Closing or consolidating neighborhood schools is a painful decision that no school district or community ever wishes to face, but increasingly it may be on the table due to declining enrollment trends and budgetary pressures.
In this episode, host Jason Willis and school finance and policy veteran Carrie Hahnel deepen our understanding about school closures and consolidations. They delve into current factors that could lead to more closures and data showing how closures have disproportionately impacted different student populations. They pinpoint the tension schools and communities must try to resolve between difficult and necessary budget decisions on one hand and the enormous potential equity effects of those decisions on the other.
Carrie serves as a senior associate partner for policy and evaluation at Bellwether and a senior policy and research fellow with Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE). She and colleagues Max Marchitello and Dr. Francis Pearman co-authored a series of recent research for PACE related to declining enrollment, equity, and closures.
Jason and Carrie further explore how district and school leaders can proactively approach considerations about school closures while centering equity, and:
“It’s hard not to be paying attention to school closures if you’re paying attention to what’s happening in schools."
About Our Guest
Carrie Hahnel currently serves as a senior associate partner on the policy team at Bellwether, a national nonprofit. Previously, she focused on equitable school funding as an advocate at the Education Trust West, and as a policy director at the Opportunity Institute. She has worked extensively with the statewide research organization PACE. Her research has focused on school funding formulas, equity, tax policies and local budgeting practices and decisions, among other areas.
About Our Host
Jason Willis serves as Director of Strategic Resource Planning and Implementation for WestEd, and he is a former chief business official in several California school districts.
Key Resources
Budgeting for Educational Equity is presented by CASBO and WestEd. The series is written and produced by Paul Richman and Jason Willis. Original music and sound by Tommy Dunbar. Alyssa Perez and Hannah Jarmolowski at WestEd provides research and develops the written briefs that go along with each episode.
Closing or consolidating neighborhood schools is a painful decision that no school district or community ever wishes to face, but increasingly it may be on the table due to declining enrollment trends and budgetary pressures.
In this episode, host Jason Willis and school finance and policy veteran Carrie Hahnel deepen our understanding about school closures and consolidations. They delve into current factors that could lead to more closures and data showing how closures have disproportionately impacted different student populations. They pinpoint the tension schools and communities must try to resolve between difficult and necessary budget decisions on one hand and the enormous potential equity effects of those decisions on the other.
Carrie serves as a senior associate partner for policy and evaluation at Bellwether and a senior policy and research fellow with Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE). She and colleagues Max Marchitello and Dr. Francis Pearman co-authored a series of recent research for PACE related to declining enrollment, equity, and closures.
Jason and Carrie further explore how district and school leaders can proactively approach considerations about school closures while centering equity, and:
“It’s hard not to be paying attention to school closures if you’re paying attention to what’s happening in schools."
About Our Guest
Carrie Hahnel currently serves as a senior associate partner on the policy team at Bellwether, a national nonprofit. Previously, she focused on equitable school funding as an advocate at the Education Trust West, and as a policy director at the Opportunity Institute. She has worked extensively with the statewide research organization PACE. Her research has focused on school funding formulas, equity, tax policies and local budgeting practices and decisions, among other areas.
About Our Host
Jason Willis serves as Director of Strategic Resource Planning and Implementation for WestEd, and he is a former chief business official in several California school districts.
Key Resources
Budgeting for Educational Equity is presented by CASBO and WestEd. The series is written and produced by Paul Richman and Jason Willis. Original music and sound by Tommy Dunbar. Alyssa Perez and Hannah Jarmolowski at WestEd provides research and develops the written briefs that go along with each episode.
Budgeting for Educational Equity
Closures and Consolidations in California: Deepening Our Understanding
Opening
Carrie Hahnel, Guest:
So, I’m really interested in how we talk about school finance through the lens of what it means for communities -- and school closures is one of those places that, it’s just heating up.
Theme music begins.
Jason:
Welcome back to Budgeting for Educational Equity, the podcast produced in partnership by WestEd and CASBO. In this episode, I’ll discuss the timely topic of school closures with special guest, Carrie Hahnel. Carrie and colleagues have co-authored a brief, a report and a working paper all related to declining enrollment, equity considerations, and closures.
While it’s safe to say that closing or consolidating neighborhood schools is a decision no district or community ever wishes to face – increasingly, it may be on the table – so it’s imperative to deepen our understanding of what the data tells us, and the implications.
