Seeking closure: Careful planning is crucial when debating whether to close schools 

When rumors began circulating last year that the Vacaville Unified School District might be considering closing schools to deal with drastic state budget cuts, school board candidates David McCallum and Harold “Whit” Whitman made a campaign promise to increase parental and community involvement in key budget decisions.

District staff was warning that there might be closures, and the school board hadn’t even had the opportunity to respond,” McCallum says. “Shock waves were rocking the community. From then on, we were playing catch-up.”

Soon after they were elected and took their seats on the board, the district’s newest trustees made a successful case for the appointment of a School Closure Committee made up of district employees, teachers, parents, administrators and businesses representatives.

After campaigning as he did for improving community involvement in district decision-making, McCallum was not prepared for the level of mistrust and suspicion that greeted the board’s decision.

“Some people believed the committee was designed to give the board political cover—that we were just trying to validate a decision that had already been made,” McCallum says. “I was shocked at the initial reaction.”

After all, it wasn’t as if anyone on the school board was eager to close schools.

“I am a strong believer in neighborhood schools, and I wouldn’t close any schools if I could avoid it,” McCallum adds. “But we needed to establish some objective criteria and take a hard look at all the data.”

McCallum had discovered for himself what increasing numbers of school board members and administrators know all too well: Even the mention of the possibility that schools might have to be closed—whether because of falling enrollments, budget shortfalls or federal reform fiats for “persistently underperforming schools”—invariably sparks strong emotional responses.

After some jockeying over appointments, Vacaville’s committee began its work. Not playing any favorites, it spent five weeks analyzing the potential impacts of closing each of the district’s 10 elementary schools—and recommending what order to close them in, if it came to that. The committee’s sometimes emotional weekly public sessions often dragged long into the night.

Acting under instructions from the committee, district staff compiled voluminous reports on each campus. The detailed statistical analyses are posted on the district website. It was up to the school board, of course, to make any final determinations about closures—and, as it turns out, Vacaville probably will not have to close any schools this year.

Closing trend

But many other districts and county offices of education haven’t been so lucky. School closures are on the rise throughout California and the rest of the nation for a variety of reasons, including unprecedented cuts in state public school funding, declining enrollment, the rise of charter schools and those recent federal reform mandates targeting “persistently failing” schools.

Precise figures about exactly how many public schools have closed in recent years are difficult to come by. According to the latest state count, 171 public schools closed in 2009—the largest annual total in 20 years. This year’s numbers promise to be even larger.

A recent national survey of the cumulative impacts of the economic downturn on public schools and communities across the nation by the American Association of School Administrators found that the percentage of districts closing or consolidating schools doubled from 3 percent in 2008–09 to 6 percent in 2009–10. An additional 11 percent of those surveyed said they will consider similar moves in 2010–11.

One thing is certain: The ongoing fiscal crisis spells more trauma for communities and more difficult decisions for local school boards.

School: ‘The soul of the district’

Even when school boards and administrators plan for school closings carefully and handle the process with sensitivity and tact, deliberations over school closings are invariably emotional, difficult and divisive.

CSBA governance consultant Babs Kavanaugh helped the Vacaville board regroup after McCallum and Whitman’s election last fall. She says it would be difficult to consider school closures without some trauma. “In some ways, closing a school is like cutting into the soul of the district,” says Kavanaugh.

“A community may complain and moan and groan about its schools, but the minute you tell them you’re going to close them, you’re committing a major sin,” says Robert D. Gonzales, director of student assignment and assessment in the San Jose Unified School District, which recently had to close six elementary schools and one middle school over a two-year period.

District and county office governing boards that are considering closing schools don’t have to go it alone. The California Department of Education has posted a detailed “Closing a School Best Practices Guide” on its website that’s designed to make the “anguishing” decision to close schools less difficult.

The guide recommends that school boards appoint district advisory committees to gather facts about the potential benefits and shortfalls of school closures and review relevant facilities master plans to determine whether proposed closures are aligned with plan priorities. The Education Code does not require local educational agencies to involve advisory committees when discussing whether to close schools, but it does declare that it’s the state Legislature’s “intent” that boards involve communities before decisions are made about school closures.

Community involvement

Both state education officials and local governance teams who have been through the school closure process agree that advisory committees can be extremely helpful—both to gather facts and to ensure community involvement.

“At 29 members, our advisory committee was probably too large, but we did have very broad representation,” says Leigh Coop, Vacaville Unified’s facilities director. “It was bumpy at times, but the deliberations were all out in the open. Transparency was our watch word.”

School closure veterans say it’s crucial that trustees give themselves plenty of time to consider the issue—and that they give the community plenty of warning that such discussions are under way. It’s also important to develop sound data about all the potential impacts of closing a given campus, including the effect on neighboring schools and the possible loss of students to private schools or charters.

Those who have made the painful decision to close schools say it’s critical to communicate frequently with members of the community, parents and school staff about what options are being debated and why.

The board’s role

CSBA governance consultant Kavanaugh says the board plays a key leadership role.

