Rising rents, falling enrollment: San Jose district plans to close two schools

Despite protests by parents, students and neighbors, a San Jose Evergreen School District advisory committee has recommended the closure of Laurelwood and Dove Hill elementary schools after years of declining enrollment and budget shortfalls anticipated to reach $12.5 million in the district.

The Evergreen School District consists of 18 schools that serve about 11,000 East San Jose students in kindergarten through eighth grade. District enrollment has significantly declined in recent years — and the district expects the trend to continue as more of its families move out of the area because of the Bay Area’s rising cost of living.

“I know that this situation is very personal for our families, but I am a superintendent of 18 schools and I do need to advocate for our entire district and our overall health, which will ultimately allow us to be able to provide high-quality programs and world-class education,” Evergreen Superintendent Emy Flores said in an interview.

Since its peak enrollment of 13,400 students during the 2005-06 school year, the number of students attending district schools has declined 20 percent, which equates to a loss of nearly $28 million in state funding, according to district figures. Over the next five years, the district projects it will lose another 1,300 students — or $12.1 million in state funding.

Looking at its anticipated revenues and expenses, the district anticipates that it will be at least $12.5 million in the hole by the 2021-22 school year if things continue on this track without making significant cuts to the operating budget.

Although the district has been in financial trouble for years and school closures have been an ongoing topic of discussion, former superintendents and school board members have continuously opted not to move forward with the idea. But when Superintendent Flores took over the district this year, she felt that it was one of the district’s best options to dig itself out of mounting debt.

“The last thing any board wants to do is close a school, but we’re at a place in history now, where we just can’t continue to function like we have the same funding that we had ten years ago,” Flores said.

In September, the Santa Clara County Department of Education notified the district that it would only approve its budget if it made some significant strides at managing its budget, including creating a fiscal stabilization plan. As part of that plan, the district’s board of trustees decided that it would shuttle two schools when classes ended this spring and an additional school at the end of the 2020-21 school year.

Over the last three months, an advisory committee — consisting of two dozen parents, community partners, principals and teachers chosen through an application process — was tasked with deciding which schools to close, what the new school boundaries would look like and how to support the transition of students.

Flores instructed the committee that four schools would not be included for closure consideration — the district’s three middle schools, which each have multiple elementary schools that feed into them, and Holly Oak, which will offer the district’s first dual immersion program next year.

The committee evaluated the remaining 14 schools using a wide range of criteria from the schools’ enrollment levels to the condition of facilities to the proximity to nearby schools.

Tami Compton, a teacher in the district and a member of the school consolidation advisory committee, said that the decision was made with “very heavy hearts” from everyone on the committee

“Usually when you work this hard on a task, you walk away with a feeling of satisfaction of the accomplishment and pride of what you were able to do. But with this task, that definitely wasn’t the feeling for many of us,” Compton told the board and the audience at the Quimby Oak Middle School gymnasium where nearly 50 concerned residents showed up to protest the closures.

Laurelwood Elementary is a high-performing school that serves about 290 students — a fifth of whom receive free or reduced lunch. Dove Hill Elementary is a lower-performing school that serves about 380 students — approximately 40 percent of whom are English learners and 60 percent receive free or reduced lunch, according to California’s Department of Education School Dashboards.

Peter Goldsmith, a resident of the Dove Hill neighborhood and a father of two former Dove Hill Elementary students, said that the school represents a centerpiece of a vibrant and diverse community. Because the school is made up of primarily working-class Latino and Asian families, Goldsmith fears that the school may have been chosen because its families can’t be as politically active and outspoken as parents of other schools in the district.

“We shouldn’t be sacrificing one community for other communities,” Goldsmith said in an interview. “That’s not fair. That’s not social justice. It’s not the right thing to do.”

Judy Thong, PTA president at Laurelwood Elementary and a mother of a second-grade student at the school, said she feels like the district lacks a “sound long-term plan.”

“If we’re to be the sacrificial lambs, then we need to make changes across the board,” Thong said. “And I don’t see that here. I see this as they’re closing two schools, and if that doesn’t work, they’re going to keep closing schools.”

The district does plan to close a third school at the end of next school year, however that school has yet to be chosen.

In addition to closing the schools at the end of the spring semester, the district also plans to eliminate at least three district management positions, require two furlough days for all district employees and lease its vacant properties. Flores said she has already received interest from private, charter and special education schools interested in becoming tenants of the shuttered schools.

The school board is holding another public hearing at 6 p.m. on February 3 in the Chaboya Middle School Gymnasium before making its final decision on the recommended school closures at a board meeting on February 13.

This trend is not limited to Evergreen School District, as other Bay Area districts are facing similar situations. Earlier this month, the Ravenswood School District, which serves 2,000 students in East Palo Alto and Menlo Park, announced that it would be closing two elementary schools as well.

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