Did Poverty, Questionable Ethics Play Role In School Closure List?

There may very well have been fuckery afoot in the decision to close/re-purpose Cooper Elementary's building rather than close the more affluent Arbor Heights Elementary. (Why are we not surprised?) In a controversial series of posts over the weekend, blogger Sable Verity alleged that Seattle School Board District 6 Director Steve Sundquist was discriminatory and unethical in the way he interacted with parents and students at the two school. This morning, KUOW reports on their investigation into the role that poverty may have played in the school closures conversation.

The gist of SV's allegation regarding Sundquist is that he gave preferential treatment to the well-organized, primarily white and upper-middle-class parent/teacher leadership at Arbor Heights to help them turn the focus away from their school towards Cooper, which led to Cooper's eventual inclusion on the closure list. The blog has several emails and PTSA message board quotes supporting these claims, and some of the feedback from the community--including teachers at Cooper and former School Board candidate Patrick Kelley--has lent support to Sable Verity's claim that she's found a smoking gun.

That said, it should be noted that all the message board comments and Sundquist's meetings with Arbor Heights and Cooper Elementary communities were open to the public, and Sundquist has yet to respond to the allegations. Is this another sad and sadly legal case in which money not-so-indirectly makes the world go around? Or is this about institutionalized racism and discrimination, as Sable Verity and some of her commenters are claiming?

What's really behind the school closures?

Editor MvB brought up a good point: "Are chronically underfunded schools in poorer neighborhoods finally being written off as 'too expensive to fix' after years of neglect? Just like with the Monorail!"

"School bus, 1937" from Seattle Municipal Archives.