Parents, PTSA leaders urge Seattle School District to revise 2025–26 recommended budget, cite special education and enrollment concerns

Seattle School district officials heard more than an hour of public testimony Tuesday night during a special budget hearing focused on the district’s 2025–26 recommended budget, with parents and PTSA leaders urging changes to staffing, enrollment projections and program accounting before the board votes on next year’s plan.

Speakers said the recommended budget does not reflect students’ needs and called on the board to pause approval and investigate inconsistencies. “Is anyone actually considering students’ needs or is staffing treated as a math problem and a budget exercise?” asked Yana Parker, president of the Seattle Special Education PTSA, during the hearing.

Public testimony focused on several recurring concerns: reductions to administrators who serve as 504 coordinators and other special-education supports; the handling of enrollment and school-closure plans; accounting and projection methods for programs that share buildings; impacts on individual schools such as Olympic Hills and Cleveland High School; and apparent data discrepancies in the budget book and presentations.

Yana Parker told the board that the district has assigned many school administrators the role of 504 coordinator and that the recommended budget would reduce those positions. “How can schools with only 1 or 1.5 FTE administrators meet those demands?” Parker asked, adding that legally…