Spring Fundraising Appeal - please contribute!

May 23, 2024

Spring Fundraising for Fall Success!

Dear TC Community,

Here we are sprinting to the end of May! Last week's W.O.W. Art Event and TCPG Fundraiser were extraordinary! Thank you to all of the parent volunteers and staff who helped to support our amazing students in sharing their art. The sense of community that night reminded us all of the many ways in which our school supports our students to thrive. There is lots to share in this newsletter, so thanks in advance for reading through this edition!

Spring Shared Fundraiser

Our spring fundraiser is off to a great start! Our goal is to raise at least $30,000 for TCPG and as much as possible for Southeast Seattle School Fundraising Alliance (SESSFA). Thank you for your lively engagement with our raffle baskets at W.O.W.! Thanks to your generosity last week, we raised $11,000 for TCPG! We urge you to continue to give what you can to support both TCPG and SESSFA's spring fundraising efforts through the end of June. Details are below.

TCPG Budget and BLT Request Update

Thank you to those of you who were able to attend TCPG's budget meeting on Monday. If you couldn't attend, here are slides that outline TCPG's budgeting process and the Building Leadership Team's initial request for how we will use the money we have fundraised this year to support the school next year (2024-25). The TCPG Finance Committee will be reaching out in the coming weeks to ask for additional feedback and will present a final budget for advisory vote at the TCPG annual meeting on June 11. In the meantime, please reach out to TCPG Treasurer Roddy Theobald at treasurer@thorntoncreekparentgroup.org with any questions.

Part of what we learned on Monday is that the BLT's request aims to bolster much needed staffing, supplies, and expeditionary learning-specific costs. The current budget has us in a very bare bones situation. BLT has requested $85,000 from TCPG, but we know we can provide deeper support by raising more funds. Please consider giving to help ease the tight budget situation our school (and all SPS schools) are in while the district deals with a $100M deficit. The link to donate is below, or you can mail or drop off a check to school made out to TCPG. Every amount moves us closer to our goal. Thank you for your ongoing support!

SPS Proposed Plan for Well-Resourced Schools

Seattle Public Schools (SPS) is proposing to create a system of well-resourced schools in the face of a budget deficit, insufficient state funding, and declines in elementary school enrollment. As we learned on May 8, this plan calls for 20 elementary school closures and consolidations for the 2025-26 school year. There could also be other sweeping changes including changing bell schedules and impacts to option schools like ours. SPS is in the planning phase of the consolidation process, and we do not yet know details on which schools and programs will be cut. SPS will hold a series of community meetings in the next few weeks that will inform the Superintendent’s preliminary plan for school closures to be delivered in June. Community meeting details here.

Here are ways to advocate to keep our schools open and stay engaged in the consolidation process:

Attend SPS' upcoming community meetings:

Plan to attend the Tuesday, May 28 community meeting from 6 - 7:30 p.m. at Roosevelt High School (1419 NE 66th St) so we can demonstrate the strength of our Seattle community. It is very important that we show up to share our voices in this crucial conversation.

Attend the Zoom meeting on Tuesday, June 4, 6 - 7:30 p.m. if you cannot attend the in-person meetings.

Attend the June 10 School Board Meeting to listen to the Superintendent’s preliminary school consolidation/closure plan and consider providing public testimony. Monday, June 10, 4:15 p.m.

Send an email to the school board and district leaders: schoolboard@seattleschools.org

Now is the time for us to come together and make sure SPS listens to students and families across the city to hear what they believe is important to consider to address the budget crisis.

Fundraising Updates

Please Donate to SESSFA

Southeast Seattle Schools Fundraising Alliance represents 17 public school PTAs and PTOs in Southeast Seattle. Funds raised are distributed equally across all participating schools. Learn more about the important work they do for Seattle Schools here and please consider making a donation!

TCPG Fundraising Update:

Our TCPG Spring Fundraising Appeal is still going through the end of June! To date, we have raised $117,000 toward our goal of $175,000.

