The Politics of Managing Decline, Revisited

A 2026 Guide for School Leaders Facing Enrollment Loss and School Closures

This article is an update to my featured article in the September 2025 School Administrator edition of AASA: School Administrator Magazine. It draws on my three experiences as a superintendent addressing falling enrollment and school underutilization.

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A school district can lose students for years before it loses the ability to postpone a difficult decision. Unfortunately, postponing the decision does not postpone the consequences.

By the time school closure appears on a board agenda, the conversation may already be about deficits, deadlines, and a list of campuses. Families understandably want to know why their school is on the list. Employees want to know whether they will have jobs. Board members want alternatives.

The superintendent is expected to produce a solution that balances the budget without disrupting anybody.

If only....

In my September 2025 School Administrator article, “The Politics of Managing Decline,” I drew on three experiences addressing falling enrollment and school underutilization as a superintendent. This follow-up brings that discussion into 2026 and turns it toward the work itself: how to recognize the problem, organize a credible decision-making process, and protect students when the district they attend must become smaller.

The central question is not, “Which schools should we close?” It is, “How do we organize the resources we have to serve the students we have, while preparing for the students we are likely to have?” Those are different questions. They lead to different conversations.

1. Diagnose the decline before prescribing the remedy

California’s public schools enrolled 5,731,260 students in 2025–26, a decrease of 74,961 students, or 1.3 percent, from the previous year. The statewide total includes charter schools.  [1]

That decline occurred even as transitional kindergarten enrollment increased 20.1 percent. Expanding access for younger children matters, but it did not reverse the statewide decline.  [2]

The national outlook also warrants attention. An NCES projection series published in the 2022 Digest anticipated public school enrollment falling to approximately 46.9 million by fall 2031. That is a projection, not a count of students who have already left. Nor is an older national projection a substitute for a current local forecast.  [3]

School leaders need to understand both the larger pattern and the local particulars. A state total cannot tell a superintendent whether a neighborhood is losing young families, whether students are choosing other schools, or whether new housing will generate the enrollment a developer anticipates. Start by separating three problems that can produce similar-looking enrollment charts:

• Demographic decline: fewer school-age children live in the community.

• Enrollment loss: children remain in the community but attend school elsewhere.

• Attendance loss: enrolled students are not attending consistently.
  

These problems may overlap. They are not interchangeable. A recruitment campaign cannot create a larger birth cohort. A boundary change cannot, by itself, restore a family’s confidence. Better attendance supports learning and may improve revenue under an attendance-based funding formula, but it does not necessarily add students to enrollment.

Before discussing closures, ask staff to explain the decline by grade, neighborhood, school, and student group. Examine cohort progression, transfers, housing assumptions, and the difference between projected and actual enrollment. Where possible, ask departing families why they left.

The first leadership task is not to defend a preferred explanation. It is to determine whether the explanation is correct.

2. Establish the decision-making process before naming schools

There is a predictable way to turn an enrollment problem into a governance problem: publish a closure list before explaining how schools were evaluated. Once you name a school, every subsequent discussion can sound like a defense of a decision already made. A district may call the process exploratory. Families may experience it as an announcement. Start with the rules, not the results. In all three cases, my districts used Decision Analysis, a decision-making process developed by Benjamin B. Tregoe Jr., an American management consultant and management scientist best known for co-developing the Kepner-Tregoe Method for rational problem-solving and decision-making. It’s critical to engage in a process that can be documented and defended.

The board and superintendent should publicly establish the purpose of the review, the questions it must answer, the criteria it will use, and the authority responsible for each decision. Staff should validate the data. An advisory group (A declining enrollment task force) can examine options and surface concerns. The board must retain responsibility for its decisions. An enrollment task force should study the causes of decline, evaluate alternatives, and make recommendations. Giving a committee all three assignments without adequate time or support is not meaningful delegation. It is an invitation to confusion.

Publish the criteria before applying them. Explain how enrollment, educational opportunity, facility condition, transportation, fiscal effects, and equity will be considered. If the district weights those factors, explain the weights. Then make the information accessible. An online spreadsheet is not necessarily one the public can understand.

The practical test is simple: Can a family explain how the district will make its decision, even if they ultimately disagree with it?

3. Calculate the savings the district can realize

Fewer students do not automatically produce proportionately lower costs. A school still needs supervision, utilities, maintenance, office support, and the services required to educate its students. But the reverse assumption is equally problematic: closing a school does not automatically eliminate everything in its budget. Students still need teachers. Receiving schools may need additional staff or facility improvements. Transportation expenses may increase. A vacant building may still require security, insurance, and maintenance. Before presenting a savings estimate, distinguish among:

• Recurring savings the district can reasonably capture.

• One-time costs required to make the transition.

• Costs that move to another school or department.

• Expenses that continue after the campus closes.
  

Separate operating savings from potential property proceeds. Selling a building may generate one-time revenue. It does not, by itself, correct an ongoing mismatch between revenue and expenditures. Ask for a multiyear comparison of closure and non-closure alternatives. Include the assumptions, the implementation dates, and the consequences if enrollment falls faster than expected. Consider whether disruption could prompt additional families to leave and show how that possibility affects the estimate.

A useful question for every projected saving is: What must happen for us to realize this amount? If the answer depends on a property sale, a staffing action, or an unresolved transportation assumption, the board should know that before relying on the number. Financial discipline begins with counting honestly.

4. Evaluate the student experience, not simply the available seats

A receiving school can have room for students without being ready for them. Capacity is not merely a count of classrooms. It includes the ability to deliver appropriate instruction, special education services, language support, counseling, meals, and safe transportation. It also includes whether students can participate in the programs that make school worth attending.

