School closures are accelerating in US, but more financial pain lies ahead
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pain → accelerate → US
Students in Vallejo, California, faced a challenging start to the school year as they adjusted to a new school after their previous one closed
VALLEJO, Calif. --
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one → face → school
Minutes before first bell, Penny Núñez-Brandão scanned the crowd outside Glen Cove Elementary School, looking for familiar faces.
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Brandão → scan → faces
“I don’t see any,” the fifth grader told her mom one morning in August.
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grader → see → August
“None of my friends are coming.”
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None → come → friends
The start of a new school year can be nerve-wracking under any circumstances.
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start → wrack → circumstances
But for Penny and thousands of students across the U.S., this academic year brought the added difficulty of adjusting to an entirely new school after their previous ones shuttered.
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ones → bring → school
As U.S. birth rates continue a multidecade slide and state and federal education funding dries up, an increasing number of cash-strapped school districts around the country have resorted to closing campuses to save money.
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number → continue → money
A total of 1,156 schools closed during the last academic year — the highest number since the pandemic, according to an analysis of federal data by Big Local News at Stanford University.
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total → close → University
At the same time, new research shows student enrollment has fallen much faster than schools are closing, suggesting more painful financial choices lie ahead.
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choices → show → time
_
AP is covering school closures in partnership with The Hechinger Report and Big Local News at Stanford University.
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AP → cover → University
The Vallejo City Unified School District, a working-class district near San Francisco, serves half as many students as it did two decades earlier.
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it → serve → students
District leaders have closed five campuses since 2025 — a quarter of its schools.
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leaders → close → schools
They’ve also placed up to a third of all staff positions on the chopping block to help plug a staggering $36 million deficit.
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They → place → deficit
Still, research shows closing schools rarely yields the financial relief districts hope for.
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districts → show → relief
Busing students to their reassigned schools, severance for pink-slipped staff and security for empty facilities often eat up any savings.
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severance → bus → savings
School closures can also set students back academically and make it harder to attract teachers, who may worry the jobs aren’t stable.
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jobs → set → teachers
Closing schools can also trigger a downward spiral, as frustrated families flee to charter or private schools or other districts.
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families → close → schools
In Vallejo, some parents said they chose to homeschool this fall or were planning to sell their homes and move to neighboring districts.
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they → say → districts
“Families are literally packing up their kids and moving away,” said Penny’s mother, Kimberly Núñez-Brandão, who already moved her older son to a competing charter school.
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who → pack → school
She recently attended Glen Cove’s curriculum night for families and shared her shock at learning Penny’s new teacher had 32 students in his first class.
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teacher → attend → class
“They already overwhelmed teachers with 30-plus students,” she said.
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she → overwhelm → students
“Who’s winning here?”
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Who → win → ?
Rubén Aurelio, superintendent for Vallejo schools, acknowledged cuts and closures can be hard for families but said they are necessary to correct for school districts and budgets designed for a different reality.
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they → acknowledge → reality
“We’re not just closing schools to close schools,” Aurelio said.
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Aurelio → close → schools
“We’re right-sizing a district that was built for significantly more kids.
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that → size → kids
And if we’re going to actually improve outcomes for the kids we still have, we need to concentrate resources.”
Nationwide, public school enrollment fell by more than 1.4 million students, roughly 3%, between fall 2019 and 2024, according to an Associated Press analysis of federal education data collected by Stanford University economist Thomas Dee and sociologist Jaymes Pyne.
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enrollment → go → Dee
The total number of schools has declined, too — but only to about pre-pandemic levels, the researchers found, suggesting closures are lagging enrollment declines.
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closures → decline → declines
Lower birth rates are the primary reason for enrollment decline, but a federal crackdown on immigration and the post-pandemic expansion of private school vouchers and homeschool options have contributed to the decline.
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crackdown → contribute → decline
Bellwether and WestEd, two research groups, recently estimated declining enrollment could cause schools to lose $11.5 billion in state revenue annually by 2030-2031, potentially prompting widespread layoffs, cuts to academic programs and school closures.
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schools → estimate → programs
In Vallejo, a city still struggling to bounce back from the closure of a naval base in the 1990s, enrollment has tumbled from nearly 18,000 in the fall of 2006 to about 9,300, according to the district.
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enrollment → struggle → district
California has recorded one of the nation’s most precipitous enrollment drops.
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California → record → drops
But school districts throughout the country, including large systems in Cleveland, Houston and Philadelphia, are facing similar closures.
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districts → include → closures
The enrollment and financial situation is unlikely to improve, said Lydia Rainey, research principal at the Center on Reinventing Public Education.
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Rainey → improve → Education
“That’s extremely wishful thinking,” she said.
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she → ’ → ?
“States aren’t about to open the coffers and swoop in with additional funds to save schools.”
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States → open → schools
In the early 2000s, mismanagement brought Vallejo to the brink of bankruptcy.
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mismanagement → bring → bankruptcy
The state stepped in with a $60 million emergency bailout, which saved Vallejo’s schools from complete financial collapse but kept the district under state oversight until summer 2024.
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which → step → summer
Around the time the state lifted the financial receivership, Aurelio took the helm as superintendent and soon recognized a new set of budget problems.
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Aurelio → lift → problems
The district paid for staff salaries using COVID-19 relief money, one-time funding that evaporated early last year.
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that → pay → money
…and 50 more, not listed.
The Aporia