Music Ends.
Carrie Hahnel currently serves as a senior associate partner on the policy team at Bellwether, a national nonprofit. Previously, she focused on equitable school funding as an advocate at the Education Trust West, and as a policy director at the Opportunity Institute. She has worked extensively with the statewide research organization PACE -- Policy Analysis for California Education, which produced this latest work on school closures.
So, Carrie, welcome -- and, for starters, tell us more about the types of research in general that you’ve been doing?
[1:34]
Carrie:
Sure. I spend a lot of time examining state funding formulas, so in California LCFF and looking at how it works and how it promotes equity and can be improved to better promote equity. I also look at tax policies and local budgeting practices and decisions, which is where I’d probably situate the school closures work. And then I’m also increasingly looking at the intersection between tax policy and education finance and other local issues like housing, since education and segregation and resource disparities are oftentimes a product of decisions made in those other arenas.
Jason:
And what drew you into this particular work around the topic of school closures?
Carrie:
Well, I live in the San Francisco Bay area, and I think for anybody who lives in this area, it’s hard not to be paying attention to school closures if you’re paying attention to what’s happening in schools.
Jason:
Yep. Mm-Hmm.
Carrie:
I remember in particular over the last couple of years hearing a lot about how closures were affecting places like Oakland and the disparate impacts that those decisions were having on Black communities. And, as a finance person, I understood that downsizing was necessary and why these were budgetary decisions that made sense from a fiscal perspective. But then from an equity perspective and having worked with a lot of those organizers and equity advocates, I also understood that there were huge equity effects here, and we needed to unpack those and figure out how to resolve the tensions that sit between those two things. [In] my own city -- I live in Alameda -- we’ve also closed a couple of schools over the last several years and they’ve been -- the context has been different and the reasons for those closures have been different -- but they’ve been really painful, also, and have generated a lot of community resistance as well as community engagement. So, I’m really interested in how we talk about school finance through the lens of what it means for communities -- and school closures is one of those places that, it’s just heating up. We’ve seen a few closures over recent years, but when we look at demographic projections and budget projections, we’re likely to see a lot more. And my colleagues and I thought this was a good time to start to investigate what was happening there and start to lift up some ideas for how district could tackle the issue, um, with equity in the center.
[4:03]
Jason:
Yeah, I love that. I mean, I think in particular, what I hear you talking about is that this is coming up for a lot more school districts, a lot more communities, especially with budgets tightening for those systems [and] the end of federal fiscal aid that came about as a result of the pandemic that put school districts in situations that they may have never confronted before, one of which I think you raised up that I think is worth underscoring is just shifting demographics, which has largely resulted in a decline in a lot of our public school populations.
Carrie:
That’s right. And not only has the enrollment declined, but it’s likely to continue to decline.
Jason:
Mm-Hmm.
Carrie:
I think there’s been sort of a reaction in the press in particular that has associated the decline in enrollment with the pandemic. And the reality is that it was exacerbated during the pandemic, but anybody who looks at demographic trends and a school district knows that these trends are likely to continue. And it makes it clear that some things need to shift, and the number of school sites might be one of those.
Jason:
Yeah, and I think that this goes to, what are some of the undercurrents that are putting school systems in situations to think about this? We’ve mentioned a couple of those really big topics, and I’m curious on this, in looking to other issues that are coming up in communities, how you see issues of housing and gentrification trends that may also be contributing to these shifting demographics that push or knock on the door of school districts needing to close schools?
Carrie:
Well, there’s of course, the outward migration that’s happening in California from coastal areas to other parts of the state and outside of California altogether. Those are a product of things like birth rates and immigration trends and just general migration. But housing cost is a big part of that, too. People are leaving expensive areas in order to find more affordable parts of the state. And so that puts a lot of pressure on high cost areas. The other thing that we discussed in our report is that not all communities are affected equally. So even within high-cost areas, oftentimes it’s the gentrifying neighborhoods, and it’s also historically under-resourced neighborhoods that are feeling the brunt of the declining enrollment and the closures. The important thing that we try to discuss in our report is that those patterns are not accidental. The patterns of segregation that we see in our communities and the patterns of disinvestment and gentrification as well were all kind of products of these things that happened before -- city ordinances, racial covenants, exclusionary zoning that dictated where people of could and couldn’t live. A lot of that exclusionary zoning continues today. It’s less racialized, but it affects the disparities in terms of where low-income families and higher income families live in communities. And of course, school districts sit on top of those neighborhood lines so that the school district boundaries are connected to and related to city and neighborhood lines. And even within school districts, school attendance zones often follow neighborhood lines, too. So, we are dealing with a situation that is connected to, and in many ways, a product of things that happened beyond education. And that matters because when district leaders start to confront challenges that relate to declining enrollment, that relate to school consolidations or closures, they can’t just turn a blind eye to those historical patterns without receiving some kind of pushback and surfacing a lot of tensions in the community. So, those are some of the things that we explored as backdrop for this research.