Consider a proposed reassignment from the student’s perspective. What time will the student leave home? Will siblings attend different campuses? Will a longer trip interfere with after-school participation? Will an established service or trusted adult still be available?

These are not secondary considerations to be addressed after the “real” decision. They are part of the decision.

California’s school-closure guidance emphasizes equity and community engagement. AB 1912 adds requirements for certain districts that meet the statutory definition of financial distress; it does not automatically apply to every district facing a deficit. District leaders should confirm their obligations with counsel rather than assume a general budget problem triggers, or exempts them from, a particular process. CDE recommends an equity-focused approach even where those specific requirements do not apply.  [4] 

An equity analysis should examine who bears the disruption, who gains access to stronger opportunities, and whether historical resource decisions have contributed to a school’s current condition.

A school should not be judged without considering how the district’s own choices helped shape its circumstances.

5. Test alternatives without pretending every alternative is sufficient

Closure should be an option to evaluate, not a conclusion to support with evidence. Evaluate keeping every school open just as honestly. Potential alternatives include boundary adjustments, grade reconfiguration, shared services, co-location, program consolidation, and phased changes. Unused space may support early learning, family services, or other compatible public purposes, subject to applicable requirements. Each alternative needs an educational rationale and a financial test. Would a boundary change meaningfully improve utilization, or merely redistribute the same problem? Would a specialized program meet a documented need, or move students among district schools without changing total enrollment? Would shared services preserve access while reducing duplication?

Community schools and early learning programs may offer important benefits. They should not be presented as guaranteed solutions to demographic decline. Similarly, school improvement is essential regardless of enrollment. It is not an excuse to avoid explaining what a smaller student population means for the district’s operating model. The board needs to see the trade-offs. Preserving a campus may require reductions elsewhere. Consolidation may protect some programs while imposing new burdens on families. Neither choice should be described only in terms of its advantages.

The goal is not to find an option without consequences. It is to identify the option for whose consequences the district can justify and responsibly manage.

6. Engage the community while the decision can still change

There is a difference between explaining a proposal and inviting people to help shape it. Both have a place. They should not be confused. Meaningful engagement begins early enough for families, employees, and community members to influence the criteria, identify missing information, and propose workable alternatives. It requires translated materials, accessible meeting opportunities, and deliberate outreach beyond the people who regularly attend board meetings. Ask questions that produce information the district can use: What would make a reassignment unworkable? Which programs must remain accessible? What transportation barriers has staff overlooked? Which assumptions about the neighborhood need correction? Then report what the district learned and what changed because of it. Not every suggestion will be feasible. Explain why. Acknowledging a concern does not require promising its preferred resolution. Leaders also need to resist the easy interpretation that families simply do not understand the numbers. Some understand the numbers perfectly well. They disagree with how the burdens are distributed, doubt that promised improvements will occur, or remember commitments that were not kept. Those concerns deserve an answer.

Trust does not mean everyone supports the recommendation. It means people have reason to believe the process is honest, the evidence is credible, and their participation is more than ceremonial.

7. Build the transition plan alongside the closure recommendation

A board vote does not move a student safely into a new school. People, schedules, services, and resources do. Develop the transition plan while evaluating the proposal, not after approval. Some recommendations will look less attractive once the district understands what responsible implementation requires. It's better to learn that before the vote. The plan should identify:

• School assignments, enrollment procedures, and a named contact for each affected family.

• Transportation routes, travel times, accessibility needs, and safe arrival procedures.

• Continuity of special education services, language support, counseling, and student records.

• Staffing arrangements, receiving-school readiness, and applicable labor processes.

• Opportunities for students and families to visit, meet staff, and build connections.

• The funding, responsible personnel, and deadlines for each transition commitment.
  

Receiving schools need preparation too. Adding students is not simply an enrollment transaction. Staff may integrate programs, establish new routines, and help children through the loss of a familiar community. Preserve relationships where feasible. Make room to acknowledge what the closing school meant. A farewell event cannot compensate for an inadequate transition, but operational efficiency should not erase a community’s history. The district may be closing a building. Families are leaving a place where their lives happened.

8. Measure whether the decision delivered what was promised

Closure is an action. A stronger educational experience is an intended outcome.

The distinction matters. Before implementation, establish a baseline for the outcomes used to justify the recommendation. These may include program access, attendance, transportation reliability, student belonging, service continuity, and recurring expenditures.

Then report what happened. A board can establish early transition checks and a public review after the first year, with additional monitoring where problems remain. Were the projected savings realized? Did they support the programs the district said they would support? Did displaced students attend regularly? Did longer travel times create barriers? Were services available when students arrived? If results fall short, explain the gap and correct what can be corrected.

Do not attribute every subsequent improvement or problem to consolidation. Other changes may have contributed. But do not use that complexity to avoid evaluating the decision either. Accountability requires both caution about causal claims and willingness to examine results.

Fewer students, no less responsibility

Managing decline tests more than a superintendent’s ability to balance a budget. It tests the governance team’s ability to distinguish evidence from assumptions, engage people without making promises it cannot keep, and act before limited choices become no choices.

Avoiding closure does not necessarily protect students if the price is a steady erosion of the programs they need. Closing schools does not necessarily help students if the district cannot deliver the educational improvements used to justify the disruption. That is the leadership problem. You cannot solve it by counting empty classrooms alone.

What is the moral of this story?

Do not begin with a list of schools to close. Begin with the educational experience students should have. Establish an honest process, test the alternatives, account for the human consequences, and explain how the recommended configuration makes that experience possible. Then follow through.

Fewer students may require fewer buildings. They do not require less care.