A Message from Superintendent Nyland....

Dear Garfield High School community,

Thank you for sharing your concerns about Garfield staffing.

After a review of the official state-mandated October 1 enrollment count, the district maintains its recommendation to shift the funding for one teacher from Garfield's budget allocation to a school that is overenrolled.

Please know that this adjustment is not expected to affect a teacher of a core required subject and will not occur immediately; the affected teacher is expected to stay in place at least through the end of the first semester in order to minimize any disruptions to students' schedules.

Each year, the district is required to complete an official enrollment headcount on October 1 and report those numbers to the state. Our school funding and staffing is based on the number of students enrolled in each school.

The district initiated a review after Garfield reported that 49 additional students appeared to have not been counted toward the official October enrollment. The review of each of those individual students indicated that 29 of them attend the Running Start program, which allows 11th and 12th graders to take higher education classes. That means they do not take any classes at Garfield and cannot be included in the headcount for staffing. The review also indicated that the remaining 20 students should not be included for a variety of reasons (e.g., they were athletics only, transferred to other schools and other factors).

The final enrollment count for Garfield stands at 1,586, which is 67 students fewer than the August estimate of 1,653. Staffing is based on a 30:1 teacher-student ratio. Garfield enrollment numbers, then, suggest reducing staff by two teachers, but the district is recommending reducing by only one to lessen impact to students. The data shows that Garfield High School is essentially receiving the same amount of money per student as our other high schools receive. The only difference is that Garfield does receive fewer dollars overall because the school has fewer students with special needs and fewer English Language Learners.

The reduction would take Garfield from 60 to 59 teachers. This is roughly the same number of teachers as last year. For the 2013-14 school year, Garfield was staffed at 59.3 teachers and had 18 more students (1,604) than this year's October count.

We appreciate your concerns. Please know the district is committed to ensuring proper and equitable staffing at each school while considering program and student needs.

Sincerely,

Larry Nyland

Interim Superintendent

Seattle Public Schools