09/12/2026
Y’all, this conversation is so very important to us, and we are so grateful for the existence of OSD4All. Life is hard. As a family owned business, like with many other hard working families, we too are overworked parents. And we’re tired. Which means that we don’t have time to keep track of everything that’s happening with the school board. And when you can’t follow issues closely—that makes it extremely difficult to ensure there is accountability.
This is where OSD4ALL comes in. They are doing that work for us. And it’s tireless work—we see the emotional toll it takes on the individuals doing the heavy lifting (we SEE you Erika).
We love our neighborhood schools. We love the sense of community and belonging it instills in our children. We don’t want these schools (plural) shut down under the guise of budget concerns, only to turn around and ask the tax payers to spend millions of dollars opening up one larger new school in its place. One where we can no longer walk our kids to school. One that is the equivalent of factory farming our children’s education. No thank you. At that age, learning how to be a part of community is the most special lesson we can provide these children. Because community is what’s disappearing from this world. And it’s disappearing all too quickly.
Bigger is not always better. “More efficient” is not always better. And if you haven’t figured out that this is a core belief here in Olympia, then you have no business being on the Olympia School District board, making decisions that affect our community in such a major way (not to mention drastically changing the fabric our our neighborhoods). All for what is essentially a vanity project.
Please follow OSD4ALL and join the conversation. And let’s save our schools! Our children are so much more important than padding the superintendent’s resume so he can continue applying for bigger school district superintendent jobs with higher pay (more than the insane amount of money that he already makes).
With the recent news that Olympia School District is proposing to close three elementary schools, along with a pretty significant reshuffling of students on the West Side, we’ve jumped to more than 1,000 followers. So, we figured it was probably time to introduce ourselves. Who is OSD4ALL?
We’re parents, grandparents, neighbors, community members…oh my! We have families from guaranteed neighborhood schools and families from every choice program. Different schools, different parts of town, and different perspectives.
OSD4ALL formed four years ago when it became clear Superintendent Patrick Murphy was pursuing school closures. Pretty quickly, we became concerned about the way this conversation was being framed. Schools compared against schools, communities divided against one another, and complicated data presented in ways we felt didn’t always tell the whole story. We believed then, and still believe now, that OSD is better than that and that we are stronger when we refuse to be divided.
There are a LOT of misunderstandings around school closures in Olympia after four-plus years of this conversation. And we get it. If your school hasn’t been named, who has the time to spend hours digging through board documents, budgets, enrollment reports and years of presentations? Well…apparently we do. 😂
So here we are. We’ll do our best to share the history, data, context and receipts so you can look at the information and decide for yourself.
Are we perfect? Absolutely not. We are, quite literally, a group of overworked and exhausted parents and community members who have somehow made school district documents one of our hobbies. But we care deeply about public education in Olympia, and we’re really glad you’re here.
We’ll be sharing a lot in the coming weeks. But if you’re just tuning in, we have a homework assignment for you. Start with Advancement Project’s Stop Closing Public Schools Action Kit: https://advancementproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/AP-SchoolClosureActionKit_FINAL.pdf?fbclid=IwY2xjawUSeT1wZG9mBWV4dG4DYWVtAjEwAGJyaWQRMUVKWXloNFVrVnJ6MU4yTGFzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEe9ZjlXY-JqofZZ_FUazRdemhjKSkk7-sgCMaL54IhAxmejMorTjzkW_yweCI_aem_KxGhY1SCdR-djLvqOpOTWA
If you're wondering, “Okay, but what is actually happening here, and what can I do about it?” ... start here. There is a much bigger national history to this conversation than what has happened in Olympia over the last four years.
And once you start recognizing some of the patterns described in this guide…well, we have a feeling you'll have some questions too. Welcome to OSD4ALL, Olympia. 💙