[8:12]
Jason:
Yeah, I mean, it’s such a great way to bring to the forefront some trends that leaders in education may not think at first are drivers of this. I think you have aptly said it, in which a lot of the media, particularly that is K 12 education centric, really is focusing on just the decline in students, and parents making different choices about where those students are going to go to school, which could very well be a contribution to that overall decline. But the issues around housing cost -- and this seems particularly true in California -- is likely a huge driver, especially for low-income families that simply just cannot afford to live month to month in high-cost areas.
Carrie:
Mm-Hmm. And it’s not that these other things related to family choice aren’t part of the equation also. In California, charter schools, for example, are part of it. The charter sector is growing in terms of market share in California right now. So it is true that part of the decline in enrollment in school districts is related to families making other choices. But even that is connected to all these other things -- the fact that families feel the need to make other choices relates to the availability of resources and to how thinly resources are spread across a district that might have too many schools for the number of students that it serves. All these things are connected and it’s very difficult to then pull them apart. But of course, beginning to understand the root causes and the context is part of what it takes to really explore and address those community level factors and meet people where they are.
Jason:
Yeah -- and as educational leaders are necessarily having to navigate these declines in enrollment -- because it inevitably will have some impact on the system financially, organizationally, how it delivers services for students -- they are going to have to confront some of these challenges in the neighborhood, and so their awareness about where that history is, where it comes from, may actually be helpful to them in navigating to some reasonable solution that is a reflection of what the community is really hoping for.
Carrie:
That’s exactly right. It’s also part of starting to develop some solutions for the future. If we know that drawing attendance lines around neighborhood lines segregates students by race, by economic advantage, that it kind of puts certain opportunities in some neighborhoods that don’t exist in others, we have choices. We can redraw those attendance lines at the same time that we’re consolidating school sites. So, as we’re shifting the footprint of individual sites, it’s an opportunity to think about what should it look like in the future? What kind of schools do we want for this community?
Jason:
Yeah. Yeah. I really appreciate that reframing into the positive, that it can actually create a solution opportunity for the systems.
[11:20]
Music Interlude.
Jason:
Carrie, I wanted to, to take a step back. I was so excited to dive in, I really, literally just dove in. But this research that you and Max Marchitello recently co-authored, the report titled “Centering Equity in the School Closure Process in California” for PACE. There was a, a follow up brief called “Declining Enrollment, School Closures and Equity Considerations” that you did with Dr. Francis Pearman -- and I’m just wondering if you could for our listeners, [tell us] what are like the top three headlines that you would say you want readers to walk away from this compliment of the report and the policy brief?
Carrie:
Right. Thanks for pulling us back. I was excited to jump into the solutions, also, but yeah, let me frame the key findings from the report. The first is that school closures do disproportionately affect students of color and low-income students. We looked at that because that’s the narrative that we had seen in the media and that we were hearing from many community members, and we wanted to see if that’s consistent with what the data would tell us. And both Francis Pearman at Stanford and I, along with Max Marchitello, looked at this in a couple of different ways, and however we cut the data, we did find that there was that disproportionality.
Jason:
Mm-hmm.
Carrie:
That was particularly true for Black students. And the second thing that we looked into was what the evidence tells us about how concerned we should be about that. We looked at the relationship between school closures and eventual budgetary savings and found that, based on kind of our review of the literature, that there are short-term costs, but there can be long-term savings. And we also looked at the impact on students, and in particular were wondering what kind of effect could school closures have on academic achievement and other markers of student wellbeing? And [we] found that the data are quite mixed and it’s really contextual. It really depends how school leaders tackle those closures. And we can talk about that more perhaps. And then finally, in the report, we surfaced a few recommendations. Those focused largely on how district leaders engage with the community, what kinds of strategies they put in place when they close schools, and how they interact with other city agencies. So, the report really tried to identify the problem, which was disproportionality, and then through interviews with district leaders, with policy makers, and with some review of school closure processes both in California and elsewhere, to lift up some potential solutions.
