The Corvallis School District is facing a nearly $4 million deficit for next school year — no small problem for a shrinking district of about 6,000 students. The district had to cut $3 million last year, and another $8 million the year before that.

District leaders are searching for a long-term solution that balances capacities in Corvallis’ school buildings as student enrollment continues to decline. This week, they’ll vote on whether to close two neighborhood schools.

Closing a school tends to be widely unpopular in school communities and surrounding neighborhoods, and can have a significant impact on its staff, students and families.

Students who attend a school that closes during their K-12 career typically have lower test scores, as well as worse attendance and behavior in the short term, according to a report from EducationWeek. In the long term, these students are less likely to complete college and have a job, and their earnings tend to be lower.

But the need to close schools is a dilemma facing districts across the country. Since 2020, Oregon public school enrollment has dropped by more than 37,000 students. Student enrollment is directly tied to how much money districts get from the state.

Closing schools allows the remaining buildings to be more fully utilized. It can save on utility and maintenance costs, for example, though the bulk of savings usually comes from reduced spending on staff. Still, not every closure equates to layoffs.

Oregon school districts, large and small, are grappling with this balance.

Bethel School District leaders, just south of Corvallis, for example, made the decision earlier this week to close Shasta Middle School due to low enrollment numbers. Bethel also closed Clear Lake Elementary School at the end of the 2024-25 school year for the same reason.

Meanwhile, some of Oregon’s largest school districts — including Portland Public and Salem-Keizer — are bracing for tens of millions of dollars in budget cuts next year, along with the possibility of mid-year reductions from the state as they’re projected to lose hundreds of students.

Portland and Salem-Keizer aren’t currently closing schools, but losing students is increasingly common, as students have moved to homeschooling and private schools during and after the pandemic, and the areas’ birth rates continue to decline.

Thursday night, Corvallis board members are poised to vote on a proposal that would close an elementary school and a middle school. The plan also includes a shift of sixth graders to elementary schools and turning the remaining middle school into a junior high with just seventh and eighth graders.

“We have been dealing with reductions in our school district for the last three years,” Corvallis Superintendent Ryan Noss told OPB. “We’ve had to lose some of our programming that we know is important, and so we’re at a point where we have to make a decision on how to move forward as a district.”

Opponents of Corvallis’ latest consolidation proposal argue that not enough time and community input have gone into making such an important decision.

The proposed closing of Letitia Carson Elementary School, in particular, has been a major point of tension, given that more of its families are considered to be living in poverty than the district average, and the school was recently renovated and renamed.

Opponents argue that many families don’t even know the elementary school closure is being considered. Nearly 300 people have signed a petition organized by the Save Corvallis Schools Coalition, urging the school board to slow down and get more data.

Close schools or cut services?

The choices facing Corvallis are similar to what any school district deals with when budgets are tight and enrollment is falling.

As far as educators, parents and school leaders are concerned, there are only unpopular options. Closing schools is painful and disruptive. But it might be better than the alternatives, which could involve laying off more teachers and cutting popular programs.

“We are being asked to face impossible choices,” Corvallis Education Association leaders said in a written comment to OPB.

“Would you rather close any of our loved schools, or continue to cut down our services and increase remaining staff’s workload at every site?” they wrote. “Would you like to see fewer blends and more opportunities for advanced rigor for students, or more of your colleagues laid off due to a closure of a building?”

Jessie Beesley has two kids at Letitia Carson Elementary this year and is a leader with the school’s PTA.

She’s been frustrated with the lack of clarity and the speed of the decision to close her kids’ school. She doesn’t understand why Letitia Carson was picked to close. It’s also unclear what the transition will look like, she said, from transportation to bell schedules to managing long lunch lines.

“It kind of seems like they are putting the proposal out there, trying to pass it, and then they’re going to work out how it’s actually going to work later,” Beesley said.

Dozens of people signed up to give testimony at a roughly four-hour school board meeting late last month. Only about half were able to speak, Beesley said, and the board members didn’t have time then to discuss the issue. They organized a special meeting for Monday night this week to do so.

But Beesley walked away Monday, after another hourslong meeting, still feeling frustrated.

“The questions board members were asking made it sound like they have already decided how they will vote, and any discussion at this point is really just to pander to the community,” she argued. “No one is satisfied with the reasoning behind the choice.”

Board co-vice chair Shauna Tominey said in the late October meeting that closing one or more elementary schools is inevitable, but she wanted to better understand the feasibility of closing a school for the coming year versus further down the line.

Her understanding was that by moving ahead with a closure sooner rather than later, it could preserve more staff in the long run.

Still, Tominey said she heard repeatedly from Letitia Carson Elementary families that “this is a school where students feel loved.” She recognized how shocking and rushed this may feel for some, and that the district and board need to take that into account.

Corvallis considers tough options

No matter what, the Corvallis School District is planning for fewer students next year — around 5,590. But how leaders structure the schools these students attend will determine how much money the district can save and how many positions they need to cut.

