Falling enrollment-owing partly to an exodus of students tocharter schools in some places-is behind a rash of decisions thisyear to close schools in urban districts.
In Pittsburgh, 12 schools are scheduled to close their doors.Dayton, Ohio, school officials have announced a three-year plan toclose 14 schools, while Baltimore has put nine schools on its closurelist. Meanwhile, Detroit recently targeted six schools for closure, andBuffalo could shutter more than a dozen in the coming years.
Some of those districts are closing aging sites to make room for newschools. But school leaders also say they don't need as many buildingsas they once did because economic blight, lower birthrates, andmiddle-class flight have eroded their enrollments.
What's more, expanded attendance options, especially publiclyfinanced but largely independent charter schools, are luring a newconstituency of students away from traditional public schools, theyacknowledge.
"Underutilized schools are one of the things that pushed us to makethese recommendations" for closings, said Jerrie L. Bascome McGill, thesuperintendent of the Dayton district, where enrollment has fallen from32,000 in 1981 to 21,000 today. The district projects its enrollmentwill be between 12,000 and 18,000 by 2004.
"We must take corrective actions now," Ms.McGill said.
In Pittsburgh, meanwhile, study after study revealed the samefinding: The city school system was spending too much on facilities.That didn't make it easier, however, to bite the political bullet andclose schools.
Last year, the climate began to change when the district's newsuperintendent was greeted by a $40 million deficit and decliningenrollment. He was also handed a study that cited Pittsburgh'sfacility, maintenance, and operations costs as one of the reasons thecity had one of the highest per-pupil spending rates in the state.
By December, Superintendent John W. Thompson had guided a planthrough the school board to close 12 schools-one with just 102students-out of 97 schools in the system. It was the first timesince 1980 that the district closed more than one school at a time.
"I had to do something. I had no other choice," said Mr. Thompson,whose district's enrollment has fallen from 80,000 students 30 yearsago to 39,000 today. "I'm getting a lot of flack, but people are alsoseeing that I didn't create the deficit."
Closing schools is seldom easy. Schools are often the hearts andsouls of their communities, and an emotional touchstone for adults whoonce attended them. And, much like the closures of military bases,school closure plans can quickly mobilize angry protesters.
"The landscape is littered with politicians who have tried to closemilitary bases, and it's no different with school superintendentstrying to balance facility needs," said Michael Casserly, the executivedirector of the Council of the Great City Schools, a Washington-basednetwork of urban school systems.
There comes a time, though, when there is little choice, said CarmenV. Russo, the chief executive officer of the Baltimore schools.
The last time Baltimore closed more than one school at the same timewas 20 years ago-even though enrollment has fallen from 135,000to the current level of about 106,000 in 10 years, and is projected todrop to 90,000 over the next five.
"This was a long time in coming," said Ms. Russo, who will see sevenof her district's 173 schools close this summer. "Some buildings wereat 40 to 50 percent of capacity."
The district also faced increasing pressure from the state ofMaryland, which has been involved in the district's day-to-dayoperations for the past four years, to reassess its facility needs.
"The state, which controls construction dollars, made it clear theywould not give us money without closing schools," Ms. Russo said. "Iwalked in here 10 months ago knowing I would have to closeschools."
After several rounds of public hearings, the school board in Marchapproved a total of nine closures-down from the original 12 thatwere proposed. Ms. Russo predicted another round of closings for nextyear.
Community groups are appealing the closure list to state officials,arguing in part that the district did not provide enough opportunityfor public comment. The groups also take issue with the consultant'sreport that helped identify the schools to be closed.
"We're not arguing to close or not to close schools, but we want aone-year moratorium to try and satisfy what [the district] considers tobe inadequacies," said Dennis Livingston, a community activist andhealth consultant who is involved in the Baltimore appeals. "The boardhired a consultant to justify the closures, but not to figure out waysto avoid closures."
