The Toughest Task for Schools

When I worked as a region superintendent in Texas, there was no decision more controversial than whether to keep a neighborhood school open or close it because of low enrollment. Kids couldn’t read. The community was quiet. Kids didn’t do well on their state math exams. The community stayed quiet. Questionable books were found in the school library. The community? For the most part, quiet. But when my district announced they would close schools, the community went crazy. Parents lined up to testify in front of the school board for hours. Elected officials asked for private meetings with the district superintendent. Protests occurred in front of schools scheduled for closing.

Most urban districts have a list of schools they need to close. The question is how to close them and still maintain the confidence of the neighborhood in which that school existed. Most recently, San Antonio Independent School District announced school closures, and The 74 online covered the story:

“It’s not hard to find recent examples of places where broaching the need to close schools has blown up in district leaders’ faces. More than two decades of plummeting birth rates have hollowed out classrooms from coast to coast, yet board members and superintendents who propose a consolidation or shutdowns can easily find themselves out of a job.”

“As it became clear the pandemic was accelerating widespread enrollment declines, demographers, economists and school funding analysts started counseling that communication is key to winning buy-in from angry parents. Few education leaders heeded their advice, instead ducking the topic.”

“Now, school finance experts are watching to see whether things will go more smoothly in the San Antonio Independent School District, which last spring announced it will shutter a yet-unspecified number of schools at the end of the 2023-24 academic year. The district’s decision-making process, they say, appears to be unusually transparent.”

“Describing the contraction as long overdue, San Antonio officials kicked off a presentation at the June school board meeting by showing a PowerPoint slide from 2008, making the case for confronting what was then 40 years of enrollment declines. At the top of the image, under the headline ‘Critical Junction,’ two yellow school buses start down divergent paths: ‘Stay on Course’ and ‘Change to a New SAISD.’”

“The same illustration could be used today. Over the last 15 years, enrollment has dropped from more than 55,000 students to less than 45,000. Twenty years ago, the district operated 106 schools. Now, it has 98, 35 of which have undergone some form of transformation in recent years.”

“Many reorganized around popular curricular themes, such as dual-language immersion, Montessori or gifted-and-talented academics. As a result, more than 2,200 students from other communities now attend SAISD schools, making it the most popular interdistrict-enrollment option in its Texas region.”

“But even with a boost form outside students, enrollment is expected to continue to decline over the next decade. The number of district residents under age 18 has fallen 14% since 2010, and births have declined 36% since 2007. Enrollment losses are likely to accelerate as older students graduate and there are too few kindergartners to make up for them.”

“Such seismic demographic shifts are taking place virtually everywhere. Between 2019 and 2023, public school enrollment nationwide fell by about 1 million, or 2%. Schools are projected to lost another 3 million by 2029.”

…

“In February 2022, Oakland, California, school board members voted to close 11 schools over two years. Protests and a hunger strike ensued, several sitting board members lost re-election and last January the board changed the plan to consolidate fewer building.”

…

“Contentious discussion about closures have also played out in Denver, Los Angeles, Minneapolis and other shrinking districts. New Orleans, which has had a formal process for shutting underperforming schools for years, is struggling to determine how to shrink its all-charter school system.”

“Last fall, following a discussion about birth rates and how schools budget, the board of Colorado’s Jeffco Public Schools voted to shutter 16 elementary schools. In June, it followed with the consolidation of one middle and one high school into a single 6-12 facility. The process was emotional, but no one was ousted.”

“Newly installed as San Antonio’s superintendent, Jaime Aquino was watching. Last spring, he took a delegation from his district to Jeffco, and also arranged conversations with officials in Cleveland, which has scrambled to address population declines. Taking what they learned, and heeding the experts’ advice about communicating clearly and early, San Antonio officials drew up a plan focused not on a budget crisis, but on the need for equity within the district.”

“Right now, the district’s larger schools subsidize their underenrolled neighbors – which still can’t afford a fully array of basic academics and extracurricular activities.”

“On September 18, SAISD leaders will present the school board with a proposed list of schools for closure or consolidation.”

…

“On November 13, the board will vote on final recommendations as a package – which means it will not make exceptions for individual schools.”

We’ll see what happens in San Antone.

When I worked in Houston, there weren’t supposed to be exceptions for individual schools – until an elected official put pressure on the school board during the 11^th hour, and then all bets seemed off.

Plus, neighborhoods who wanted their low-performing schools to stay open was a head scratcher. I guess the neighborhood convenience, along with the sometime nostalgic and historical significance of the school, was more important than sending their child to a school outside the neighborhood who had better academics.

The sad part of all of this is that most schools that need closing are not high-performing schools. If they were, they’d probably be filled up with kids and families wanting to attend them. So, often times, neighborhoods are arguing to keep a bad school open.

And that’s bad for the kids who end up attending them.

Til tomorrow. SVB