51萝莉

Practices drawn from the author鈥檚 two go-rounds addressing falling enrollment and school underutilization

For some superintendents, a financial crisis came as a surprise when the riches of ESSER funds disappeared. For others, the financial crisis was simmering while other priorities took precedence.

Superintendents often are thrust into a position where the politics of managing decline come from a question from the news media or a rumor mill claim. While it鈥檚 fair to say declining student enrollment didn鈥檛 sneak up on anyone, many shrinking school districts are slow to respond and consequently forced to grapple with the unenviable task of closing schools.

My first superintendency was in a school district that had not addressed 17 continuous years of declining enrollment. The extended postponement of hard decisions resulted in closing one middle school and repurposing three elementary schools during my three-year tenure.

In my second superintendency, I watched with trepidation as the once-steady enrollment shrunk at roughly 6 percent annually, from 22,000 students to 17,500 students over five years. To prepare the school community for what lay ahead, we devised plans to systematically monitor key criteria.

For the past year, during post-retirement, I was acting superintendent in a southern California district where declining enrollment led to a budget deficit in our multi-year projections. We addressed that potential setback with a budget stabilization plan.

Disproportionate Impact

Underenrolled and underutilized schools are expensive and drain funds from all district schools, not just those underused. Yet closing underenrolled school buildings carries unintended consequences.

Mountains of evidence highlight the disproportionate and enduring harm school closures have on rural communities and underserved students. In rural areas, schools play an especially vital role for individuals and communities. When children are transferred to a distant school, parents feel a loss of connection. Economically disadvantaged students rarely benefit from such moves. In many cases, students are moved to an older and distant facility with fewer curricular and extra-curricular resources.

鈥淔or families, students and staff, losing a beloved neighborhood school can be heartbreaking and scary, and students may have difficulty transitioning to a new school community,鈥� wrote Rob Banta, California鈥檚 state attorney general, in a poignant spring 2024 memo to superintendents that made clear the socio-political perils of school closures. 鈥淲hen these harms affect one group of students more than others, they may also be unlawful.鈥�

The loss of a neighborhood school accelerates population decline and reduces access to essential services such as emergency shelter, recreational space, public health clinics, food pantries, after-school care and family resource centers, sapping a neighborhood鈥檚 vitality and stunting its growth. A well-maintained school is a source of pride.

In their 2023 report 鈥淐entering Equity in the School-Closure Process in California,鈥� researchers with the Policy Analysis for California Education emphasized the broad social, economic and cultural advantages of keeping schools open, particularly in rural and urban communities. These findings align with previous research highlighting similar benefits, notably Ebony Duncan-Shippy鈥檚 鈥淪huttering Schools in the Gateway City: School District Viability and Black Community Relations after Mass K-12 School Closures in St. Louis, Mo.鈥� and 鈥淓xtreme Measures: A National Descriptive Analysis of Closure and Restructuring of Traditional Public, Charter, and Private Schools鈥� by Douglas N. Harris and Valentina Martinez-Pabon.

When the 18,000-student Alvord Unified School District, located an hour east of Los Angeles, considered school closures, mergers or consolidations, each school board member was protective of his or her area鈥檚 schools and wanted assurances that when and if a decision to close a school was recommended, there had been an indefatigable process that yielded indisputable evidence. Ultimately, decisions on closure have been put on hold.

Nonetheless, while an absolute last resort, many districts must resort to it.

No Definitive Rules

While there are no hard and fast protocols for responding to declining enrollment, as a general rule, when schools operate at less than 50 percent capacity, it鈥檚 time to study the situation and communicate the findings.

The playbook on declining enrollment thins considerably when options become limited by fiscal constraints. Avoiding that uncomfortable position not only requires frequent monitoring and a high level of community engagement, it requires a school board willing to make tough decisions in a contentious environment.

Downsizing may be avoided if other remedies focus on efficiencies that ensure program equity and a level playing field districtwide.

When districts choose instead to kick the can down the road, they often force their hand in the face of imminent and insurmountable budget deficits.

Task Force Priorities

In the Alvord district, we assembled a declining enrollment task force, chaired by our chief business officer, to advise the governing board on the potential use or disposition of surplus school buildings or property.

Members explored a variety of remedies 鈥� from boundary changes to program development or relocation, to operational efficiency, to ways to operate an underenrolled school cost-efficiently (by creating purposely designed small schools) and repurposing or reconfiguring schools.

Two priorities shaped our efforts:

Cost savings. Driven by the principle that savings come from downsizing the district鈥檚 overall staffing counts with attrition, we examined employee salary and benefit costs, the line item that consumed 90 percent of our unrestricted budget. Those costs had been rising annually while our revenue had been decreasing annually.

Corrective action. Faced with a mounting structural deficit, our annual reduction in force was losing ground. In addition, we were losing low-salaried staff (last in, first out) and some catalytic staff members who had added great value.

Toward that end, we offered a supplemental early retirement plan. SERPs realize savings when a significant number of high-salaried certificated staff or management retirees are either not replaced or are replaced by an employee on the opposite end of the salary schedule.

We used strategic decision-making methodologies (using Kepner-Tregoe consulting services) to provide a structured approach for analyzing the complexities of the situation and bring decision-clarity through structure. (See related article, right.) Our task force also created a database of demographics that allowed us to spot trends and opportunities. (See related article, right.)

As superintendent, I attended every meeting of the declining enrollment task force, though I was not officially a member. I was there as an observer, a contributor when asked and a notetaker to ensure the proceedings were documented and shared with our community in my weekly electronic message to all stakeholders for transparency and rumor-control purposes. Meeting minutes, agendas and other details were posted to the website and met the strict requirements of open meeting laws.

Our district legal counsel also attended each meeting. Counsel鈥檚 primary purpose was to ensure we did not violate the state鈥檚 civil rights laws, state law or the state Constitution, nor were we imposing unintended consequences related to these laws.

Lessons Learned

I am proud of my contributions to financial stability. The work has not gotten easier as the problems are complex, but my experience led to valuable lessons (captured in detail on 鈥淭he Imperfect Leader鈥� podcast hosted by Peter Stiepleman).

Take time to reflect. I regret during my first experience facing closure that I did not ask the school board to slow down the process until the following school year so that affected parties had more time to process and adjust to the new reality.

Hone cognitive empathy skills to build trust. Learn what concerns constituents. I try to answer all questions patiently and use bridge statements to acknowledge their concerns. A news reporter noticed this inclusive act included 鈥渆ven those that were shouted from the seats.鈥� Positive media coverage carries weight.

Validate people鈥檚 point of view. Make an emotional connection. Choose words that convey compassion. The same reporter captured another important comment of mine at that board meeting: 鈥淣obody here is saying anything that I don鈥檛 value. I鈥檝e been listening to you here at these board meetings. 鈥� Kids cannot be disposable. It鈥檚 as simple as that.鈥�

Ask legal counsel to present potential post-closure enrollment policies and reassignment policies. Ensure they do not impose adverse impacts on students based on race, color, national origin, disability, gender or sexual orientation.

School boards are smart to task their leadership teams with annual studies and monitoring of local and broader demographic trends, family preferences, enrollment trends, education program trends and political trends shaping the societal landscape. This practice ensures leadership can address declining enrollment through an asset-based lens and avoid the disastrous implications of reactionary solutions brought on by mounting deficits and a failure to act sooner. n

Allan Mucerino, a retired superintendent, is a consultant with Mucerino and Associates in Fullerton, Calif.