Shawna Murphy is a proud SPS grad (Ingraham ‘86) with great hope for the system’s present and future. But she’s also aware that there’s always room for improvement. She has two daughters, one of whom graduated from SPS in 2022; the other is starting high school this month.
Murphy, who lives in South Park, distinctly recalls a time in her childhood when funding was dire due to the failure of a Seattle school levy.
“A lot of how I feel about [SPS] is based on my experience growing up in Seattle schools,” Murphy said. “I always like to tell people I was in school the year the levy didn’t pass.”
Murphy was in first or second grade at Olympic Hills Elementary that year. And lack of funding meant “we just stayed in our rooms with our teachers all day,” said Murphy.
In those lean times, said Murphy, “You didn’t have a library. There was no librarian. We didn’t have PE. There were zero electives, and they had to shorten the school day to be able to afford the staffing, so we were getting out at 1:10 every day.”
In the 1970s and 1980s, it was fairly routine for students to switch schools due to changing school zones and busing to address racial desegregation throughout the district. Murphy attended a variety of schools:
“I never went to a school for more than two years growing up until I was in high school,” she says with a laugh, unfazed by the experience. She notes that she stayed with many of the same kids as she moved schools.
Murphy feels very strongly about staying with and supporting Seattle Public Schools.
“As a community, we have to make a commitment to [staying with] public education, and that’s what’s missing right now,” says Murphy. “That’s frustrating for me.”
Murphy points out that many families in the city are now financially comfortable enough to send their kids to private schools while other families can’t remain in the city because the cost of living is so high.
“We have friends who have rented in Seattle over the years, and every year, they have to move again because the house they’re renting is going to get sold,” Murphy said.”We’ve had that happen with teachers at the schools that our kids have gone to, too.”
She worries that so many closures will result in long-term ill will between families and SPS:
“There’s always going to be an ebb and flow: buildings opening, buildings closing, [But] I think it’s a poor choice to try to close 20 schools in one year,” she said. “That’s something that I would say should be done over a five-year process.”
Read more:
The future of SPS: Big changes are coming
Big changes coming to SPS: Effects of Inequity
Changing schools: Lessons from military moves
How to help public schools: Call, write, vote
