School closures could boost enrollment, academic experience

Tucson Unified School District officials say they hope that by closing up to 10 schools over the next two years, they could spur an increase in enrollment by increasing services and academics.

The district’s tentative plans to shutter the schools could reverse dropping enrollment by offering free afterschool childcare and guaranteeing all students access to transportation, while retaining or expanding access to programs such as special education, arts and physical education, said Superintendent Gabriel Trujillo.

Trujillo for months worked with a 31-member committee of parents, staff, other community members and elected officials to determine which schools he would recommend for closure.

The TUSD Governing Board could either approve or reject all schools on a list of recommended school, closures, or they could opt to close some schools on the list while leaving others open, at a Dec. 8 meeting.

As part of the school closure recommendations, Trujillo said Tuesday afternoon, he’s pushing to include free childcare through Tucson’s KIDCO afterschool program for families at affected schools, He said transportation is also guaranteed to students who change schools in the process.

However, the free childcare offering is only budgeted for a year. Before that ends, Trujillo said, he hopes the district will have heightened enrollment and will be have funding to sustain a no-cost childcare program moving forward.

Unlike school consolidation periods in 2010 and 2013, Trujillo said, the presently proposed changes are aimed at improving enrollment numbers and enhancing students’ educational experience, rather than a response to the district’s financial situation.

“That is hard to do when we’re spending millions of dollars on buildings that are under-utilized,” he said.

‘High-risk position’

At a special meeting of the TUSD Governing Board on Tuesday evening, all of the speakers at the call to the public opposed the consolidations, each arguing for the value their respective schools have to students, staff, families and surrounding communities.

Trujillo said he fostered no ill-will or hard feelings towards staffers on the list of potential closures who would be speaking openly to “defend their schools.”

Those who spoke at the meeting said, though TUSD officials posited that the reconfiguration would actually enhance students’ educational quality, they gave too few details about the programs offered at different schools.

Kristen Cummins, who provides students and staff with resources as co-head of TUSD’s Educational Materials Center, said the process felt “rushed.” She said it reminded her of the 2013 round of school closures.

“There are still a lot of questions and a lot of data that was not brought forward,” she said during the meeting.

Cummins, who carried a clipboard full of notes she’d jotted down throughout, questioned how providing extra transportion was feasible: “The budget that the board approved for next year cut positions in transportation.”

Trujillo noted that the district is trying to retain as many students and staffers in the process,. He added that each closing school’s special education program would “remain intact” while following students from the closing schools to the new ones.

Ultimately, the closures are expected to save up to $7 million annually through the closures after the 2028-29 academic year, not counting the sale of buildings left vacant, according to Trujillo.

Betts Putnam-Hidalgo, a TUSD grandparent who sat on a committee involved in a round of TUSD closures years ago, said denying the district’s financial situation was “an insult to our intelligence.”

“The district is in an incredibly high-risk position and there are some that think a receivership is in our near future,” she said.

“We just happen to be doing this throwing-under-the-bus of the East Side because we finally decided to compete?,” said Putman-Hidalgo, who has unsuccessfully run for the TUSD Governing Board multiple times.

The state Auditor General’s Office in January flagged TUSD as one of the most at-risk districts in Arizona.

Putnam-Hidalgo challenged the presumption that empty TUSD buildings would even sell. When it came to vacant buildings owned by the district, she said, TUSD officials have made promises before that never materialized.

“A glaring example: The 1010 building,” she said, referring to the building on East 10th Street where TUSD’s headquarters was once located. “We were told, ‘We’re gonna sell 1010 and make all this money off of it.'”

The building remains unused, while TUSD administration moved months ago into a building on East 6th Street previously owned by Tucson Electric Power.

‘School getting harder’

Every weekday since Oct. 16, TUSD officials have announced one school on the list of closures and the prospective schools those students would transfer to.

Trujillo acknowledged that the restructuring plans were focused on Tucson’s East Side, where the district was at risk of losing students to the nearby Tanque Verde and Catalina Foothills school districts.

As of Tuesday, TUSD had revealed six schools that could be closed. Trujillo, speaking at a press conference before the special meeting, said up to four more proposed school closures could be announced before Nov. 10.

Of the previously announced schools recommended for closure, four are elementary schools projected to shut down before August 2027, the start of the next school year.

Joseph W. Magee Middle School could merge into Sabino High School, also effective for the 2027 school year. Secrist Middle School students could be moved into Santa Rita High School the following year, in August 2028.

Trujillo said he made a point of speaking to staff at each school on the closure list before making those plans public, which meant they weren’t all announced on the same day.

Olivia Ali-Osman, a 7th grader at Magee Middle School who spoke during the meeting’s call to the public, said she’s worked since kindergarten to advance through the Two-Way Dual Language Program and hopes to graduate high school with a certification in both English and Spanish proficiency.

Olivia said being able to complete the program is her biggest concern. Otherwise, she said, she’s excited by the idea of moving to Sabino High next year.

She mentioned her brother already goes there, and she also planned to attend Sabino after she finished 8th grade.

But, she said, she remembered how big an adjustment starting middle school was for her. And she could see how the transition, particularly to a school with high school programs and uncertainty surrounding available programs, would be overwhelming for a new middle schooler.

“It was things like, homework and school getting harder,” she said of her own 6th grade experience.

An administrative staffer said later in the meeting that the language program would move to Sabino.

The district in held three public meetings in September, plus one via Zoom in early October, intended to glean feedback on the prospect of the closures before any schools were announced. At each meeting, attendees were sequestered into smaller groups with a staff member posing a set of questions to them.

TUSD paid Bill de la Cruz, the founder of Colorado consulting firm De La Cruz Leadership Solutions, about $75,000 to facilitate those discussions.

De la Cruz, who presented his findings at the Governing Board meeting, said up to 650 people participated, though a Powerpoint shown during the meeting placed that number closer to 400.