School closures—commonly touted as a financially responsible strategy to right-size cash-strapped districts—often do not improve districts’ financial standing, according to a new study out of California.
Even worse: Any money actually saved from closing a school building is largely offset by funding lost when affected students withdraw from the district to attend school somewhere else.
The study, led by Francis Pearman, an assistant professor of education at Stanford University, examined school closure data across California between 2011 and 2019.
It adds to a growing body of research that suggests the seemingly simple rationale that operating fewer school buildings lowers districts’ expenditures is not so clear-cut. And it comes out at a time when districts across the country confronting dwindling enrollment and uncertainty about future funding from state and federal sources have released plans to downsize their physical footprint.
“The assumption is just so baked into the logic of closure decisions that it’s assumed closures will save money, so it can be really hard for leaders to combat that thinking. This is a really important piece of evidence as districts navigate these conversations and decisions,” said Mara Tieken, a professor of education at Bates College in Maine, who has studied the effects of school closures. She was not part of Pearman’s new research.
Pearman could not be reached for comment.
In recent years, districts—often smaller, rural ones but also larger, urban systems facing significant enrollment declines—have turned to campus closures of older or under-enrolled schools, in the hopes that shuttering those buildings will reduce fixed costs from electricity, heating and cooling, and maintenance. Sometimes, districts view closures as a chance to maintain or expand academic offerings, too, as it becomes difficult to sustain those offerings for a shrinking student body.
Districts usually try to reassign teachers to other schools, rather than eliminate their positions, so there are limited, if any, cost savings in staffing—which makes up the biggest category of expenditures in district budgets.
Earlier research has shown that districts could expect to save less than 5% of their overall budget when they close a school, and often the fallout in the community is widespread, damaging morale for those affected.
Other research has found that even when a school building closes and students and staff move elsewhere, the building itself still costs money.
A district has to pay for some maintenance on shuttered buildings so they don’t become neighborhood eyesores. And the process of shutting down a building costs money, as does preparing the facility for sale.
The new study out of California bolsters those findings, suggesting that school closures reduced both per-pupil expenditures and revenues by approximately $440 each—meaning that districts essentially break even.
The study also found that closures resulted in average enrollment losses for a district of about 287 students in the following five years; in California, that equates to roughly $2.4 million annually in lost money based on per-pupil funding allocations from the state. At the same time, closures had no significant effects on the number of district staff. In other words, districts lose per-pupil funding for students who enroll elsewhere following a building closure, while maintaining staffing costs, the research says.
“In this era where there’s this move toward privatization, there are even more ways for students to leave the district, so I would imagine that, if anything, closure is going to become an even less fiscally sound option in the future,” Tieken said.
The findings were consistent across districts of all sizes, locations, demographic makeups, and financial conditions before they decided to close schools.
Districts may also incur costs for things like developing student reassignment plans, reconfiguring transportation routes, and legal expenses incurred if community members challenge the decisions in court.
“Under these conditions, the expenditure savings that motivate closure as a fiscal strategy are unlikely to materialize in full, which helps explain why point estimates for total expenditures are imprecise and why no net improvement in fiscal health is observed,” the research concludes.
The findings—paired with the results of prior research that has found school closures can hurt student achievement as well as students’ long-term outcomes, and that students of color are disproportionately affected—mean that schools should weigh the consequences of school closures carefully, the new Stanford study said.
If districts do consider building closures, they should make honest assessments of the potential negative impacts versus the benefits, Tieken said.
Some guiding questions that can help begin that process: Does closing the school save a meaningful amount of money, and in what ways? Does closing the school increase academic opportunities for students? Are there enough seats in competitive or choice programs at the schools to which students would be reassigned to allow them access? Is the burden of closure equitably shared across demographics? How would the closure affect the local community outside of the school system, including the local economy?
A school closure will still make sense for some districts after they weigh all these questions, Tieken said.
In those cases, district leaders should be intentional about how they communicate decisions and plan well in advance to ensure affected students’ education doesn’t suffer. Schools could consider having two valedictorians for a couple years where students are rezoned or high schools are combined, and reserving a set number of seats in advanced courses for students from the closed school, Tieken said.
“These are small ways you can plan ahead to ensure access is maintained or expanded for students, and that these opportunities are really afforded to all of the students,” Tieken said.