Jason:
That’s great. And I think we’re going to touch on all of those. I’m wondering, when you looked at the data for California, particularly around closures, what was it specifically telling you? You had raised one issue in particular that I think you had said, no matter how we cut the data, we were constantly finding disproportionality was emerging around where closures were taking place or where they were being proposed. What other patterns were you seeing show up across the data that you guys investigated around school closure?
Carrie:
The first thing that was surprising to us is that school closures have been relatively uncommon during the past 10 years. In any given year, we found that somewhere between 50 to 80 schools are typically closed in California, which might sound like a lot, but we have 10,000 schools. So, on average, roughly 17,000 students have been displaced each year during the past decade, which is less than half a percent of our public school enrollment.
Jason:
Mm-Hmm.
Carrie:
But we also found that there are probably reasons to suggest that those closures are likely to increase. And we’ve already talked about some of those. So, we were surprised that there haven’t been more, but we have reason to believe there will be more. We also found that not only were Black students more likely to be affected, in fact, they were more than two and a half times as likely to attend a school that closed as compared with, um, their peers. But charter and urban schools were also more likely to close. So, these closures have been predominantly concentrated in urban areas, particularly affecting students of color, particularly Black students, and charter schools for other reasons, we believe are also more likely to close. They’re also more likely to open; there’s just more churn amongst charter schools.
[16:04]
Jason:
Yeah, and just to pull that apart, too, I’m wondering, Carrie, if you can talk a little bit about if there were any linkages to, you had named one of the geographic characteristics as really being around the urbanicity, right? Which, if that’s where most of these school closures are occurring, you have larger concentrations of charter schools, urban systems, [and] they’re going to be disproportionately impacted. I’m wondering in terms of this, like what’s spurred on the closure change? If you saw any difference between charters and traditional schools? You know, in California, many of our listeners understand that the rules under which a charter school can continue to operate versus a traditional school are really different. And I’m just curious if that showed up at all in the analysis that you were doing around school closures between those two types of schools.
Carrie:
We did not look at the reasons for the difference between charter and traditional. That’s an interesting question. I think that within the urban areas, a big part of the explanation is simply that those are the high-cost coastal areas. And so that’s where there are more likely to be closures. They’re also places where they’re more likely to be charter schools, so there’s a relationship between the two.
Jason:
Yeah.
Carrie:
Charter schools are often, well, they do disproportionately serve Black students in California. And so, there you have another layer where these things are all connected. So, you’ve got these high cost urban areas with a lot of churn, a lot of upheaval in terms of housing, a lot of gentrification -- families are being pushed out to lower-cost areas. A lot of times what happens with gentrification though, is the families that stay put, that are left in those communities, are the ones that are more likely to continue to send their students to those schools. So, you look at some places like East Oakland, for instance, and even though that area has been rapidly gentrifying, the schools continue to be disproportionately Black and low income, despite the neighborhood having shifted quite a bit.
Jason:
Yep.
Carrie:
And, as a result of families who are coming in less likely to have children and less likely to send their children to those local schools, you have a decline in enrollment in those schools, which creates all kinds of concentrated challenges in those school sites. Charter schools pop up as a potential solution, but the churn and upheaval continues. You see this closure pattern affecting those communities even as they’re gentrifying. And in turn, one of the things Dr. Peerman has found is those closures themselves drive gentrification as well. So, it’s a vicious cycle.
Jason:
Yeah. I mean, it almost sounds Carrie, to me, like when you’re describing this interaction between housing and housing trends in a certain community and the enrollment for a system declining enrollment that may lead to school closures, you’re basically describing like a self-fulfilling prophecy. But it’s as if the community doesn’t even, or isn’t even aware of it because those two sectors aren’t necessarily coordinating or talking with one another.
[19:09]
Carrie:
Yeah, exactly -- and that’s how you end up with communities where you might have activists who are protesting school closures and activists who are also protesting the development of new affordable housing. They – you can’t have both. So, the solutions to keeping families in these communities and keeping resources in these communities needs to include making these communities affordable. But that means tackling exclusionary zoning laws and getting involved in things like the housing elements -- and there just isn’t precedent for education leaders and housing leaders working together on those kinds of things.
