Here are the six Wichita schools proposed for permanent closure this year

Four Wichita elementary schools and two middle schools would be closed under a proposal considered by the school board Monday evening.

Clark, Park, Payne and Cleaveland Traditional Magnet elementary schools would be shuttered, along with Hadley and Jardine Magnet middle schools.

The closures would affect 2,213 students, 132 teachers and 190 other staff.

Students would be reassigned to different schools for next year as boundaries are redrawn, and employees at affected buildings would be allowed to apply with priority to open positions across the district.

By law, a public hearing must be held before the district can close buildings. That will be at 6 p.m. Feb. 29 at the Alvin Morris Administrative Center, 903 S. Edgemoor. The district also plans to hold a series of community listening and informational sessions for parents between Feb. 21 and Feb. 26, but specific times for those were not announced Monday night.

The district is also establishing a hotline dedicated to answering questions about the closures that will be manned from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday. That number is 316-368-8008. Community members can also email their questions to transform24@usd259.net.

Officials say the closures would save an estimated $16 million, which could be put toward plugging a looming $42 million budget shortfall that coincides with the exhaustion of the district’s federal pandemic relief funds.

Numerous factors were considered by the district staff who created the closure list, including enrollment trends, building capacity, condition and location, classroom size and staffing levels. Building condition is rated by FCI, a score ranging from 0 (pristine condition) to 1 (extremely poor condition).

At the middle school level, buildings with an FCI higher than 0.50, fewer than 600 students and more than 50% of classrooms with less than 700 square feet were subjected to further scrutiny.

At the elementary level, district staff honed in on buildings that fell into one or more of these categories — FCI higher than 0.7, a sub-65% utilization rate, fewer than 350 students and enrollment declines of more than 20% in recent years.

Here’s a look at the schools. All six of the buildings recommended for closure serve a higher proportion of economically disadvantaged students (those who qualify for free or reduced lunch) than the district average of 79.2%, data from the Kansas Department of Education shows.

Hadley Middle School

Address: 1101 N. Dougherty

Enrollment: 507 (12th of 15 middle schools)

Building utilization: 51% (14th of 15 middle schools)

Building age: 66 years

Building condition: 0.62 FCI (7th best of 15 middle schools)

Economically disadvantaged: 90.4% of students

Minority population: 65.8% of students (39.2% Hispanic, 14.6% African American)

School reassignment: Hadley students would be distributed between Hamilton, Marshall, Pleasant Valley and Wilbur, based on new boundaries that have not yet been established.

Jardine STEM & Career Explorations Magnet Middle School

Address: 3550 E. Ross Parkway

Enrollment: 500 (15th of 15 middle schools)

Building utilization: 71% (3rd of 15 middle schools)

Building age: 67 years

Building condition: 0.55 FCI (6th best of 15 middle schools)

Economically disadvantaged: 94.0% of students

Minority population: 82.5% of students (48.8% Hispanic, 19.0% African American)

School reassignment: As a neighborhood magnet, Jardine currently serves roughly 190 students who live around the school and more than 300 other students from around the city. The neighborhood students would be reassigned to Mead and other magnet students would be allowed to apply with priority to any of the district’s other magnet schools, including Brooks STEM magnet. USD 259 is extending its magnet application deadline to accommodate families affected by building closures.

Clark Elementary

Address: 650 S. Apache

Enrollment: 240 (51st of 54 elementary schools)

Building utilization: 51% (53rd of 54 elementary schools)

Building age: 72 years

Building condition: 0.76 FCI (49th best of 54 elementary schools)

Economically disadvantaged: 91.9% of students

Minority population: 76.8% of students (42.6% African American, 17.1% Hispanic)

School reassignment: Clark students would be distributed between Caldwell, Beech and Allen elementaries based on new boundaries that have not yet been established.

