the data the district is using after seeing what happened at the first-grade level at Phantom Lake last fall.
“First grade grew 40%, and it was a big surprise to the district, which again was not able to forecast what was going to happen at the start of the year," explained Reynolds, who holds a Ph.D. in Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, and Computer Science and is a former healthcare data modeler. "They had to add an extra elementary school teacher. They’ve had temporary teachers it’s been a little bit of chaos since the start of the year because of the forecasting problems that we’ve had.”
“That poor class of kids has had as many as five teachers," said Navara. "I don’t even think they have a permanent one now. If the district can’t even forecast a single classroom, how can we trust them to forecast an entire school population, let alone three?”
Parents from seven Bellevue elementary schools, Phantom Lake, Ardmore, Enatai, Eastgate, Sherwood Forest, Wilburton, and Woodridge, all now banding together to demand answers to their questions about the methods used and to let the district know they are against closing these community schools.
Reynolds told KOMO News that they don't want an adversarial relationship with the district, but right now, he said, the district's data on enrollment just doesn't add up.
“What we're saying is that for every 100 students that the district has lost, the local private schools have gained 85," said Reynolds. "That's not included in the enrollment problem that’s a really big problem that’s going to affect whether they can forecast what enrollments going to look like in the future.”
The school district said that the data is on their website and that they just added an update on Feb. 3. But Navara and Reynolds say they’re asking for specifics, to know what data is being used to make decisions.
“I feel like they’re glossing over the conclusions of the data," Navara added. “On the FAQ site, it says oh well school districts in general just go through these 20 to 25-year cycles, increasing and declining enrollment as it it's just like a fact, and they don’t have any further explanation.”
That updated timeline reiterates that the district will make a recommendation to the school on Thursday, Feb. 9.
Most parents who spoke with KOMO News in the last three weeks say they plan to keep asking questions and demanding answers.
“I feel like we have so many people and so much community support for our Save Our Schools petition," said Navara. "There’s a joint one that represents all seven schools saying 'hey, let’s step back and think about this and work as a community to figure out solutions.'”
Community working groups and focus groups will be formed at impacted schools, on Feb. 13. Then the school board will hold hearings from Feb. 27 – March 3 for the impacted schools.