South Bend school consolidation explained. An in-depth look at when schools will merge.

SOUTH BEND — After more than a year of planning, consultants laid out their vision for the future of South Bend schools.

It’s a proposal that would see not only the closure of one of the district’s four high schools, but also a significant redesign of school feeder patterns, with potential to affect thousands of students.

Their recommendations, made in a Monday school board meeting, come as the South Bend district tries to solve for years of enrollment decline and lost revenue due to recently imposed tax caps.

The corporation has lost more than 1,700 high school students alone over the last 17 years, leading to a $12 million drop in the annual education budget. The district, further, has looked to plug a hole of more than $19 million in annual operating revenues after tax caps took effect.

Mark your calendar:2 hearings on recommendations to close Clay, consolidate schools

The district passed a referendum in 2020 to help absorb some of the losses and it still has nearly half of its one-time, multi-million dollar share of federal pandemic relief money available. So, now is the time, corporation leaders say, to think big about the future of their district.

“We all understand this is a giant undertaking,” School Board President John Anella told reporters this week. “This creates a roadmap for our district, including some really difficult decisions ahead.”

Not everyone is singing praises of the proposals. The Clay community, in particular, has pushed back for months against ideas floated to close a high school and reshape other buildings on the district’s north side. Now, some say, they’re ready to pull their kids from the district if Clay closes.

“Our students and staff at Clay have been hung out to dry,” said Jennifer Fox, a parent in the district. “North side kids deserve a neighborhood option. You need to find a way to save Clay.”

Nothing is final yet, though administrators say they support what they consider to be a thoughtful plan created by the district’s consultants. The recommendations will be up for a vote at the school board’s April 17 meeting at LaSalle Academy.

What’s in the South Bend proposal?

For years, South Bend has grappled with under-enrollment, increasingly disorganized feeder patterns and transportation headaches. With school magnet programs and open enrollment among some district schools, there’s little tying a family directly to their nearest, neighborhood school, which has created imbalances across the district.

Adams High and McKinley Elementary, for example, enroll more students this year than their buildings' determined capacity, according to planners. Clay, Riley and LaSalle, on the other hand, are less than half full.

The district has made small tweaks in recent years — closing an elementary school or two to cut back on operating expenses and moving to new, tiered start and end times to help improve transportation — but long-standing issues require a more comprehensive response, consultants say.

“You’ve all seen the data on how one elementary school can split into six different middle schools and four different high schools,” said Tracy Richter, a consultant with the education planning firm, HPM. “To geographically and programmatically try to navigate this system has become very difficult over time and that’s not on this board. That is a historic adjustment to facilities, demographics, funding and programs over 25 to 30 years.”

Consultants’ solution is to divide the district up into three regional boundaries. Each would come with its own set of options for elementary and middle school education. The consultants identified three schools — Dickinson, Edison and Marshall — in each region to convert to a preK-8th grade school.

They hope the longevity of these programs can help grow enrollment by building community within a single school building. The identified schools would be remodeled and likely include dedicated spaces for students of varying grade levels, so the district’s littlest students would not necessarily mingle with older pre-teens every day.

However, for parents skeptical of this, a traditional elementary-to-middle school feeder option will also be offered in each region. Each region would identify with a single high school — Adams, Riley or Washington.

Consultants say they hope this direction provides a sense of direction for families in South Bend and fixes a system where students often lack long-term identity not knowing as an elementary or middle school student where they might attend school next.

“We lose kids at the sixth grade,” Richter said. “One way we can stem that is making sure that they’re assured a community school from preK to eighth grade, nine or 10 years in the same building in a community together.”

Though blame has often been pointed at the district’s magnet system — an option allowing families to choose where their kids go to school, regardless of home address — some elements of this choice will remain.

Consultants envision several programs, like the popular Marquette Montessori and Clay International Academy, will stay open districtwide, and high school magnets will remain.

The corporation currently sees as many as 7,000 students attend South Bend high schools outside of their assigned neighborhood school, Assistant Superintendent Rafi Nolan-Abrahamian said.

“That’s clearly not sustainable to continue transporting that quantity of students every day across the district and that’s an issue we’re trying to address,” Nolan-Abrahamian said. “At the same time, every single one of those students, that represents a student and a family who have made a decision that they’re child’s best education is received at another building and we also need to be respectful of those choices.”

Why close Clay High School?

Clay has been talked about for years — yet, recent proposals to close the school and move its fine arts program to Riley have drawn ire from some north South Bend and county residents.

The building received a relatively low score in consultants’ study of facility conditions. Only one other active school building, Dickinson, was given a lower condition rating.

Planners have repeatedly acknowledged Adams’ high capacity, saying more students living within the Clay High School boundaries attend Adams than Clay.

South Bend consolidation:Which schools change? Which stay the same? Where will kids go?

