Capital Planning Team

The Capital Planning team is part of the Capital Projects and Planning department. Our team is the lead for capital levy planning, capacity management, building conditions surveys, landmark nominations, portable placement planning, and developing Educational Specifications for school design.

All our work is done with the overarching lens of Seattle Excellence, the district’s strategic plan. Specifically, Capital Planning supports the work to provide healthy, supportive, culturally responsive environments for learning.

Capital Levy Planning

Every three years, Seattle Public Schools asks Seattle voters to consider a capital levy. School construction, upgrades, and improvements are funded primarily by these levies. Our team leads the research and planning to determine what is included in these levies. Planning is currently underway for the Building Excellence VI Capital Levy (BEX VI). Community involvement will take place prior to a project list being finalized.

Capacity Management

Capacity management is the work done to balance the number of students at each school (enrollment) with the space available (capacity).

To do this work, we:

• Monitor changes in enrollment, demographics, and program placement needs, including capital projects that add room for more students.
• Calculate school building capacity.
• Work with other departments when there are changes.
• Recommend possible actions to meet district capacity needs.

School Capacity

School capacity reflects the number of students that will fit into the school based on the number of teaching spaces (for example, kindergarten rooms, primary grade rooms, intermediate grade rooms, special education rooms, PE teaching spaces, music rooms, secondary general classrooms, art rooms, etc.) and the class sizes in the Weighted Staffing Standards (WSS) model.

To calculate school capacity at elementary level, we multiply the number of teaching spaces by type by the class size in the WSS model. At middle school and high school levels, the resulting sum is multiplied by 83 percent to reflect the planning period for each teacher in a six-period instructional day.

Operational capacity includes the capacity in the permanent buildings and in the portables currently on the sites.

Adding Capacity

Capital Planning works closely with the Enrollment Planning department to determine school capacity needs. We have two main methods of adding capacity:

• Planning capital-levy funded construction of new schools, replacement schools, additions, and modernization to open previously closed schools
• Construction projects to improve schools and add capacity (See current projects)
• Adding or moving portable classrooms

School Boundary Changes

Changing school boundaries is one tool used to balance capacity across schools. Some schools may have extra capacity while others have more students than the school is designed to hold.

Portable Placement

The district may add portable classrooms when a school has more students than can fit in the existing classrooms. Once portables are no longer needed, they can be moved to a different school. Some older portables cannot be moved. Those portables are torn down when they are no longer needed.

The draft portable management plan shows expected placement and removal through the 2025-26 school year

Building Conditions

The district regularly hires experts to evaluate the condition of school buildings. The Capital Planning team manages this process and reviews results with in-house experts. Building conditions are used to help set priorities for school construction, modernization, or systems upgrades. Learn more.

Landmark Nominations

As part of the construction planning process for major modifications or replacement of schools, the district nominates schools for landmark consideration. Any school building that is 25 years old or older is nominated.

Learn about schools that are city landmarks.

Educational Specifications

Seattle Public Schools has created Educational Specifications (Ed Specs) to be used in the design of new or renovated schools. These Ed Specs provide directions for each type of school. During the school design process, a School Design Advisory Team (SDAT) is formed to adapt these designs to their specific school community. Learn more

Contact

Rebecca Asencio, Manager

rsasencio@seattleschools.org 206-252-0551

Helpful Links

Building Conditions
Construction Projects
Enrollment Planning
Landmarked Schools
School Building Specifications