Story and photos by Torin Record-Sand
Reporting for West Seattle Blog
More than a week after the originally planned end of Seattle Public Schools superintendent Ben Shuldiner‘s “community engagement” tour, he met with members of the South Park community Wednesday night.
The closest his tour had come to South Park previously was his West Seattle Elementary stop in early April (WSB coverage here). Local advocates led by the Duwamish River Community Coalition worked to bring him to South Park to listen to the community’s concerns; it’s home to only one SPS school, Concord International Elementary.
The latter fact was on many minds during Wednesday night’s meeting held at the recently reopened South Park Community Center. Lacking either a middle or high school, many families are left to commute to schools such as Denny International Middle School and Chief Sealth International High School in West Seattle.
Some also seek out elementary options there, and that was one of the most crucial points of the night in community comments. Many educators and parents from South Park came to voice their despair at what they saw at Concord International as signs of a potentially terminal decline, driving community members away from the school.
“Concord is an ICU right now.” said Angie, a resource teacher at Concord. “I’ve seen four or five principals work there, and this is the worst I’ve ever seen it, and the worst I’ve seen it for teachers’ morale. […] Concord is in critical condition, and something needs to be done ”
The overall consensus of many community members who commented was that Concord represented the worst of the district: a school which suffered from a long history of racial and economic discrimination that had created an almost unbearable environment for students.
“Last year, when I went to my son’s class it was like a zoo – the teacher wasn’t teaching, the kids weren’t learning. You would never hear about their grades, or anything like that – unless you were a parent that showed up and showed out for your children.” shared one local mother.
Others highlighted the lack of special education, educational accommodation, and other medical attention. (According to other community members at the meeting, the school currently lacks a full-time nurse or counselor.) One former student, Will, shared their experience: “I went to Concord and I see at least 10 people in this room who I know who also did, and we were denied resources and proper teaching. I was denied an IAP, or a 504 [note: both are forms of student learning accommodation], which at the time I really needed. It was very impactful to my education, and very impactful to other people as well. […] It is incredible how poor the conditions are. I went into 6th grade not knowing 5th grade math from Concord.”
One mother shared how just this lack of student accommodations had forced her to move her sons away from Concord and towards schools in West Seattle instead. “I sent my [older son] to Lafayette instead, and he’s tremendously improved. […] But my youngest son, I wasn’t being told the truth about him. […] Academically he was OK, emotionally he wasn’t, crying when he raised his hand because he wasn’t getting the attention he needed for class. […] [The school district] can do better on getting the kids the support they need, they can’t handle it alone, they need a lot of help, I am moving my kid out of there next year – I want to see him succeed and not fall behind.”
Other comments pointed toward longstanding concern with the Spanish-English dual-language program at Concord, with many fearing that it was heading toward a period of low enrollment and under-funding, despite being a crucial service for bilingual families in South Park, and a pathway available to others. “My kids went to Concord and Denny, it’s been 12 years since, and [the program] has always been left on the chopping board due to lack of attendance and lack of marketing. When people sign up their kids at Concord, no one knows the program is there.” said one parent. “Our families really believe in the dual language program. We should be one of the star programs for the district, and unfortunately, we have very little engagement in this despite tons of advocacy.” said another community parent.
Despite the complaints surrounding the quality of education at Concord, many stressed to Shuldiner that the answer to the challenges at Concord is improvement, not closure. “If you close our school, it will destroy this community for our kids. Pushing us out will destroy what we have built for generations. It is critical we keep the school space we have; it is immensely and deeply connected to this place.” said one parent. Concord was not on either of the possible-closure lists floated in 2024, but its enrollment has been declining, currently 230, down from 276 two years ago and 325 in fall 2019, pre-pandemic.
As these meetings have mostly been sounding boards for the district to figure out where to direct their attention, little was offered as an immediate remedy for the grievances aired. Still, superintendent Shuldiner closed the meeting with words that sounded cautiously optimistic: “I want to tell you just how wonderful it was to hear your voice: the good and the bad, the things that are going well and the things that need changing, hopefully we can do this together.” he said. “This is a strong, but sometimes an isolated community. That’s not OK. The district needs to be listening and needs to be understanding, from buses to Concord to more programming – whatever it takes.”
Although Shuldiner’s first community-enagement tour is concluded now, there are still plans for future meetings where parents from across the district can gather and voice their concerns. Though nothing has been officially announced yet, one SPS administrator at Wednesday night’s meeting told us that one of these larger meetings might be scheduled for a school site in West Seattle soon. The last day of classes for SPS is less than three weeks away, June 17.