A recent research paper by the National Demographics Corporation, a CSBA Business Affiliate, outlines best practices for closing schools in response to factors like declining enrollment, underused facilities, staffing challenges, aging campuses and tight budgets.
“Closing Schools Without Breaking Trust: Best Practices for California School Districts Facing Declining Enrollment” acknowledges how hard school closure decisions are for school boards, especially due to families that may experience the closure as a “loss, threat or betrayal.”
Public opposition often leads to local educational agencies backtracking on closure decisions. However, delaying what might be the inevitable can impact currently enrolled students in the form of fewer programs, unstable staffing, limited enrichment, reduced access to counselors and “facilities dollars spread too thin.”
“The central question, then, is not whether school closures can be made painless. They cannot. … This paper argues that California districts should treat school closure not as a last-minute budget maneuver, but as a long-term educational redesign process. The best processes begin long before a district is in crisis, before specific schools are named, and before trust has collapsed. They start with developing an educational vision, establishing public criteria, publishing data before recommendations, evaluating multiple scenarios, conducting equity analyses early, engaging labor and community partners, and providing detailed transition guarantees before any final vote,” according to the paper.
California context
In its guidance, the California Department of Education notes that school closures affect students, parents, staff, neighborhoods, daily routines and the broader community, and emphasizes that these decisions require careful planning and communication, as well as administrative action.
Other school closure guidance issued from California entities such as Policy Analysis for California Education warn that school closures can disproportionately affect low-income students and students of color, and that closure processes should be inclusive, transparent and ensure displaced students have access to high-quality educational opportunities.
Additional guidance from the California Attorney General emphasizes that closure decisions must be free of discrimination and support meaningful partnership with school communities.
Best practices
The paper provides 11 best practices:
- Start with the educational vision, not the closure list: LEAs can begin by asking what every student it serves should have access to. Suggestions include attending a school with stable staffing, access to counselors and other support services, and a strong instructional program.
- Create the rules and decision criteria before schools are chosen: “Trust collapses when families believe the district already chose the schools and then built a process to justify the result,” states the paper. A list of criteria makes an LEA’s reasoning available to the public and should communicate why certain options advanced or did not. The paper details criteria that should be included.
- Publish the data before the recommendations: Communicate specific data from the school, like declining enrollment, that explains why closure is a viable option.
- Release multiple scenarios together: The paper advises that LEAs should avoid presenting one closure as the only possible answer; it should instead release multiple scenarios that would achieve the LEA’s goal.
- Make equity analysis central: Some questions a strong equity analysis should answer include which students would be displaced? What is the demographic composition of the students at the school? Are any protected or high-need groups disproportionately affected? Would receiving schools offer more, equivalent or fewer educational and support opportunities?
- Involve communities before scenarios are drafted: The paper advises early engagement with the community around issues like the values that should guide closure decisions, unique community assets that deserve extra consideration and transportation burdens, among others.
- Engage labor early and honestly: There are many factors to consider with staffing when undertaking school closures. “Labor engagement should not be treated as a side negotiation. It is central to the educational credibility of the plan and must be part of the process from the very beginning,” the paper states.
- Publish the transition plan before the vote: The transition plan should be complete and publicly available before a vote is taken by the board to close a school.
- Show how public input changed the plan: The paper cites a public-decision log as the best method to communicate how community input affected the plan.
- Keep the board accountable: While community advisory committees are essential to providing input into the closure process, it is ultimately the board that has responsibility for the final decision.
- Monitor outcomes after closure: The process does not end with the decision to close a school; the transition period must be actively managed and students and families kept up to date on how the transition has gone. Information that could be monitored and communicated include academic performance, student discipline, student belonging, special education service continuity and more. The paper advises that LEAs should monitor outcomes for at least three years after the transition.
Each of the above items includes example questions and criteria. Read the full paper »
CSBA Business Affiliate National Demographics Corporation provides demographic and enrollment expertise that helps school districts make informed decisions about enrollment projections, attendance boundaries, districting/redistricting and community engagement.