Jason:
Yeah, I mean, I appreciate that point, and I would definitely agree with that. One other thing that like comes to mind here, too, is at the very least, there’s a lot of common ground. I mean, both -- it seems the education and housing sectors -- are, let’s call it a very local game, right? There’s a lot of autonomy…
Carrie:
Mm-Hmm.
Jason:
In the way that policies, regulations, rules are set out. So maybe that’s a starting place? But just curious if in your research you came across anything that might resemble or look like the budding part of a partnership or a solution set that would help to provide a path for some of these communities?
Carrie:
That’s a really great question. One of the things I think we need more of are those solutions and models. In fact, when I’ve talked with people, that’s what they’re looking for.
Jason:
Mm-Hmm.
Carrie:
The one that we hear most about is the development of vacant lands. You know, closing these schools, you have empty buildings. You also have unused district property, which of course is really valuable. There is the potential then to address some of these local housing needs. And so, you could imagine a situation in which we would develop those lands for affordable housing for families So far, most of the conversation has been around using those lands to develop housing for teachers to address another need. And in many ways, that’s a win-win because you have a revenue generating strategy for the district; you make use of those vacant lands; you also address your workforce recruitment and retention challenges. So that’s really helpful and positive. I think that the challenge with that is, it doesn’t necessarily address the broader affordable housing challenges in that community or the needs of the families. So, I’d be interested in models that start to get at that -- but those are the kinds of partnerships that we’ve experimented with that we could probably build upon.
[22:00]
Music Interlude.
Jason:
You mentioned that as part of the research you considered the evidence as to what extent school closures actually save a school district money. This is another key area I was hoping you might unpack for us a bit more?
Carrie:
Yeah. Over the long term, the research, what we’ve seen in districts across the nation, suggests that budget savings can be realized. They, the closures, lead to a more efficient deployment of personnel. Certainly, districts can achieve economies at scale. They can potentially also reduce their facility costs depending on what they do with those facilities. In the short term, however, districts often overestimate the cost savings. That leads to a little bit of tension with the community, in that the district might publish a number that it’s not able to achieve. And that’s because closures must also be accompanied by a reduction in force (RIF). That’s the biggest reason. We know that the single biggest expense for any school district is its personnel. Closing the school site, though, is a hard enough action, that putting in place a reduction in force at the same time might be politically challenging for a district or even untenable – and so a lot of times districts will close school sites, but then end up shuffling personnel to other placements, which doesn’t really result in a payroll reduction. And so the RIF is a really important thing that needs to closely follow. There are also one-time costs that just come from moving students and teachers and repurposing the facility, training teachers if they’re going to new school sites that have particular programs or PD requirements, and then there are the ongoing costs that come with managing the surplus property -- again, depending on what districts do with it. And it can take a long time to figure out how to let go of that surplus property or to find a new revenue source for say a community partner or another educational purpose in that school building. So, what we’ve seen is that the messaging around budget savings often gets ahead of the reality, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not the right long-term fiscal decision for the school district.
Jason:
Yeah. I mean, one of the things that I just want to lift up here, Carrie, that seems like really important is that, you know, we often think about an issue as being something that you can make a decision and then move on. But this seems like both in terms of the preparation associated with even moving to a recommendation of consolidating or closing schools, let alone the follow-up work of having the system then adjusting to that and the ramifications it has on student assignment to schools, staff assignment to schools, management of property that may not be used or active or seeking other tenants for that property. I mean, there seem to be quite a lot of ripples here that could go on for months after even an initial decision is made by the board.
Carrie:
That’s very true. It’s also a reason that it makes sense to get ahead of it. A lot of times districts are pushing off these decisions for as long as possible, and then when they make them, they might close one school site, but know that the next year they have to close another and then maybe in two years close another. One district we spoke with made clear that what worked for them is they got ahead of it. They looked at their long-term demographic projections and started to consolidate sites before they had to, so that they had years to see the dust settle [and] to get the facility resituated, to get the budget kind of settled. It also prevented it from being such a hot button toxic issue within the community. I know it’s not always possible, but this pattern of kicking the can down the road as long as possible just doesn’t make sense when you realize that this is a multi-year decision that’s going to take a long time to resolve itself.