The consultants say their recommendations are not meant to hurt the Clay community, but to protect the financial and academic interests of the district.

“We looked at some other additional considerations for Clay and what those costs might be and what we believe those likely outcomes to be,” said Scott Leopold, a consultant with HPM.

Those alternatives included keeping the building open as it is, transforming it into a 6-12th grade center and replacing the school as a “black-box” fine arts school. Keeping the half-full building open as is, planners say, would not help the district as it looks to reduce its oversized footprint. And, investments to renovate the school could range anywhere from $16 million to $54 million.

Consultants also at one time considered the building as space for a potential county-wide serving career center, but determined it to be more costly than building a new center in a more centralized location.

If Clay were to stay open, consultants say, millions of dollars would need poured into a building now less than half full. Though the Adams’ building is beyond its capacity today, the district’s Riley and Washington high schools — at nearly 50% and 60% capacity, respectively — have space for more students.

Clay to close?:Community reacts to proposals to close high school

This redistribution of high school students could also possibly protect the district from pending legislation that would force the sale of public school buildings operating under 60% capacity.

Some parents from the Clay community, however, have made clear they want a high school continue in their neighborhood. Some on Monday night said they would pull their kids from the district should the high school close.

“The corporation is failing,” said Jared Wagner, a South Bend resident who attended Clay his senior year of high school. “I’m ashamed to say I’m a South Bend Community School Corporation graduate, but I’m proud to say my children will not be.”

Administrators say student retention is something they’re watching as the district develops its consolidation plans. When the district closed its Hay and Tarkington elementaries two years ago, the corporation kept 80% to 90% of the schools’ students through the transition, Nolan-Abrahamian said in a February school board committee meeting.

District leaders say supporting students through any transition will be a key piece of consolidation and consultants have budgeted $1.5 million to manage transition.

How much will consolidation cost?

Closing Clay is as much about operational savings as it is avoiding costly repairs to an under-enrolled school, district leaders say.

To keep Clay open for five more years, consultants say, the district would need to invest more than $16 million in the building. Planners recommend $3.4 million in emergency building repairs just to keep the high school running one final year.

Keeping Clay open could force scaling back programs to match its declining enrollment or for other projects across the district would be put on hold for lack of funding.

Why now?South Bend is looking at closing schools and reshaping feeder patterns

Consultants say closing Clay would save the district $1.1 million in annual operating costs. They also suggest closing Warren Elementary on the far-west side.

During the district’s 2020 referendum campaign, administrators said that they budgeted $34 million for “right sizing” the corporation.

Consultants on Monday said their recommendations would come with a total price tag of $39 million. That includes $8.5 million to create a new, St. Joseph County career center, $4.5 million for renovations at Washington, $3 million to demolish unused buildings, $2 million to create an early childhood center at Kennedy and several million to transition several buildings to preK-8 centers, among other deferred maintenance needs.

The district has already spent more than $20 million of its $54 million in operating referendum dollars in deferred maintenance projects. Consultants said on Monday that the district now has $32 million remaining in referendum money to direct toward consolidation and additional bonds would likely be needed to cover the rest of their recommendations.

Administrators don’t anticipate cutting teachers through the transition, but that some positions may go away naturally through attrition. Ultimately, the district says, its goal is to save money on unused facilities and redirect dollars to students’ educational needs.

“This is all about ensuring academic outcomes, ensuring that students are able to read on grade level and graduate from high school,” Superintendent Todd Cummings said. “This allows us to ensure that we're putting our money into teachers and programs that work, while ensuring that we protect the fine arts program and that we can be fiscally responsible for the future.”

What’s the timeline for changes?

District leaders have made clear no schools would close or change in the coming school year.

The first steps — a review of district boundary lines and transportation policy — are likely to begin in mid-2023. Design and renovation for major building projects are expected to take place over the course of the 2023-2024 year and recommended school closures at Clay and Warren would come in the summer of 2024.

Buildings expected to transition into preK-8 schools would do so through phrases. New grades would be added at schools like Dickinson, Edison and Marshall one grade at a time beginning in the 2024-2025 school year.

Construction of a new, county-serving career center is slated to take place over the next two school years for a possible opening in fall 2025. District leaders have not yet shared where they are looking to build the center, only that they would like it to be in a central location easily accessible to students in other St. Joseph County schools.

All of these proposals, however, are subject to school board approval. The administration is expected to present several line-item action items on April 17  — meaning the board can choose to accept all, parts or none of the plan.

In the meantime, the board continues to seek feedback on consolidation proposals. Consultants' full presentation is available online via YouTube and the district has posted a community survey on its website. Two public hearings will take place at 5 p.m. March 29 at LaSalle Academy and at 5 p.m. April 12 at Jackson Middle School.

Email South Bend Tribune education reporter Carley Lanich at clanich@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter:@carleylanich.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: South Bend consolidation explained: An in-depth look at school plans