Facing an impending vote on a controversial school consolidation proposal, the Olympia School District Board of Directors heard hours of testimony from parents and educators during its Oct. 8 meeting.
Thirty-six public commenters signed up, including elementary students, to address the board, with many saying that closing neighborhood elementary schools sacrifices student well-being for financial efficiency.
Public comment focused heavily on the human impact of proposed closures at LP Brown, Madison, and McKenny elementary schools under Superintendent Patrick Murphy's Board Policy 6883 consolidation plan.
Dr. Daniel Kastrika, an LP Brown parent, urged board members to look beyond spreadsheet metrics.
“The spreadsheet is a useful tool, and it is a terrible substitute for conscience,” Kastrika testified. “You cannot educate a child in the denominator. Our schools are not storage units, and our children are not inventory.”
Elizabeth Davidson, an educator of 19 years and LP Brown parent, questioned the district's evaluation criteria.
“You can measure enrollment, building capacity and projected savings, but how do you measure what it means to tell a child that their school, their friends, their teachers, their routines and their community are suddenly gone?” Davidson asked.
Public commenters said that persistent closure threats erode community trust and drive enrollment further downward.
Kristen Fox, a parent of two students, testified that enrollment declines stem from families leaving for private schools, homeschooling or neighboring districts.
“I believe the largest problem is a lack of trust,” Fox said, warning that shuttering facilities will trigger additional enrollment drops.
Catherine Long, a parent of two LP Brown students, challenged the board to reframe the district's capacity numbers.
“Each number represents a child,” Long testified, noting that enrollment shifts mean moving hundreds of students into unfamiliar environments. “Taking 735 individual students into unfamiliar environments is chaos for our world.”
Emily Merryweather, whose special needs children attended LP Brown, noted that small school environments cannot be easily replicated in larger facilities.
“The experience of a small neighborhood school does not scale,” Merryweather said. “A bigger school is worse in every way.”
Lori Dolan, a former state representative and retired school principal, reminded the audience that underutilized facilities consume vital instructional funds.
“We are talking about an old school that's costing instructional money to keep it open and keep it running,” Dolan stated, adding that state funding formulas will not supply extra funding to maintain empty classrooms.
Murphy addressed the crowd's emotion during his report, sharing a letter from a district teacher noting that public education is not meant to be purely efficient.
“We are subject to the same laws of economics that business is subject to,” Murphy said.
Under Board Policy 6883 and state law, the district must hold separate public hearings for each school proposed for closure before the school board takes a final vote.
The required hearings are scheduled throughout October 2026, leading up to the school board's final vote on Nov. 12, 2026.
Individual public hearings for LP Brown on Oct. 15, Madison on Oct. 19, and McKenny on Oct. 12 for the elementary schools will take place at 6:30 p.m. in the boardroom at the Knox Administrative Center and virtually via Zoom.