Jason:
One of the other key recommendations that you had in the, in the report was, quote, school district leaders must center racial and socioeconomic equity when considering whether and how to close or consolidate schools. And I’m wondering for our listeners, if you can just talk a bit about what does centering equity really mean in this context for you?
Carrie:
By centering equity, we mean having decisions about budgets informed by considerations about what that means for communities and students, particularly low-income students and students of color. But those implications are front and center; they’re not afterthoughts or unfortunate collateral that comes out of the decision.
Jason:
Hmm. So, would one of the implications, just like to play this out, if I’m a school leader, I’m a CBO in a district, and I’m really centering any decisions that we are making about the consolidation or closure of schools around racial and socioeconomic equity, the impacts that students are having, could that have meaningful implications for the actual selection of schools that are chosen for consolidation or closure?
Carrie:
Sure. It absolutely could. A lot of times historically when districts have drawn up their list of potential sites for closure, they’ve looked at utilization -- you know, which sites are under-enrolled relative to their capacity. And that’s been the biggest driver of those decisions.
Jason:
Yep.
Carrie:
You could imagine that a district could have a longer list of criteria. It could look at the demographics of the school site. It could look at the performance, particularly the value add, of the school site. It could look at the opportunities that are available at that school site for students with special needs. It could look at any number of things, but having things that relate to disproportionality or equitable services as part of that list and not just look at utilization would be a way to broaden it. I think it also signals to the community that this is not just a fiscal and technical exercise. This is a decision that affects students and families. And by making that clear from the criteria that we select to the data that we publish to the final list is a way to signal that may or may not ultimately impact the list of schools that are actually chosen for closure, but it is an important part of the community engagement process. And it could change the way we think about which sites we might want to close. It might lead to a decision, for example, to say, instead of closing the predominantly low income school in the declining enrollment neighborhood, what if we close a school kind of in between that site and our highest opportunity, highest performing school site, and change our transportation patterns, our zoning, other things so that we’re integrating our schools and addressing broader priorities related to equity, instructional success, [and] other priorities that we might have as a district and not fiscal solvency?
Jason:
Yeah, particularly for chief business officers, they may really think about this as a fiscal and operational exercise. And what I hear from you is that that is certainly one component. It’s very tangible and practical, but in some ways that is only a piece of the storyline, the narrative -- the impact that school closures or consolidations can have on the fabric of a community, and that it’s really important for educational leaders to attend to that element of the change process, and maybe in some cases, actually, you know, is the meaningful part of what is successful or not around this change strategy that the system is initiating.
Carrie:
Mm-Hmm. I, I love the way you framed that. And our districts have had practice with this with LCFF, which really created more collaboration between budget offices and instructional offices and centered the budget around those broader priorities that the district has. So maybe we can think about this as something that could move forward in that spirit and doesn’t need to look like the closures of the past. Not that we had as many closures in the past, but, you know, [it] at least provides a blueprint and a roadmap for how to work together across offices within districts.
Jason:
Yeah. I really like that connection, Carrie. I mean -- and that is to say that our systems in California, LEAs have had that practice -- obviously not directly on this issue -- but the practice of working across departments, the practice of engaging stakeholders is there. And so that muscle is at least, you know, somewhat tuned to the types of activities that would go along with taking on what I think many would say is a really tough and contentious topic at times.
Carrie:
That’s right.
[31:32]
Music interlude.
Jason:
One of the things that we’ve seen in recent years is the state of California has started to weigh in on the issue of school closures, and there’s been some legal action in the state against an LEA or a few perhaps. And I’m wondering if you can share about those developments and kind of thoughts that you have about where the state’s role is when it comes to supporting, guiding the way that school districts are trying to navigate this topic?
Carrie:
Hmm, it’s a good question because we usually think of budgets and school closures as a hyper-local issue.
Jason:
Yeah.
Carrie:
But yes, the state has become more engaged in this issue. I’d say in California more than we’ve seen in any other state. And this is not an issue that’s only affecting California. So, it’s interesting to see the state try to figure its role out.
Jason:
Hmm.
Carrie:
In 2022, the governor signed into law a bill requiring that districts in fiscal distress, which is a very specific definition that affects only a handful of districts, but that those districts perform what they called an equity impact analysis before approving the closure consolidation of a school site. That was a bill authored by Assemblymember Mina Bonta. And it so far has only impacted a couple of school districts, but it was required that they look closely at the impact of their closure decisions on specific student groups, including students of color before making those final decisions. And then roughly six months after that bill, we saw that Attorney General Rob Bonta issued guidance declaring that it was essential that school closure decisions comply with federal and state civil rights law. He references this assembly bill in that guidance, but also a host of other federal and state laws related to equal protection. And it essentially draws a line between closure decisions or consolidation decisions and equal protection laws, which essentially ratchets up the pressure for school districts to think about disproportionality when making these decisions.