“Board members can create clarity around what they have to do and facilitate calm discussions of demographics, budgets and other key indicators that help determine whether school closings are warranted,” she says. “Board members need to respect the community, respect each other and ensure they make the best decision they possibly can. It’s a complex, convoluted process.”

CDE’s best practices guide suggests objective criteria that can help LEAs quantify the potential impacts of school closings. It recommends that districts appoint advisory committees and assign LEA support staff to provide professional assistance, including with the actual gathering of data the committee decides it needs; the committee can also identify options for alternatives to closing schools.

“The decision to close a school must be based on hard, empirical evidence that leads to a broadly supported, incontrovertible conclusion—the district cannot afford to keep a particular school(s) open without cuts elsewhere (budget, staffing, etc.),” the guide says. “The job of the superintendent and board members is to evaluate facts, not gather them. And the process of gathering the facts must be as credible, transparent and non-political as possible.”

Once a school board decides to sell or lease a school site, state law requires appointment of an advisory committee to recommend priorities for the best use of the surplus facilities. These “7–11” committees (so named because the law calls for these committees to have at least seven members, but no more than 11) can be invaluable in cases where boards are confronted with conflicting facilities requests—including requests from charter school operators.

San Jose Unified Superintendent Don Iglesias told an overflow crowd at CSBA’s 2009 Annual Education Conference and Trade Show that his district’s 7–11 Committee devised a list of best uses for surplus property. Charters were included, but providing space for them was not the district’s top priority. This approach helped San Jose ensure that requests for facilities from charter schools did not negatively impact services for the vast majority of district students who attend regular public schools. The board decided to lease most vacant facilities to generate the maximum revenue possible.

It’s important for boards to agree on good uses for closed schools immediately and not leave campuses “vacant and vulnerable,” Iglesias told his Annual Conference audience.

He also recommended that LEAs resist the temptation to raise some quick money by selling facilities. Predicting demographics and future student enrollment is an imprecise science; there’s no telling when changes in birth rates and housing patterns may transform a declining enrollment district into one that needs to open new schools.

Hans Johnson, education analyst and demographer at the Public Policy Institute of California, says districts need to keep their options open. “A district does not want to be in a position of closing a school and having to turn around a few years later and open a new one because there’s been an unexpected boom in school-age population,” he says.

Charter conversions

Some districts have found it impossible to maintain district priorities when confronted with parents intent on “saving” a school on the closure list by converting it to a charter school. The rules governing conversion charters give petitioners broad rights to occupy a campus that’s due to be closed—even if establishment of the charter will have a negative impact on the LEA’s overall budget and education services for noncharter students.

“A self-appointed group, representing a small number of students, can use charter school law to overrule a board that was elected by an entire community to represent thousands of students and protect the fiscal solvency and educational programs it provides for all students in the district, including those tied to the charter,” says Conejo Valley Unified School District Superintendent Mario Contini, who has handled a number of charter facilities requests that proved problematic for the district.

Proposition 39 sets broad requirements for handling charter school facilities requests. Among other things, the law has been interpreted by recent court decisions to require districts to treat charter school and regular public school students equally. Critics say this makes it difficult for LEAs to consider the needs of the district as a whole when confronted with certain charter requests.

In Conejo Valley Unified, for example, school board members—working closely with a citizens’ advisory committee—reluctantly made the difficult decision to close two Blue Ribbon elementary schools for the greater good of the district’s overall education programs. But the move backfired. Parents were unwilling to accept a plan that would transfer their children from a high-achieving school in an upper-middle class neighborhood to a school with lower test scores and a higher percentage of disadvantaged students. They successfully petitioned the county office of education for the right to convert their children’s school into a charter over the district’s vehement objections.

The district had hoped to lease the campus to a private school, generating valuable revenue. Instead, Conejo Valley lost more than 100 students and failed to realize either the hoped-for lease revenues or operational savings.

“We believed we had been very thoughtful,” says Conejo Valley board president Tim Stephens, a longtime school board member and former principal at one of the schools on the closure list. “We had a committee that looked at all the numbers and considered a long list of impacts. I would recommend that if you do go down the closure road, you talk to others who have done it to avoid the pitfalls and potholes.”

The district is now negotiating with another charter school that’s waging an aggressive public relations campaign for rights to another campus—a lobbying effort that critics say portrays the district in an unflattering and unfair light.

District Superintendent Contini echoes his board president’s advice.

“Talk to other districts and find out what parts of their processes went well and what they would do differently,” Contini says. “When you become aware of a charter movement in your district, be proactive in determining what the charter group is dissatisfied with. Communicate, communicate, communicate!”

Carol Brydolf is a staff writer for California Schools.

‘Close’ calls

Robert Gonzales, director of student assignment and assessment at the San Jose Unified School District, has been on the front lines during deliberations over school closures for more than a decade, providing the critical data and analyses to help school board members make informed decisions. In this edited conversation with California Schools staff writer Carol Brydolf, Gonzales describes his experience with school closures and offers advice for ensuring a fair and effective decision-making process.

How did San Jose approach the complex process of considering whether to close schools?

