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Between 20-plus years of plunging birth rates and, more recently, the historically unprecedented fact that more Americans are now moving out of California than into it, state demographics are changing profoundly. This is why the Golden State lost 800,000 in population in the three-year period ending in January. It’s also why public school enrollment declined every year from 2016 through 2023. This fall, 5.8 million students are enrolled in K-12 schools, down from the high of 6.3 million in 2004-05. State forecasters expect the number to keep dropping to under 5.4 million students in 2030.
Since funding is pegged under state law to average daily student counts in each school, districts of all sizes will be forced — eventually — to decide which of the more than 10,000 public schools in California need to be closed. With education dollars perpetually stretched thin, many schools will have to be shuttered on basic budget necessity grounds. But there is little evidence at the local or state level that enough is being done to prepare for this fraught future.
A recent story in The San Diego Union-Tribune by reporter Kristen Taketa hinted at the headaches ahead. It detailed the angst seen at several schools when San Diego Unified officials were forced to transfer teachers “to align staffing with declining enrollment” several weeks into the school year. The story noted these changes can be particularly hard on younger students who have formed bonds with teachers only for them to abruptly move on.
However, such disruptions will pale compared to those that occur when kids in many communities no longer can walk to campuses their families have grown up with. Other urban districts have far more pronounced declines, and San Diego Unified says no school closures are on the horizon. But with SDUSD enrollment down from about 103,000 to 96,500 students since fall 2019 — and with more declines expected — such decisions will be inevitable.
So how should officials in SDUSD and other districts — and state education leaders in Sacramento — prepare? They must start by focusing on a well-meaning but vague 2022 state law. AB 1912 ed the Legislature without a negative vote in response to Oakland Unified’s handling of proposed school closure decisions in 2021-22. In a flap that drew national attention, Black community leaders made a persuasive case that school officials were oblivious to the historical and cultural ramifications of closing certain campuses. Under the resulting law, districts facing financial pressure to close or consolidate schools can only take steps to do so after undertaking an “equity impact analysis” to determine effects on student populations.
In an ideal world, the state Department of Education would create best standards and practices to use in performing this analysis. Without such clarity, the law seems likely to become a blunt legal tool to keep districts from making decisions that discomfit anyone — leading to scenarios in which schools can virtually never be closed, even if districts have 40 percent less students. The case for far-reaching state guidance was made in EdSource in April by Carrie Hahnel, a senior fellow with Policy Analysis for California Education, and Francis A. Pearman, an assistant professor at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education. The scholars said the earlier that district employees, parents and students and local civic leaders knew that difficult decisions were coming — and how they would be made — the better. They warned that “rushed or nonexistent community engagement” invites a massive backlash.
Will this counsel be heeded? Maybe not. An aversion to conflict, and to the unflattering headlines that might result, is hardwired into many public officials. But on this issue, such an approach is particularly unfortunate because it ultimately will lead to more conflict — not less.
