San Fran not alone in facing school-closure conundrums

Since 2019 California government schools have lost 400,000 students—it is expected another one million will leave the government schools by 2031.  Yet the November ballot will have a $20 billion school bond–$10 billion for schools and $10 billion for Wall Street—regardless of the need.  Instead of bonds, we need to close schools and use those savings to repairs the remaining schools.  That will also save our interest payments to Wall Street—and that money can be used for repairs and equipment.

“Now, SFUSD is among several districts across the state, all situated in counties along or near the coast, that will close or consolidate school sites in the coming years.

Inglewood Unified School District in southwestern Los Angeles County announced plans to close five schools by the end of next year. The Ocean View School District will close Spring View Middle School in Huntington Beach this year. South Bay Union, which serves students in Imperial Beach, San Ysidro and south San Diego, is contemplating closures following sharp enrollment declines.

All aforementioned district superintendents cited declining enrollment as the main reason for closures. County-level education data compiled by The Examiner shows public-school enrollment in all nine Bay Area counties — as well as Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties — in the midst of yearslong declines.”

San Francisco not alone in facing school-closure conundrums

By Allyson Aleksey, SF Examiner, 8/5/24    https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/education/california-public-school-closures-extend-past-san-francisco/article_ea60ae8a-3e29-11ef-8eed-7787ba0b007f.html

Coastal California public-school districts with the highest costs of living are closing schools or exploring the option to do so, signaling a new, concerning trend that experts say is only partially tied to declining enrollment in those counties.

For decades, California education officials have been reluctant to close schools as their districts lose students. The San Francisco Unified School District, like most districts, did not close its schools in recent years despite serving fewer students overall, according to enrollment records.

“Closing a school is actually something we don’t see as being a common response to enrollment declines, at least over the last 10 or 15 years,” said Julian Lafortune, a research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California who specializes in education and economics.

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Things have changed since the pandemic. Now, SFUSD is among several districts across the state, all situated in counties along or near the coast, that will close or consolidate school sites in the coming years.

Inglewood Unified School District in southwestern Los Angeles County announced plans to close five schools by the end of next year. The Ocean View School District will close Spring View Middle School in Huntington Beach this year. South Bay Union, which serves students in Imperial Beach, San Ysidro and south San Diego, is contemplating closures following sharp enrollment declines.

All aforementioned district superintendents cited declining enrollment as the main reason for closures. County-level education data compiled by The Examiner shows public-school enrollment in all nine Bay Area counties — as well as Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties — in the midst of yearslong declines. Inland counties, by contrast, have seen enrollment increase.

But Lafortune said research shows that enrollment trends aren’t necessarily the sole catalyst for shuttering school sites.

The loss of pandemic-related relief funds and $16 billion in state spending cuts to close California’s deficit late last month make many districts cash-strapped, and “the closure conversation a little more robust than it has been,” he said.

California public schools’ closure conundrums

School districts move to close school sites to save on operating costs — but the short-run savings are not always significant.

When a district has under-enrolled schools, closing one of every 15 schools saves about 4% of a district’s budget, mostly in labor costs, according to a report by Georgetown University’s School of Public Policy.

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“If you consolidate schools, you don’t need to have as many administrators proportional to kids,” Lafortune said. “You also don’t need as much maintenance of the building, because you don’t have kids in it every day.”

On the other hand, many employees will be transferred to a different site to serve students who relocate after a closure, and districts still must maintain facilities even if students aren’t learning in them. The San Francisco Board of Education already committed that it will not sell any properties that are vacated following school closures and consolidations.

The Public Policy Institute of California also predicts that enrollment trends will continue to decline. School districts across California will need to grapple with that reality, Lafortune said.

“It’s not like we get this right once, and then we’re done thinking about it,” Lafortune said.

SFUSD Superintendent Matt Wayne said that closing schools here is about quality over quantity, or having “fewer, but better schools.”

“The status quo isn’t working,” Wayne said. “Right now we aren’t able to deliver on the quality of learning and provide the resources necessary to help our students thrive.”

Oakland Unified School District a cautionary tale

The decision to close school sites falls squarely on a school board’s shoulders, and is almost always met with backlash.

Nearby Oakland Unified School District planned to close schools, but the school board reversed its plan last year amid community uproar. Opponents said the cost savings of closing schools wouldn’t outweigh its harmful impacts on district families. OUSD, which has been under state receivership since 2003, already closed two schools in the 2021-22 school year.

But Alameda County education officials said the board made its decision before fully examining how it will impact the district’s budget, and now experts are monitoring the fallout.

Many OUSD schools are still under-enrolled, operating at half capacity or less. The fiscal impact of keeping them open — on students, teachers and families — is yet to be determined.

“Financial pressures only grow over time,” Lafortune said. “You can hold it off for a year or several years, but at some point, the cost of operating an entire school site that’s now maybe half or a third full is too much pressure for the [overall operating] budget.”