Seattle Public School superintendent Raj Manhas' decision to scrap his high-profile school closure and consolidation plan is only the latest bombshell dropped on this city.
Since Manhas presented his plan for shoring up the $20 million 2006-2007 SPS budget deficit to the school board on April 20, a grassroots movement against the preliminary proposal flowered in the city. Folks were urged to "save successful schools," and the political heat took the issue from a simmer to a boil in a matter of days.
Manhas is not an ignorant man, and I'm sure he expected tempers to flair, which is why he and his staff scheduled 14 public hearings throughout the city's neighborhoods between May 23 and May 31 to gather input on the proposal.
However, Manhas dumped both the plan and then, one business day before they were scheduled to start, the public hearings.
In a May 17 statement, two days before his office sent official word that the hearings would not happen, Manhas said: "I am proud of the public response that we have received. Through community meetings, e-mails, phone calls and letters we have heard Seattle's voice, including the voices of our communities of color and our bilingual communities."
No doubt many parents and school supporters that organized quickly against the Manhas' proposal are celebrating his decisions. But a large number of people who were planning on sharing their thoughts about the proposal at the 14 neighborhood hearings were excluded from the process, and certainly not all of them were completely against the proposal.
Instead of having the patience and courage during the hearings to gather alternative ideas from the diverse voices of Seattle's neighborhoods, Manhas has, according to his May 17 statement, defaulted to forming a "committee of community leaders" to work out the daunting SPS budget kinks.
It's unfortunate Manhas did not follow through on his initial promise to democratically engage our neighborhoods about his proposal before killing it. If he did, he would have discovered there are more than a few concerned citizens.
In the subsequent process of listening to what more people had to say, Manhas likely would have discovered more viable solutions to our school budget problems than those his future, hand-picked "committee of community leaders" could ever hope to come up with.
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