And then at the same time, you’ve got some lawsuits that are essentially testing these theories. So, there’s a lawsuit that was filed by MALDEF in Pasadena Unified, I believe in 2022, that claims that when the school district closed several school sites serving predominantly Latino students, the district violated the state equal protection clause. I don’t know where that case stands right now, but it is certainly elevating this question about whether a district can close school sites that are going to have a disproportionate effect. And then if they do, when they identify these sites for closure, it kind of also raises the question about what are the alternative solutions? What are the potential remedies in a case like that? In regards to the state’s role, I think first of all, it’s consistent with a lot of California’s progressive messaging about equity and equal protection. At the same time, I wouldn’t be surprised if this has created some confusion for school districts who are also responsible for balancing their budgets and developing three-year budgets that are tenable. It’s also potentially in conflict – or maybe not in conflict – but in tension with support being provided to school districts in fiscal distress, which is requiring that they right-size their budgets and look at the number of school sites as part of getting to a place where they’re fiscally sustainable. So if they have to consolidate or close school sites, and yet they’re going to potentially face kind of legal scrutiny for doing so, it puts them in a really tough place.
Jason:
Yeah. I mean, I appreciate this last point in particular because I think that many of our listeners would raise that. They would say, well, listen, if I’m being held to a standard of keeping our system financially healthy on the one hand by a state agency, which, you know, basically is the Department of Education via the County Office of Education through AB 1200 -- and then on the other hand, I’m being told by another arm of the state in the Attorney General’s office that I have to ensure that I’m abiding by equal opportunity, equal protection clauses of federal law and, you know, adopted into state law, that can be a bit of a rock and a hard place. But maybe we go back to what you were saying before, Carrie, around the solution setting, which is, you’ve gotta start early on this, and you can’t think about this as simply a financial or operational exercise. You really do have to engage the community -- and in both of these cases, the state probably has a good point. We want our public, local school systems to be financially healthy, but at the same time we want to make sure that they are not crossing a line in not providing that equal opportunity or equal protection to all those that they serve.
Carrie:
Mm-Hmm. It’s really tricky. I’d be curious to know whether the state getting involved here provides any kind of cover to school districts.
Jason:
Hmm?
Carrie:
No school district leader wants to close school sites -- but they also want to build a healthy fiscal future for their community -- and that might involve consolidating schools. But we know from experience that closing that really popular school in a wealthy community serving predominantly white families is often a just a political non-starter. That’s a really tough thing to do. But what if that is part of the solution? Does the state getting involved here provide a little bit of cover for the district to say, you know what, we’re going to close this school or consolidate this school with this other one further away, and in the process, we’re going to offer these kinds of great educational opportunities to more kids and to a more diverse set of kids? Maybe there’s something here that could help guide or support districts in achieving those kinds of goals?
Jason:
Yeah, I mean, I really appreciate that idea, in particular because the air cover, we’ve seen this happen with other, you know, state policies -- LCFF at its dawn was one that provided a lot of air cover for districts to be thinking about a lot of these changes. And in this way, too, on balance, in thinking about the issue of closures and consolidation, it provides a way that district leaders might be able to navigate this really tricky issue, this really contentious issue in their community.
Carrie:
Mm-Hmm.
Jason:
Well, we’re coming to the end, and so I wanted to both step back because we’ve kind of weaved in talking about some of the recommendations that the report discusses for local and state leaders, and just wanted to open up the opportunity for you to highlight any other recommendations that you think are important to get in front of district leaders in California?
[39:00]
Carrie:
One that we haven’t really talked about is the importance of pairing a school closure process with an affirmative strategy to provide students that are going to be displaced through those closures with high quality educational opportunities.
Jason:
Mm-Hmm.
