Mayor Bruce Harrell announced the school safety plan during a press conference at Rainier High School on Aug. 21. (Seattle Channel)
City and school officials have promised measurable changes in safety and student support as the new school year begins.
Seattle Public Schools (SPS) and city leaders have released safety plans that will be implemented when students return to classrooms on September 4.
Mayor Bruce Harrell announced a three-pronged strategy to make Seattle schools safer: school-based mental health services, violence prevention programs, and Seattle Police Department (SPD) law enforcement. The plan comes with an investment of $12.25 million from the City of Seattle and $2.3 million from the Seattle Police Department, totaling $14.55 million.
The intensive intervention will be tried at five high schools and six middle schools with the highest rates of violence, including Garfield and Ingram schools, the sites of tragic shootings in recent years.
“Young people are the true measure of the health of a community,” Harrell said.
The city will allocate $5.6 million to add school-based mental health counselors and wellness coordinators for a total of 42 new positions, $2.4 million for telehealth therapy services, and the remaining $4.25 million to violence interruption programs in partnership with community-based organizations, including safe passage programs, new violence intervention specialists working directly outside of priority schools, and individualized case management for students most at risk of experiencing gun violence.
The city is also establishing a new Family Assistance Fund to help students and families most at risk of gun violence. The fund will provide assistance with basic needs like clothing, food, utilities and transportation, with a total amount yet to be determined.
SPS' $2.3 million will be used to increase staffing for its safety and security team, including hiring an executive director responsible for student and community safety and school infrastructure such as cameras, improved perimeter fencing and gates and stronger classroom door locks.
“We've increased the number of (security professionals) by 33 percent. We have about 15 new security officers in our schools, which is a tangible accomplishment,” Superintendent Brent Jones said. “Parents and families will notice a change at Garfield School from day one.”
The 2024-2025 SPS budget also includes additional funding for social workers, increasing the total to more than $50.
As for police enforcement, Interim Chief Sue Lahr said, “Police are present around the school. We're trying to be as visible as possible to let people know we're here to keep you safe.”
SPD will remain outside of schools rather than returning inside them as student resource officers, but Lahr has spoken at length about the importance of SPD building trust with schools and communities, which may signal SPD's desire to return to school policing in the future.
“Police are not adequately equipped or trained to reduce violence in schools,” said Oliver Miska, a substitute teacher and director of solidarity policy and communications at SPS. “We must invest in alternatives to police for safety. We must give teachers options other than calling the police to keep their classrooms safe.”
An open question is how SPD will increase its presence around schools amid current staffing shortages: In June, SPD announced that it would again lay off more officers in 2024 than it could hire, a larger local trend since 2020 and one that mirrors national trends.
For now, SPS will utilize expanded security teams and more violence interrupters to ensure student safety in schools.
“If what we're trying to solve is violence prevention and a sense of safety and a physical presence in schools, can we accomplish those objectives without introducing some of the harm that communities have toward police? I think the answer is yes,” King County Councilman Ghirmay Zahiray told The Urbanist in an interview last month.
“I think there are ways to have paramedics and security guards who have strong relationships with the local community, who are from the local area, who are trained, who have mental health resources and violence mitigation strategies, and who can mitigate or minimize the downside,” Zahiray continued.
The SPS School Board will hold its final meeting before the new school year begins on Wednesday, Aug. 28. There are currently no safety-related items on the agenda, but Jones is likely to address safety and health measures in his comments.
Funding issues
Counseling staff at the Ingraham High School Counseling Center. Ingraham students have called for increased mental health services following the 2022 shooting at the school. (Seattle Public Schools)
When asked how the city arrived at the $14.55 million funding level, Harrell said they arrived at the amount after “talking to the community, looking at budgets and talking to everyone we could.”
But the $12.25 million investment the city is providing was actually made possible by last year's City Council, who slightly increased the Jump Start payroll tax during last year's budget deliberations to raise $20 million for student mental health. The investment passed a narrow vote in the Budget Committee, with Councilmember Tammy Morales voting in favor and Councilmembers Sarah Nelson and Dan Strauss voting against. Those three council members are returning this year, but the six council members remaining on last year's ballot have since left the city, either due to retirement, taking higher office, or failing to run for re-election.