What we still hope to raise funds to support:

Additional interventionist and/or library staffing
More playground staff support
Professional development for staff

Make a Difference:

Please don’t wait! We also have wonderful TC Expeditionary Learning tote bags (gift for $50 or more donation)! Please give what you can. We welcome single donations as well as recurring monthly payments to allow flexibility for your family’s budget. We can all make a difference and help provide stability for our school in the context of an underfunded school district.

Donate to TCPG

Donate to SESSFA

Yearbook - Last Call!

Purchase your yearbook here (and donate one if you can!). Deadline is May 24. All students will receive a book and we appreciate it if you can add a donated book to your cart. Thank you!

Calling Board Volunteers and TCPG Annual Meeting

The TCPG Board has a few openings for next year. If you are interested in learning more, please reach out: chair@thorntoncreekparentgroup.org

Please plan to attend the TCPG Annual Meeting on June 11, 6:30-8:30 pm, in person. Childcare available. Please reach out if you need support/accommodation to vicechair@thorntoncreekparentgroup.org.

This will be our first in person Annual Meeting since before COVID! Please bring a dessert to share and we will have a sweet (!) meeting while we build community and conduct our business - TCPG board elections and taking an advisory vote on the TCPG budget. More details soon.

From Your TCPG Chair

SPS School Closure Proposal

As mentioned above, we need the entire Seattle community to come forward to support our schools during this difficult SPS budget situation. Everyone's voice is crucial to support a democratic system of schools.

All Together for Seattle Schools, a citywide advocacy group of parents and community members, (disclosure: I am a volunteer), is leading an effort to advocate against the proposed plan to close schools without additional data and analysis to support doing so. Closing 20 schools would almost certainly impact many more schools because students and staff would be reassigned to other schools - this could have a huge impact to almost all elementary schools. All Together thinks that an announcement will likely include a plan to eliminate option/alternative learning program schools like Thornton Creek and our direct neighbor, Decatur (a HCC school).

Speaking Up Against School Closure and Consolidation Plan

Linked here is an open letter by All Together for Seattle Schools to consider signing regarding school closures/consolidation as proposed by the district. All Together is gathering signatures to support their recommendations to the district and Board. If you're inclined to sign, you can do so through this form.

In this letter, they urge SPS/School Board to:

Work with the community to create and share alternative proposals
Focus proposals on addressing student needs and outcomes
Show detailed analysis to the public

All signatures collected will be shared with Superintendent Jones and the SPS Board of Directors as endorsing the position of the letter. You can be anonymous.

Advocacy for Option Schools and Alternative Programs

I am also in touch with other option schools and alternative programs across the city. We are collaborating on actions to help advocate for option and alternative program enrollment for next year. Many option school waitlists appear to be stalled and schools are not being filled to capacity by the waiting families. Specifically at TC, we have only 64 of 78 Kindergarten spots filled with a waitlist of 47. If you know families who are on waitlists waiting to enroll at TC or other schools, please encourage them to contact the district's enrollment office.

The goal of this citywide partnership is to work alongside other school communities to get the message to the SPS School Board and district administration about how option schools are valued and necessary to provide Seattle families with a diversity of learning environments. Given the long waitlists for many of our district's option schools, we can see that many families aren't actually fleeing public school, but rather they are actively choosing schools like TC that have long been supported by the community and serve a range of student learning needs. And if the district doesn't offer spots to everyone on the waitlist up to capacity, we may lose families to SPS as well as staff.

SPS will likely announce school closures for the 2025-26 school year at or before their June 10 school board meeting. Again, there is indication that option schools will be on the chopping block. This does not mean that we are too late to advocate for option schools! Since the 2025-26 budget will not be voted on by the School Board until June of 2025, we still have time. We want to advocate collectively for options schools and other alternative programs including elementary, K-8, Highly Capable Cohort, focused special education program schools, Center School, Nova, Cleveland STEM, Middle College, etc. We can be more effective if we work together across the city.

If you’re interested in getting involved in these advocacy efforts, please reach out: chair@thorntoncreekparentgroup.org

Warmly,

Erin MacDougall

TCPG Chair 2023-2024 school year