Carrie:
We talked a little bit about consolidation and integration of schools as a way to achieve that, but there are also examples that we’ve seen, including in California, that reserve and prioritize seats for those displaced students in the highest quality schools in the district. And there are examples of other kinds of district enrollment systems that give priority to these students and their families. But I think that’s something that’s worth considering as part of a broader strategy to ensure that educational quality is something that follows. What’s clear from the research is that when schools are closed, most students go to the geographically next-closest school. That’s usually where they’re shuffled to or where they choose to go. But the reality is also that schools that are closed are often low performing schools, and the schools that are close to them are often similarly underperforming. So breaking that pattern is going to be really important if a school closure process is going to lead to both higher quality opportunities for that individual student, but also for the community as a whole. So, thinking about those kinds of things and pairing them with the means for students to attend those schools will be important – so addressing transportation services, you know, also thinking about how do you provide support for the teachers who are displaced and are going to new school sites? How do you strengthen that school community, ensure that they have the training and support that they need, and then serving that broader school community that’s receiving the students and the teachers during the year or two that follows in order to help build a kind of a strong new school culture, because that’s a really disruptive process for everybody involved, not just the kids who are displaced from the closed building. So those are a few things that we lift up in our report. And I think that you’ll hear that the common theme is really centering the experience of the student, particularly those who have been historically underserved throughout this process, not just during the closure decision point, but in the year or two that follows to ensure that we’re really supporting them and building stronger educational opportunities for everybody.
Jason:
Yeah. And I think that you add a little bit of additional detail, which I really appreciate, that really underscores one of the things we were talking about before, which is, this decision-making process around consolidation or closure takes a lot of time. And there are numerous ripples that come from decisions that boards will make about the consolidation or closure of schools and attending to the needs of those transitions -- you’ve used the word displace a couple of times, and I think it’s apt in that description -- because it creates disruption when folks are asked to move from one place to another, they have to reestablish their relationships, they have to reestablish the kind of culture with new students or new staff. And so [I] really appreciate that recommendation in particular.
I wanted to end, Carrie, just by opening it up to you. We’ve kind of covered quite a bit; I’ve been really fascinated by the way that you all took on this research. And I think [it] probably affirms in some ways, a lot of the way that practitioners have maybe been experiencing these issues in the past, but also brings to light some really important principles to take heed of if systems are going to be taking it on. Was there anything else that we missed that you thought was really important to make sure we got on the record?
Carrie:
Well, one of the things we were struck by in doing this research is just how little we know about the best ways to handle school consolidations, closures, and downsizing more generally.
Jason:
Mm-Hmm.
Carrie:
This is a new point and time for the education system. In California, we’ve been growing, growing, growing for decades. You know, back in the 1990s and 2000s, we were figuring out how to do multiple tracks so we get more students into a school site, and now we’re going in the opposite direction. We need more models of effective practice for how to do this. We need to understand how you do things like consolidate high schools in a way that still ensures a high quality experience for adolescents. We need to know about different models for offering school options and managing attendance zones. We need to know more about what to do with vacant properties and how to leverage that as an opportunity to offer a full set of services for families in the community. So, I was surprised that we’re kind of entering a new place where we know the challenges, but we don’t know the solutions. So, that’s what I hope other researchers and practitioners can help surface in the years ahead.
Jason:
Yeah, that’s a great point. I mean, we’re still really early in our own understanding of what’s effective, what the evidence is around this, and I think that offers perhaps a word of caution to practitioners of saying, like, there are some things out there, but we don’t know all things -- and so taking judicious steps to make sure that we’re really holding the, I think to use your words, the need of the student, the need of the community at the center of the decision making around this seems really important. So, I really appreciate your bringing that as a really strong theme to the conversation today.
Carrie:
Well, I appreciate you asking these questions and lifting this up -- and look forward to continuing to support the policymakers and district leaders in California as they navigate this.
Jason:
Awesome.
[45:03]
Theme music begins.
Jason:
Well, that’s going to close us out for this episode. A big thanks to Carrie Hahnel for sharing so much information and valuable insight. And also thanks to her co-authors -- Max Marchitello on the report and Dr. Francis A. Pearman II on the policy brief – both which were produced by PACE and we will include links to in the Show Notes.
Our podcast is produced in partnership between the California Association of School Business Officials, CASBO, and WestEd. The series is written and produced by me, Jason Willis, and by Paul Richman. Tommy Dunbar handles all of our music, sound and editing. Hannah Jarmolowski and Alyssa Perez at WestEd provide additional research and prepare the companion briefs for many of the episodes.
Thanks so much – and we’ll see you out there.