Closing the right schools

A citizens panel's recommendations for closing a dozen Seattle Public School buildings is a thoughtful proposal that should largely be adopted by the School Board.

The closure plan, which also merges some schools and transfers programs from others, is based on sound analysis. The 14-member committee acquitted itself well, touring every public elementary school in the city and scrutinizing everything from test scores to facilities and maintenance reports. A difference in this list and the ill-fated one put forth last year by Superintendent Raj Manhas lies in the committee's attention to the nuances of the school-closure issue.

Montlake Elementary School is an example. Manhas recommended shuttering the school and dispersing its students, an idea parents resoundingly and reasonably rejected. The current proposal would move Montlake to nearby Seward, keeping students together and a successful academic program intact.

The list is not a done deal. Some changes should be expected as Manhas and the School Board put their stamp on the plan. But tinkering ought not become a license to get cold feet or to cave before the loudest voice.

Logistical challenges, as staff and programs are transferred and students adjust to new educational settings, are buffered by an inclusive, can-do spirit emanating lately from school meetings. Undeniably, momentum is in the air.

Progress is happening on all fronts. Board members approved a plan to plow half of the $4.8 million annual savings from closures back into the remaining schools. Consider that a sweetener to ease the bitter medicine of losing schools.

The citizens panel appropriately stepped beyond closures to highlight equity issues, namely the scarcity of alternative schools south of the Ship Canal. The schools are popular, innovative and clustered largely in the northwestern section of the city. A district in the early stages of reinventing itself would do well to examine this inequity.

Building upon the committee's work, by the end of July a painful-but-necessary process should be over. Then the work of creating quality citywide begins.