Without this small increase in progressive tax revenue, it is unclear whether these new investments in student safety and mental health would have been possible this school year.
Yet in his midterm supplemental budget, Governor Harrell requested just $10 million of a total of $20 million to expand student mental health services and gun violence prevention programs.
When the supplemental budget was presented to the City Council earlier this summer, Morales tried twice to add an amendment that would have allowed the full $20 million to be spent.
“This investment gives this council an opportunity to address the root causes of violence in our community. I reinstated it because there was overwhelming consensus that the solutions young people need are safe third spaces to address gun violence and mental health services with trauma-informed responses,” Morales said before the final vote on the amendment.
“We've adequately funded SPD, and now we must adequately fund this mental health work,” Morales continued. “This amendment clearly comes from the community and is for the community. It will restore the entire $20 million that will go towards expanding education supports, including investing in mental health, student safety recovery measures, and safe spaces and activities.”
Other council members seemed less enthusiastic about the previous council member's efforts in this area.
“It is my understanding that when City Council included $20 million in the budget last year, they did not seek guidance or guidance from mental health professionals or conduct any research on how to effectively provide this mental health support,” said City Council Member Maritza Rivera. “What is equally concerning is that because they did not conduct the research, they did not provide any sort of funding model. Additionally, I understand that the actual $20 million figure was an arbitrary number that has no bearing whatsoever on what the City is currently doing.”
“There appears to have been no plans, no studies and no rational basis for determining the amount of investment, but investments and promises were made and here we are,” said City Councilman Rob Saka.
“One of the things that was highlighted in (Rep. Rivera's) summary was the poor governance of the previous Legislature,” Rep. Bob Kettle said. “The previous Legislature had completely poor governance, poor coordination, really poor everything. That's the issue here.”
The original request for $20 million for student mental health last fall came directly from Seattle students.
None of the council members' criticisms acknowledge that it was the actions of previous council members that enabled the city to make tangible investments to address the mental health and gun violence crises facing Seattle's youth, nor does it acknowledge the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement that laid the foundation for those investments.
On the second amendment, Councillors Morales, Hollingsworth, Saca and Wu voted in favour, while Councillors Kettle, Moore, Nelson, Strauss and Rivera voted against, causing the City Council to narrowly reject Morales' amendment.
“The city is disinvesting in mental health, restorative justice and violence prevention strategies while unfairly doubling down on investments in police as first responders to crises in schools,” Miska said in response to the vote. “Even though BLM has been voicing demands in schools and calling for alternatives since before 2017, we feel the city has not done enough to center young people and educators in discussions of solutions.”
After Morales' amendment was defeated, Strauss introduced a replacement amendment to the council that would increase student mental health funding from $10 million to $12.25 million.
“I believe we have the ability to raise the additional $2.25 million and execute the program,” Strauss said. “I'm not confident about our ability to raise the additional $10 million and execute the program.”
Strauss' amendment passed unanimously and is the reason the total funding for school safety is now $14.55 million instead of $12.3 million.
The question now is how much investment in student safety and mental health will be included in Governor Harrell's proposed fiscal year 2025 budget, due at the end of September.
“When you think about what our priorities are, this is going to be one of our top priorities,” Harrell said of the $12.3 million invested so far.
“I think this is a good investment and I've been very clear: This is an evolving business,” Harrell continued. “I'll call you back in six months and we may have pivoted. We may have scaled.”
With a $260 million budget deficit, whether Harrell maintains last year's $20 million investment in student mental health will say a lot about this administration's true priorities.
Amy Sandberg is the publisher of Notes from the Emerald City, a weekly newsletter about Seattle politics and policy, with a focus on public safety, police accountability, and the criminal justice system. She also writes science fiction, fantasy, and horror novels. She especially loves Seattle's parks, where she often walks her small dog.
