School districts around the country are once again considering a round of permanent school closures as they face dwindling enrollment now and in the long run and the tightening budgets that result from it.
It’s a contentious and emotional process that the Aldine Independent school district north of Houston has navigated annually for the past three years.
Aldine has closed nine of its more than 70 campuses in the past two years, and in February, the district’s board approved the closure of two additional schools at the end of the 2025-26 school year.
Declining birth rates explain some of the shrinking population, said Superintendent LaTonya Goffney, as well as a sharp reduction in the number of immigrant students arriving in district schools. Texas is also launching its new private school choice program next school year, making public funds available for families to spend on private education.
The Aldine district first completed a comprehensive assessment of its campuses, looking at capacity, enrollment, building condition, and programming, Goffney said. Then, district leaders focused on “easy wins” that would cause the least community pain—combining two underenrolled elementary schools within a mile of each other, for example.
In an interview with Education Week, Goffney, who has led Aldine since 2018, discussed her district’s strategy for selecting schools for closure, navigating community members’ emotions about shutting down schools, and supporting staff who must change buildings.
Her advice for others in her situation?
- “Overcommunicate” and share more data with the community than some leaders may think is necessary.
- Release only the closure scenarios seriously under consideration so as not to raise unnecessary alarm about potential closures.
- Bring board and community members into the buildings slated for closure.
“One of the buildings was atrocious,” she said. “So, when the community members and board members came in, it was really powerful to see the condition—like bricks on the floor.”
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What drove your district to consider school closures?
From the 2015-16 school year to today, we’ve dropped from over 70,000 to 51,000 students, which is a decrease of more than 20% of our children. Over the span of 10 years, that means we’ve lost $113 million in per-pupil funding.
We can no longer afford to not think about how to be more efficient and right-size our district.
Last year alone, while we were forecasted to lose 1,200 kids, actually we lost over 4,000 kids, which is about $27 million.
There are many reasons for those drops—low birth rates and so on. But also, when I first started, newcomers to the country enrolling in our district were anywhere from 700 to 1,000 per year. Over the past couple of years, we’ve had an increase of fewer than 100.
What kind of data and context do you consider when making closure decisions?
We consider building condition, enrollment and building capacity and how that’s changed over time, school spending, and student achievement.
We can also look at the actual locations of schools.
Before I got here, the district did some reconfiguring of schools, and so you had some intermediate schools that had become elementary schools but were never retrofitted for that purpose or things like that.
Before we touched anything a couple of years ago, we did an assessment of our facilities, and then the first year, when we saw the drastic decline in students, is when we began to recommend to the board school closures.
We can no longer afford to not think about how to be more efficient and rightsize our district.
Our first year, we had three schools that we moved to close, and it’s never easy to close a school, but we had some low-hanging fruit there.
You had two elementaries that were right by each other, not even a football field away, and both of them were underenrolled. You don’t even have to go anywhere, the bus is going to stop basically in the same spot and so on.
School closure decisions are emotional for communities. How do you navigate that?
It’s perhaps some of the hardest work I’ve had to do. But what I’ve realized is the key is really to make sure people understand the ‘why’ and understand the problem.
It’s emotional when people have such a deep pride and connection with their community school, but when you show them the number of students we’ve lost, they’re almost clutching their pearls. And when you show them that just in the last year, we’ve lost over 4,000, and that equals a loss of $27 million in per-pupil funding, and that there are schools operating right next to each other that are both underenrolled so we could combine them and be much more efficient, they start to logically understand.
We show them our budget problems and how, if we keep going in this direction, we won’t be able to attract the best staff because we won’t have the money to give competitive raises and so on.
We want to keep being intentional about our cuts and think about how we rightsize in a way where we’re cutting the things that are no longer feasible or aren’t necessarily addressing the needs of today. We don’t want to go in with a hatchet and just swing recklessly.
That doesn’t mean the cuts we do make don’t still affect people.
It's perhaps some of the hardest work I've had to do. But what I've realized is the key is really to make sure people understand they ‘why’ and understand the problem.
Our school buildings are namesakes of people who are still alive and active in our communities. That’s one of the hardest parts—how do you honor the fact that a building was named after your parent or family member for 40-50 years, and then the building goes away?
Ultimately, our strength as a district is not in the brick and mortar, but it’s in all of our educators and our students, their resilience, and our family support. So we’re trying to continue to emphasize that as well.
How do you get those messages out?
You have to overcommunicate—early and often.
We have an FAQ page and we send out press releases periodically.
I have a parent-advisory committee, and we have a district educational committee that has parents and community members. I work with the local ministers and pastors in the area. I have a business committee. In all of these committees and advisory groups—as well as in all of my district meetings and board meetings—we have conversations about where we are in the process and the reasons we’re considering making the changes.
We also hold specific community meetings on the topic and school board meeting workshops.
Before we have those broader meetings, we try to narrow down our possible closure scenarios to ones that we really are considering, so that we don’t go out with the initial 60 different scenarios and get 60-something groups of people upset over things for no reason. We do start with a lot of options before we narrow them down to more realistic paths forward.
Then, when we hold these community meetings, we sometimes will do them in the buildings we are discussing closing so that the people could see why they were being closed.
One of the buildings, for example, was atrocious. So, when the community members and board members came in, it was really powerful to see the condition—like bricks on the floor.
I had been telling them that the building was older, but it was difficult because people have fond memories. But when they stepped into the school and saw it wasn’t air-conditioned and so on, they saw the need for that particular building to close very clearly.
We don’t want to go in with a hatchet and just swing recklessly. That doesn’t mean the cuts we do make don’t still affect people.
Even if necessary, closures are disruptive and unnerving for those affected. How do you discuss the changes with staff and students?
We make a point to reassure staff early that there are no anticipated job losses, and all team members in good standing will find a new role with us next year. Because annually we’re looking to fill 400 to 500 teaching positions just due to our normal turnover, so the positions are there.
The first year we did closures, the school board approved them on a Tuesday night, and on Wednesday morning, I went to all three campuses and assured the staff that they still have a job and that the red carpets will be rolled out for them. Long story short, we went through the process and we were actually able to retain over 90% of the staff.
The next year, we closed six campuses, and I did six of those meetings in one day because I wanted to make sure I could look them in the eye and assure them that they’re OK, that we appreciate them, and their purpose is here at Aldine. I told them, ‘I know you love this building, but you also love our children—you’re just going to love them in a different building.’
We ask our affected staff to give us their three top choices for their next placement site and we do our best to accommodate that.
We make sure they don’t have to pack anything from their classroom at the end of the year—just take their personal things home. We just try to make it as easy as possible on our staff.
The first year we did closures, the school board approved them on a Tuesday night and on Wednesday morning I went to all three campuses and assured the staff that they still have a job.
And then for our kids who are going to be rezoned, we have community meetings in which we tell them and their families what’s going to happen next. The receiving schools also host them, give them swag, tell them how excited they are that they’re going to be at their campus next year.
Any other advice for other superintendents going through this process?
I’d just say again to share more data than you think you need to, because it does help. My communications department says that silence creates speculation, so it’s important to just overly communicate.
And, as a superintendent, I have to lead even when it’s hard. I can’t choose not to lead in this moment, and then two or three years down the road, we’re having to do something even more drastic because I wasn’t responsive to this moment.
