This story was reported and written by our media partner the Virginia Mercury.
Closing one public school or merging it with another can make a big impact on a community. The city of Norfolk is considering doing just that — ten times over.
Last month, the Norfolk City Council requested the city’s school board to prepare an action plan to close and consolidate 10 schools before the start of the 2026-2027 school year. The move would help “reinvest savings into major school capital improvement and maintenance projects” the council said, including at Maury and Booker T. Washington High Schools, and three new elementary schools slated to replace aging buildings.
Norfolk City Public Schools operates five high schools, six middle schools and 30 elementary schools.
Depending on the plan, the city’s move could be the most significant action taken to close and/or consolidate public schools in the commonwealth’s history. During the 2014-15 school year, Alexandria City Public Schools consolidated five middle and elementary schools within its two larger school buildings. However Norfolk’s plan shapes up, its ripple effects will be felt far and wide, some education leaders say.
“Closing any school in any school division is a significant leadership challenge for a superintendent as they work with their school board, their students and staff and their entire community,” said Scott Brabrand, a former public school superintendent and now executive director for the Virginia Association of School Superintendents.
In its March 25 resolution, the council directed the school board to “prioritize achieving these savings” when developing an action plan by Aug. 1 to close a minimum of two schools per year afterward.
The council warned the board that if a plan is not provided in a timely way, it would modify its funding allocations to the school division. The adjustment would then allow the council to prevent any further funding from being utilized at schools that are not operating at full capacity.
According to the Norfolk City Council’s resolution, the locality contributed $164.2 million to the school division for the current school year, which excludes costs for capital projects.
Enrollment at Norfolk City Public Schools had declined to approximately 26,000 students at the start of this school year, down from 32,000 students during the 2014-2015 school year, according to data from the Virginia Department of Education. The city projects that enrollment will continue to decrease, reaching around 24,000 students by the next school year.
“The council acknowledges the difficult choices the school board faces; nonetheless, eliminating unneeded buildings must be a priority addressed immediately,” the resolution states.
‘Never an easy decision’
Franklin County Public Schools Superintendent Kevin Siers said consolidating schools is challenging, after recently completing a process to consolidate two schools in his division.
“It’s never an easy decision and our school board took the role seriously,” Siers said in an interview.
County and school board leaders had a tough time weighing public input against the roles the schools played in each community, while the school division had 44 empty classrooms over 11 elementary schools, a $3.7 million loss in state funding and significant changes to the local composite index, a measurement of a locality’s ability to pay education costs.
Siers also added that the division would have faced cutting 70 positions.
“We had school board members who really struggled with it, especially those who lived in the communities where the schools were closing,” Siers said. “But in the end, we knew that we had to take some type of action, because the alternative was much more grim than closing two schools.”
Months after the decision, Siers was happy to report that because of the decision to consolidate two elementary schools, the division was able to place an art teacher, music teacher, physical education teacher and counselor at each of the 10 elementary schools, which Siers believes has “improved the culture at every elementary school by being able to have these additional personal personnel there full time, every day.”
The plan
Norfolk City Public Schools plans to rebuild four schools and consolidate four additional ones. However, the division faces increased costs, including for Maury High School, whose cost estimate jumped from $150 million to $250 million.
Since 2013, a report by Cooperative Strategies has indicated that Norfolk City Public Schools has consistently operated three to 17 more schools than necessary for its population each year. The consulting firm, which analyzed the division’s capacity, estimated that the school division could have saved $81 million between 2013 and 2023.
“This isn’t about just closing schools, but it’s about right-sizing so that we can provide better resources, better buildings, and to be able to use those additional resources,” said Norfolk City Councilor Carlos J. Clanton at the March 25 meeting.
He added that he supported passing the resolution to ensure the school board knows it has the council’s backing, and to encourage the division to complete the report.
“Council is doing its part, and we need the school board to do theirs,” he said.
The school board will have a work session on April 2 and a regular meeting on April 23. Recently, the school division announced that it has created a planning committee tasked with reviewing the division’s facilities.
