Many have been following the intense decisions being made in the recent Santa Rosa City Schools (SRCS) board meetings regarding the upcoming school closures. The district’s board announced in November 2024 that many schools will close permanently after the 2024-2025 school year, due to a major decline in enrollment that resulted in a $20 million deficit for the district. The decision of which schools will be shut down was finalized on Feb. 21, after a series of school board meetings in which the public was allowed to speak up about their thoughts on the closures.
The School Consolidation/Closure Advisory Committee (SCAC) has taken on the responsibility of surveying SRCS school campuses to recommend which schools should be most considered for closure. This committee has 20 members selected from an applicant pool of 115 concerned administrators, parents, labor union representatives, and other community members.
At the Jan. 27 board meeting, the SCAC decided that the most likely elementary schools to close are Albert Biella, Steele Lane, and Brook Hill. The decision for high school closures was between Montgomery High School or Elsie Allen High School. None of the decisions made in this meeting were final.
After being promised answers at a Feb. 19 board meeting, viewers from all over Sonoma County were again left without any surety. The meeting ran for nearly six hours, during which the initial plan to close three elementary schools, one middle, and one high school was debated against a plan to close three elementary and two middle schools and not close a high school. The largest issue surrounding this plan is the perpetuation of the district’s indecisiveness surrounding the high school closures.
The district’s plan for transferring students is to reassign a new “school of residence” to each student currently enrolled in a closing school. The goal was to get this information out to parents on Feb. 20, but because the Feb. 19 board meeting didn’t come to any conclusions about which schools will be closed, that was postponed. Each remaining school will be evaluated for their transfer capacity while an enrollment window is granted to families looking to transfer their students. Though this is the district’s current plan, the fluctuating nature of the situation means that it may change in the future.
As for accommodation for students transitioning from these five closed schools, the district has decided to switch to a seventh-through-twelfth-grade model in which students will go from elementary school directly to a combined middle and high school. The main concern with this model is that teachers who are used to a shorter class schedule have not yet been included in the decision to switch to six class periods. It won’t be until after decisions are officially made that teachers will be contacted regarding the seventh-through-twelfth model.
Finally, after a long, grueling process for audience and board members alike, a decision was made. During the Feb. 21 board meeting, it was decided that no high school would be closed, saving Elsie Allen High from its seemingly sure closure. Instead, three elementary schools and two middle schools will be shut down. A likely third middle school closure will occur in 2026.
While there is a sense of relief among Elsie Allen students, staff, parents, and alumni, the decision making process underscored the misrepresentation of the school within the district. The factors that the decision was based on didn’t take into consideration the large number of English Language learners attending each school. Elsie Allen’s student body is 52 percent English Language learners and many are disappointed that the district would ignore such factors.
It also wasn’t taken into account that many students receive support from their teachers and peers, especially those in marginalized communities like that of Elsie Allen. A teacher at Elsie Allen, Patrick Atchison, noted that “the relationships that teachers form with students will never be accurately recorded on spreadsheets or data points.”
The district has come up with their solution for this massive deficit with these closures. This solution hasn’t solved the apparent under-appreciation of schools like Elsie Allen, however. Their process for making these major decisions ignored the community surrounding these schools and brought forth tension and disappointment throughout the district.