Cleaveland College and Career Readiness Magnet Elementary School

Address: 3345 W. 33rd St. South

Enrollment: 296 (43rd of 54 elementary schools)

Building utilization: 85% (6th of 54 elementary schools)

Building age: 62 years

Building condition: 0.43 FCI (17th best of 54 elementary schools)

Economically disadvantaged: 81.7% of students

Minority population: 61.8% of students (38.5% Hispanic, 10.7% multiracial)

School reassignment: As Cleaveland is a traditional magnet, its student body comes from all around the district, meaning there is no designated school for students to be reassigned to. Superintendent Kelly Bielefeld said Cleaveland parents can expect to receive additional information the week of Feb. 19.

Park Elementary

Address: 1025 N. Main

Enrollment: 337 (32nd of 54 elementary schools)

Building utilization: 74% (29th of 54 elementary schools)

Building age: 102 years

Building condition: 0.95 FCI (worst of 54 elementary schools)

Economically disadvantaged: 92.4% of students

Minority population: 83.6% of students (64.6% Hispanic, 13.1% African American)

School reassignment: Park students would be distributed between Irving, Washington, Harry Street and Linwood elementaries based on new boundaries that have not yet been established.

Payne Elementary

Address: 1601 S. Edwards

Enrollment: 231 (54th of 54 elementary schools)

Building utilization: 59% (50th of 54 elementary schools)

Building age: 71 years

Building condition: 0.70 FCI (42nd of 54 elementary schools)

Economically disadvantaged: 95.3% of students

Minority population: 64.3% of students (36.8% Hispanic, 15.1% African American)

School reassignment: Payne students would be distributed between Lawrence, Stanley and Woodman elementaries based on new boundaries that have not yet been established.

No substitutions

Chief Financial Officer Susan Willis reiterated that for closures to be implemented, decisions must be finalized by spring break. That means board members can’t realistically save one building from closure and recommend a different one in its place, she said.

“We are proposing this tonight as a package. At this point, there isn’t (any) pulling one school off to substitute in another because every single move like that requires more analysis, more looking at staffing, and we’ve done a lot of that already,” Willis said.

“To stop and sub in one school for another — we’ve done that exercise and we’ve brought you the best proposal.”

Board members can still vote down the closure proposal when it comes for a final vote in March. But with the budget shortfall, that would mean revisiting staff cuts and program reductions.

Willis said that while evaluating enrollment trends, building condition and use, staff tried to make closure recommendations that would be “least disruptive” to the system, minimizing boundary changes and feeder pattern changes wherever possible.

New board member Ngoc Vuong indicated he would like to see a report published explaining the rationale for closing each school and outlining the district’s methodology. The board did not vote to direct staff to produce such a report.

“Thinking of nationwide context and a lot of studies that have looked at school building closures, it’s generally the schools where most of the students are socioeconomically disadvantaged, where most of the students are predominantly Black and Brown,” Vuong said. “My question is, how can we ensure equity throughout this entire process?”

Bielefeld noted that the buildings recommended for closure are split between four of USD 259’s six districts across the city.

“We really went through all the paces,” he said. “We looked at academic data. We looked at poverty data. We looked at racial demographic data. We looked at all of these things . . . I know in my heart that we used every tool we could to make this as equitable as possible.”

Why closures?

Although there’s enough building capacity to support 63,000 students in Wichita schools, enrollment has declined by 8.4% since 2016 to about 47,000 students. The district has $1.2 billion in deferred maintenance needs.

Over the last few years, the district has used $20 million of federal aid money annually to balance the budget and another $20 million to support positions added to address student behavior and academic deficits, including paraprofessionals, counselors and social workers. Employees and parents who participated in the Wichita schools budget circle expressed an almost unanimous desire to keep those additional student support positions, the district has said.

In January, school board members were advised that they would essentially have to choose between closing buildings and laying off roughly 230 teachers. They asked staff to come back with recommendations about which buildings to close.

Ideas about what to do with the shuttered buildings will be included in the recommended facilities master plan expected to come before the school board in May or June.

Wichita last closed schools in 2012, when Bryant, Emerson and Lincoln elementaries were shuttered and Isely and Mueller magnet schools were relocated, along with Northeast Magnet High.