In 2003, our then-superintendent made it clear early on that we needed to go through a process of considering whether to close schools, because the district hadn’t gone through a school closure process in quite a long time and we needed to make this a year-long process.

How did San Jose get started?

First of all, we appointed an advisory committee that included parents from the schools the district was looking at. Demographically, we are about three different districts, so we had to make sure there was a balance of parents and staff that would review these sites. The committee looked at what it would cost to close the schools in terms of facility, busing, boundary realignments and the impacts on all the other neighboring schools. The committee looked at all the district’s elementary schools, so that first year was a pretty labor-intensive process, but that was the mission.

That’s why the superintendent has to be really clear: ‘This is what the advisory committee is going to review and nothing else.’ That way it’s really clear from the very start what the committee’s job is. If a member of the community asks, ‘Why didn’t you consider that?’ you can say ‘because that wasn’t the committee’s charge.’ It was important to clearly state that this was an advisory committee. These recommendations were advisory to the staff, and the final decision was up to the board. And even then, we still had problems with the public complaining that the district hadn’t done what the committee advised in every case.

Why was it so important to put the local community on notice so far ahead of time that it might be necessary to consider closing schools?

We did not want a situation where all of a sudden the district says: ‘By the end of the year we’ve got to close these schools.’ That doesn’t leave time for the community to get involved. We wanted a process with lots of community involvement, because closing schools is a painful thing, a very emotional thing. Districts sometimes do not allow enough time for people to understand why it’s necessary to consider closing schools. Boards need to have clear policy around closing schools and adjusting attendance boundaries, and there needs to be some clear message from the superintendent about what is to be considered.

What did the school board ultimately decide?

In June 2004, we closed three elementary schools. The following year we closed three elementary school sites and a middle school, which was reopened the next fall as an elementary school. Because we had gone through the process the previous year of looking at all the elementary schools, the superintendent and staff were able to make recommendations based on the work we’d already done.

A district that’s losing students and considering closing schools may find itself with enrollment increases as population and housing patterns shift. How can a district anticipate what’s going to happen to its school-age population in the future?

About two years ago we brought in Schoolhouse Services; they’re demographers. They came in and did a study in regards to our populations by geographic area. They also looked at housing patterns and the impact that housing would have on our enrollment. We recently had them update their projections, because we had site growth at the elementary level that was not projected. We also do our own districtwide demographic reports by geographic areas, and we ask for an outside review.

In a presentation at CSBA’s 2009 Annual Education Conference, San Jose Unified Superintendent Don Iglesias strongly recommended that districts resist the temptation to raise some quick revenue by selling vacant facilities. Are you aware of any districts that have sold a facility and then wished they hadn’t because they found themselves with unexpected increases in enrollment?

Not recently. Most school districts that have gone through school closures in the last eight years have not sold any property. That’s burning a bridge. They understand the dilemma is that once it’s gone, there’s no way you’ll be in the position of being able to buy that kind of land any more, at least not in this county.

What did San Jose do with the schools once they’d closed those seven facilities?

One of the school sites, which was the middle school, is now a large K–8, so that facility is still in use. One site is being used for district alternative schools. One is leased to Downtown College Prep, a charter school. The other schools have been leased to county programs, primarily.

You attended all the board meetings leading up to these decisions. I’ve heard advice from others who have been through this who urge board members not to be intimidated by the crowd. But it’s also true that these are difficult and emotional decisions. What’s your advice to boards?

My advice is that prior to the vote, you allow plenty of time for staff to work with school sites to hold a number of public forums. That’s why we prefer to begin deliberations at least a year in advance. Before going to the board with the recommendations or action, there were at least three public forums. By the time it came to the board actually making a decision, the noise level was not as loud as it was at the forums. You have to establish criteria for what’s going to be done at the forum. Things can get pretty rowdy.

In a way, isn’t the intensity of the discussion over whether to close schools a testament to the value that local communities place on their schools?

Exactly—that’s why you have to be really clear about the criteria you’ll be using and clear, also, about how you make the decisions about which schools will be considered for closure. You must give plenty of opportunity for the community to have its input prior to the board actually making its decision. That’s why you need a clear board policy about what you consider when weighing closure, and why it’s important to establish a community involvement committee with a clear purpose and charge. You need to give the community every opportunity to speak prior to the board action, through community inputs and forums.

Any final thoughts?

My biggest recommendation right now would be if the board has even a thought that the district may have to think about closing a school, get a process going right away. Allow yourself plenty of time to do it instead of waiting until the last minute, because that’s when the community goes crazy.

Closure keys

‘Closing a School Best Practices Guide’
The California Department of Education’s handbook is divided into five chapters that deal with gathering facts, deciding which school to close, making the decision, making the transition and disposing of surplus property.

‘The School Closure Crisis: A Challenge for Demographers’
This research report on recent population trends in California by Lapkoff & Gobalet Demographic Research Inc. includes detailed recommendations about structuring the school closure process.

Easy link: Every online resource listed in California Schools and California School News is just a few clicks away—just log onto CSBA’s News and Media Web page  and go to the publication where you find the citations. In this case, that’s the Summer 2010 issue of California Schools magazine.