In Dayton, school leaders hope their plan to reorganize the districtfrom 46 to 32 schools over the next three years will help them avoidthe kind of state pressure that was applied in Baltimore.
In addition to bringing the facilities budget in line with currentenrollments, the Dayton plan should free up money for instruction,district officials say. The effort is part of a bigger push to make thedistrict's schools more competitive academically, especially with localcharter schools.
Outflows of white families, combined with declining birthrates, havedriven down the enrollment in Dayton's schools over the past twodecades.
More recently, however, charter schools have siphoned away students.Since the first of the independent public schools opened in Dayton in1998 with fewer than 60 students, the number of charter sites has grownto 12, with a total enrollment of 2,750 students.
Superintendent McGill estimates that if those students were enrolledin her district, they would bring an additional $14 million in annualper-pupil funding from the state.
The district should save an estimated $5.5 million, mostly inreduced maintenance costs, in the first year of the changes, much ofwhich will be redirected to academic programs, she said.
At the same time, thanks to a state-financed school constructionprogram, all of Dayton's schools will be refurbished or newly built by2008. "We'll have a new district," Ms. McGill said.
It's still unclear what the district will do with the closedbuildings. Unlike in Baltimore, where the city owns the schoolbuildings, the Dayton district owns its properties.
While Dayton residents have strongly protested some of the plannedclosings, Ms. McGill hopes the public will take note that they are partof a bigger improvement effort. "As a district, we must come togetherto raise achievement, attendance, and graduation rates," she said. "Wehave to chart our own path and become competitive."
Dayton is not the only district feeling an enrollment pinch fromcharter schools.
Detroit school officials say the estimated 10,000 students whoattend local charter schools will account for half the 20,000 studentsthey expect to have lost between 1997 and next fall, when enrollment isprojected to fall to 157,000. Detroit has also lost students under astate law that allows students to transfer to neighboringdistricts.
"In the mid- 1990s, we began to experience growth," said Michael W.Alberts, the executive director of student information for the Detroitschools. "We believe we would still be growing if we didn't lose thismembership to charter schools and other public school districts."
Mr. Casserly of the Great City Schools said that, nationwide, urbanschools certainly feel the presence of charter schools. But he addedthat "facility decisions about opening and closing buildings are notbeing swayed much on a broad scale" by charter schools.
Hoping to find an alternative to closing schools, a group of cityleaders in Portland, Ore., is trying to chart a new path for the useand management of district facilities.
The Innovation Partnership is a new, nonprofit group formed totackle citywide problems that have defied previous efforts atresolution. Made up of respected leaders from the private and publicsector, the Innovation Partnership's first job is to study excess spacein the Portland school district.
"We are creating a long-term business plan for managing these assetsfor the long-term benefit of education," said Ruth Scott, the presidentof the partnership and the former head of a downtown businessassociation.
The group will spend the next year studying ways to cut maintenancecosts and generate revenue from the district's 106 properties, whichsit in 20 different land-use zones.
While the Portland district owns more buildings than it needs toaccommodate its 54,000 students, a number expected to drop over thenext 10 years, the extra space is typically used by community groupsfor nonschool functions.
"This is a highly complex property- management situation that theschool district, which is in the business of education, does not havethe capacity to get its arms around," Ms. Scott said. "Nationally, Isuspect there are similar issues."
Some of the ideas to be considered by the group include rentingempty space to business or community organizations, providing long-termleases on district property, and studying new ways to manage theproperties.
"We are turning over every rock we can lay our hands on," Ms. Scottsaid. "Empty buildings are not a good thing for community."
Mr. Casserly said that districts routinely ask consultants to reviewhow their facilities are used.
"This is a dicey issue. When you look at facility space only fromthe view of cost per square foot, people conclude you have way too muchspace," he said. "If they look at the [positive] effects of smallschools on academic achievement, you conclude something entirelydifferent. It depends on how you look at the question."
© Editorial Projects in Education, Inc.