Superintendent Shuldiner Talks with Sacajawea Parents
/On Monday evening, Superintendent Shuldiner joined a handful of Sac parents in our library for an open discussion. The round table focused primarily on two issues important to Sac: The future of our building/community, in the context of our recent proposed rebuild-turned-closure; and special education at Sac.
A huge thanks to the community members who came out to share personal perspectives! The group included several parents of Sac students in the Distinct and Extended Resource programs; several parents of HCC-designated kids who have chosen to remain at Sac for community reasons; and several parents who were deeply involved in the 2024 fight against Sac’s closure, including one who was on the building redesign team.
And, of course, a huge thank you to Superintendent Shuldiner, who is matching his actions to his vocal commitment to community engagement. It’s a stance that is markedly different from SPS leadership’s posture in recent years. Here’s to more of this!
Read on to hear what Shuldiner had to say about:
What might Sac's future look like?
Spoiler alert: Sac’s future remains uncertain!
Naturally, Shuldiner had neither answers nor promises, being only one month into his new role. He did candidly share his thoughts about many topics that will affect Sac’s future, though, including school closures, new building construction, and the viability of small schools:
Closures are not off the table (but they might be approached differently)
Shuldiner was clear in our meeting—as he has been elsewhere—that, “We will have to close schools, eventually, probably.” Sac is not magically exempt from closure considerations. Indeed, everyone from district staff looking at building scores, to Sac staff in under-heated rooms, to parents traversing the distressed asphalt in our parking lot acknowledges that Sac’s building is at the end of its as-is life. Something’s got to give!
Closures as mergers
Shuldiner said that any potential future closures would most likely be mergers. He advocated for the merging of schools in a hypothetical example where the schools share adjacent, walkable geo-zones and low enrollment. This thinking echoes the 2024 SPS process, which was merger-based for the four schools that were seriously targeted for closure.
Of course, merging Sac’s population into John Rogers per the 2024 proposal would not have created a walkable solution for any Sac families. Nor would it have kept our community together, since John Rogers offers neither a Distinct program nor a developmental pre-K.
Community involvement
Shuldiner acknowledged that the 2024 closure process was handled atrociously: “A textbook example of how not to do things.” Hearing this stated out loud was refreshing. Even after withdrawing the 2024 closure proposals, the district has never acknowledged the disruptions it caused, or the hasty, ad-hoc, and disrespectful way that the process was handled.
In Lansing, MI, in his previous role as superintendent, Shuldiner oversaw a set of closures (he calls them mergers, and they are, but each of them still involves the closure of a school building). He emphasized that, in those cases, the community was involved in a 6-month-long process prior to the closure. The principals of the two merging schools were present, together, throughout. Not everyone got what they wanted, Shuldiner said, but nobody was met with surprises, either.
A rebuild is not off the table (but it would not happen immediately)
Shuldiner wants to rethink the way that SPS builds schools. This is a welcome change, but a temporary pause in new projects means that Sac’s promised rebuild is certainly no guarantee.
A brief history of Sac’s rebuild journey
Most Sac folks know already that Sacajawea had been slated for a rebuild since 2018, when the design was added to the BEX V capital levy. The funding for the actual construction was then part of the BEX VI capital levy, right up until its rebuild language was changed from “Sacajawea” to “an unnamed NE elementary school” in Nov 2024, because of the closure threats.
The BEX VI capital levy was passed by voters in Feb. 2025, leaving SPS with a tidy pile of money for elementary school construction and a lack of clarity around what to do with it.
Re-evaluating the way SPS approaches building
Shuldiner told the group on Monday that he has asked Director of Capital Projects Richard Best to pause the planning of new construction for a bit.
Shuldiner is unhappy with the design of the new SPS constructions that he has visited recently, characterizing them as adult-focused, rather than student-focused. He cited the 4-story atrium at Rainier Beach high school, which all but begs students to throw things over the edge. He referenced a “hallway to nowhere” at Wing Luke Elementary that ends in a two-story drop protected by a partial railing that a child could fit through.
