Close your school, Not Your Doors – An Innovative Approach to School Closures

James P. Lee

Close your school, Not Your Doors – An Innovative Approach to School Closures

Paradise Valley Unified Superintendent Dr. James P. Lee shared how painful school closure can be and compared it to “a root canal.” Emotions run on a multitude of different levels when the subject is closing schools. According to Anne Greenburg, Governing Board president, when recalling a former closure of a school, Gold Dust Elementary, “It tore the community apart.” Board member Julie Bacon agreed. 

Dr. Lee explained that this time around “their goal was to provide schools the opportunity to increase enrollment and drop the subject on school closure completely, if possible.” Therefore, schools came up with unique programs to attract new student market share. Once a school came up with ideas, the district supported them on marketing efforts. However, after an effort to increase enrollment they still had to close two schools. The decision was based on the fact that they couldn’t afford what they were currently doing and keeping the schools open was affecting the entire district. 

The plan they came up with was to make every effort in advance to mitigate the negative emotions. When initially looking at school closures, more than just student count data was reviewed including:

• Academics
• Title I impacts
• Special Education needs
• Transportation impact
• Further cost savings

Dr. Lee and his Cabinet met with school staffs and school councils and gave everyone the opportunity to be heard. The key leading to success was listening.  At a Governing Board Study Session, they organized the meeting in a big enough venue to support the large crowds. The format of the meeting was public questions, followed by answers and then followed by public comments. People left the meeting with all their questions answered and all their concerns heard. 

Strengths of the process included listening-focused, organizing meetings to learn and changing wording such as using repurpose instead closure, priorities instead of recommendations, etc. Celebrations included a revenue savings of half a million dollars a year per school. 

The session was closed with question and answer time with the audience. It was agreed that no matter what the process, school closure is very emotional. 

ASPRA Reporter Anne-Marie Woolsey, Scottsdale Unified