Back in September, district officials put out an initial proposal to close Cheldelin Middle School. Six elementary schools would add sixth graders into the mix; one would become K-8. Linus Pauling Middle School would be restructured as Corvallis Junior High. The high schools would be reviewed at a later date.

The district held listening sessions and collected feedback for a month on the plan. According to the report, just over 200 people responded to the survey, and 136 participated in the listening sessions.

Then, in late October, a new proposal came out that still shifted the elementary and middle school grades but would now close two schools: Cheldelin and Letitia Carson Elementary.

A long-range facilities committee met back in the spring to look at the condition of buildings and capacity numbers, and they did give some suggestions to the board, one of them being to redo the boundaries of the district, Beesley explained.

But in the span of a few weeks this fall, the district held a board meeting, heard public comment, convened a special meeting and scheduled a final vote.

“It’s just been really fast,” she said. “A lot of people in the community are concerned about how fast it’s going, and the lack of really any data or analysis … for why they chose this elementary school or what implementing it would look like.”

District officials told board members at the special meeting Monday night that they have three options:

• Option one is to change nothing. The status quo leaves the district with a $3.87 million shortfall, cutting the equivalent of about 25 positions. With this plan, class sizes are expected to grow, on average, by four students.
• Option two was the district’s original proposal, which only closes the middle school. Officials said that would save them roughly $1.67 million, cut about 14 positions and increase the average class size by two students.
• Option three, the revised proposal before the school board now, closes the two schools. It’s projected to save $3 million, result in only five position cuts and allow average class sizes to stay the same.

Letitia Carson is a Title I school, meaning it receives additional federal funding because it enrolls a higher percentage of students from low-income families. Officials said that funding will follow the students to whichever school they go to if Letitia Carson closes.

District leaders also acknowledged that they’re proposing the closure of an elementary school that recently underwent a renaming process meant to honor the legacy of Letitia Carson, the first Black woman in Oregon to own property.

“The renaming represented a significant community effort to recognize an important figure in our region’s history,” Noss said, “and the district is committed to preserving that legacy.”

Noss told OPB on Wednesday that it’s still not determined how they will do that, but one example could be renaming another school.

Also, the district would be closing a school that recently underwent renovations through a capital construction bond. Bond projects for Letitia Carson included adding more classrooms, installing energy-efficient lighting and creating a dedicated gym space by adding a multi-use cafeteria.

Parents are further confused by the proposed closure of Letitia Carson since there are two other elementary schools in the district with fewer students, and the district’s “choice” school, which uses a lottery system to enroll, would stay open under the proposed consolidation.

Lastly, parents like Beesley argue the district needs to slow down. If nothing else, they want them to hold the vote after Nov. 19, when legislators will receive the state’s latest revenue forecast. School leaders across Oregon are preparing for tough financial news.

However, district officials said Monday night that the forecast won’t have specific budget changes for individual districts, and the longer they wait, the harder it will be to implement the changes for next school year — particularly for staff.

Both of Corvallis’ licensed and classified workers unions are used to dealing with the challenges of declining enrollment and being chronically underfunded by the state for years, according to the education association.

The union said an updated timeline for this year was created by the board in August and shared with staff and the community.

Union leaders in an emailed statement said: “It was made so that staffing and/or programming shifts could realistically take place early enough for staff to feel as ready as possible to support our students.”

Corvallis board member Sami Al-Abdrabbuh said Monday that he’s especially worried about how possible state cuts could affect the district. He hopes people who are concerned about this as well speak to state legislators.

“What I’m really fearing is: We do the consolidation, we have an opportunity for our programs to be there, and then the state says ‘cuts,’” Al-Abdrabbuh said. “The more they cut, no matter what we do in our building, we’re going to have the challenge.”

‘A brutal process to go through’

Superintendent Noss said the district’s budget development starts right after winter break — “it always does.”

“And so, all of these decisions are vital for us to be able to be prepared for students, to welcome them and to build strong communities and cultures,” he said.

Noss clarified that the reason Letitia Carson was selected for possible closure was primarily because of its location.

With three schools nearby, students shouldn’t have to move as far to change schools. After shifting students, Noss said those schools would be closer to capacity and more financially sustainable. He said the district will do what it can to relocate staff to where they most want to go.

If the two schools are closed, Noss said they are looking at ways to still use the spaces. Letitia Carson may become an early childhood center, for example, and house programs such as the district’s Head Start program.

While Corvallis makes its decision, Noss knows other leaders are going through the same challenge — or they may have to in the near future.

“It’s painful,” he said. “It impacts community in ways we don’t ever want to impact our communities … it’s hard for kids, it’s hard for staff.

“It’s just really a brutal process to go through.”

The Corvallis School Board is scheduled to vote tonight on the school consolidation proposal. The meeting is at 6:30 p.m. in the District Office Board Room. Materials and the livestream can be found here.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/11/13/declining-enrollment-budget-corvallis-close-schools/