School districts across the country are closing campuses as enrollment falls. New research says the financial savings may be smaller than expected.
Public schools across the country are closing campuses as enrollment falls and costs rise, in part to save money. In Cleveland, for example, students return this year to a district with almost a third of its schools closed or merged. But new research challenges whether that will actually help save money. Ideastream Public Media's Conor Morris reports.
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST: (Singing) (inaudible).
CONOR MORRIS, BYLINE: Nerves and excitement are running high at this Welcome Back To School event and Mound School of the Arts in Cleveland's Slavic Village neighborhood. There's a DJ, colorful balloons and a cookout. For arts teacher Kristin Plambeck, this week is her first time teaching at a new school in more than 20 years.
KRISTIN PLAMBECK: Part of me feels like a first-year teacher (laughter), and another part of me feels like I've been doing this so long, I know what I'm doing.
MORRIS: The district merged the K-8 school where Plambeck worked, Dike School of the Arts, with Mound Elementary, and it became the Mound School of the Arts. In total, Cleveland school leaders closed or merged 29 schools this fall in a district of almost 90 schools. It's been smooth sailing so far for Plambeck.
PLAMBECK: This art room here at Mound School of the Arts is gorgeous. It's a really nice facility, and I'm feeling very optimistic.
MORRIS: Cleveland schools' enrollment dropped by more than half, from about 74,000 in the year 2000 to just 34,000 in 2025. School leaders estimate it will save 30 million a year for a district that faces big deficits, and leaders say it will mean Cleveland can focus more resources on the schools that remain. But new research looking at almost a decade of school closures in California is challenging some of those assumptions. Francis Pearman, an assistant professor of education at Stanford University who led the research, says closing schools isn't always the best solution.
FRANCIS PEARMAN: You know, in industry, we know that the last thing a firm does is close the factory, right? But it seems like in school systems, the first thing you want to do is close the factory, right?
MORRIS: He says school costs are generally tied up in staff pay and benefits rather than buildings. And Pearman says many schools in California ended up losing funding tied to student enrollment. That could be due to dozens of reasons, including nearby private and charter schools siphoning students away after the nearest public option closes.
Georgetown University professor Marguerite Roza calls what schools are going through the big shrink. She says it's partly due to schools delaying cutting staff and operations, despite years of enrollment dropping. This year alone, more than a dozen big school districts from Houston to Philadelphia are closing schools, and Roza says more closures are on the way.
MARGUERITE ROZA: So districts might need to really think over the next 10 years, if our enrollment trends continue, what would be a plan that doesn't – you know, that doesn't hit the same families again and again and again.
MORRIS: National research suggests students' academics suffer in the short term and potentially in the long term after a school is closed. Back in Cleveland, the first week of class with hundreds of students and teachers and new schools has had a few hiccups. Kids have been dropped off at the wrong bus stops, and some classes have been overcrowded. Teacher Chris Legrair says, during these first few weeks of school, he worries about kids from the merged schools not getting along at their new Mound School of the Arts.
CHRIS LEGRAIR: I think it's just the culture, like, so the little rifts between the Mound kids and the DSA kids, and them still holding on to, like, their old identities and us trying to get them to understand, like, now we're one.
MORRIS: A district spokesperson says, so far, Cleveland school leaders are happy with how the consolidation plan has rolled out. But the full impact of consolidation in Cleveland and elsewhere won't be known for years to come. For NPR News, I'm Conor Morris in Cleveland.