For the district overall, this pause is probably good news. The abundance of levy money specifically earmarked for new construction has led SPS to build prolifically and extravagantly in recent years. This includes giant new elementary schools that can host 500-600 kids, in a known environment of long-term enrollment decline. Indeed, critics believe that the poor optics of the brand-new, mostly-empty John Rogers building was one of the drivers behind the 2024 proposal to move Sac students there.
What about a Sac rebuild specifically?
For Sac specifically, any significant pause in new construction is a warning sign for our future. We cannot go on for more than another handful of years in our current building.
If a rebuild is off the table in that time frame, then the only other realistic option will be to shut Sac down. [Author’s note: Shulidiner did not say this on Monday; it’s my own conclusion.]
Small Schools are not inherently problematic (but they are difficult to fund)
The issue of small schools—specifically whether they viable or not—was another focus of the evening, in large part because Sac’s small size was cited as a reason for closure by the district in 2024.
Shuldiner emphasized that he has no problem with small schools—a refrain that is different from the rhetoric of 2024, in which SPS leadership repeated that Sacajawea was being closed because of its small size.
That said, Shuldiner also repeated familiar thinking about smaller schools being more difficult to fund under SPS’s per-pupil funding model (he did not indicate that he would be changing this model). With fewer students come fewer dollars, and the type of overall school programming that can be funded with the smaller budget may not be what a community wants. While this is true, it’s also true that choosing between a huge elementary schools miles from home and an elementary school with adequate programming is also not what most communities want.
Special education at Sac and SPS
A third of current Sacajawea students receive special ed services, compared to 17% of students district-wide (and 40% of Sac students in the recent past). Many students attend Sac specifically to access services that are not available at their own neighborhood schools.
With such a large proportion of Sac families accessing--and being largely satisfied with—special ed services, the conversation turned naturally to what Superintendent Shuldiner thinks is working and what might change under his tenure.
The value of small community
Every community member speaking about special education at Monday’s meeting led with some variation on appreciation for the small community offered at Sac. Written statements from Sac’s two Distinct teachers (Isaiah and Brittany) and one of our developmental Pre-K teachers (Kara) echoed this as well. For folks on the ground, it’s clear that the tight-knit community is central to the success of Sac’s special ed programs.
Shuldiner, however, appeared skeptical. He wondered aloud if it’s the adults involved—and not the building or its size—that is the source of the program’s success. This is a, “yes, and!” situation. It’s absolutely true that Sac’s staff is fabulous, and critical to special ed success. And…
As parents pointed out, it’s also true that a school with 500-600 students cannot provide peer support and integration in the same way as a school where all teachers and fellow students know the names and needs of the special ed students. A large school also has stairs and noises and crowds that many special ed kids would not be able to navigate with the same ease as they do Sacajawea.
It’s difficult to quantify the value to special ed of a small environment, especially for higher-needs programs like Distinct. If anyone has ideas or knows of research that has tackled this, let us know at advocacy@sacpta.org!
Resourcing special education
Shuldiner shared two insights into how he’s thinking about special ed, in the Monday meeting.
First, surprising many of us, he pushed back on the narrative that SPS special ed is under-funded. He said that special ed at SPS is far better resourced than special ed at any other place he’s familiar with. He went so far as to say, “Other districts would kill for the ratios you have!” Importantly, he also acknowledged that those resources are not necessarily always put to effective use.
Second—and along the lines of structural change—Shuldiner pointed out that special ed best practice is to host all special ed support pathways at each school that offers special ed services. This is decidedly not the case in SPS today, where schools offer seemingly random patchworks of programs.
Sac, for example, offers rungs 1, 2, and 4 of the 4-rung service ladder but we don’t offer the third rung (for those familiar with SPS pathways, that means we offer Resource, Extended Resource, and Distinct programs, but not Focus). Neighboring Olympic View offers rungs 1 and 3 (Resource and Focus) but not 2 and 4 (Extended Resource and Distinct).
This is a clear area of opportunity.
Looking Forward
Sac continues to exist in limbo, and presumably we will for a while longer. I’ll keep listening to board meetings and report back here on anything that points to one outcome or another for Sac.
In the meantime, at least we can enjoy the bright, new painted lines in our bumpy old parking lot, right?