WICHITA — About a half-dozen Wichita public schools will close for good at the end of the school year, as the district deals with declining enrollment and a massive budget shortfall.
Wichita Superintendent Kelly Bielefeld said four to seven schools will likely close. Officials plan to present a list to the school board at its next meeting Feb. 12, and board members plan to vote on closings before spring break in March.
Wichita faces a $42 million budget gap, and leaders say closing buildings is the only way to prevent job cuts.
Susan Willis, chief financial officer for Wichita schools, says resources are spread too thinly over the district’s 90-plus schools. Wichita’s enrollment is trending downward. Meanwhile, the district faces about $1.2 billion in needed building repairs and maintenance, and staff shortages continue.
“It’s hard to even say the words, right?” Willis said. “Because it’s emotional to say the answer that solves those three problems is: Reduce the number of school buildings.”
Wichita is the state’s largest district, but enrollment has been declining since 2016.
“We are a district built for 63,000 students. We currently educate 47,000 students and change,” Willis said. “By definition, we are underutilizing square footage in our buildings, specifically elementary and middle.”
Consultants hired by the district told board members last month that the district has too many small elementary schools and can’t afford to maintain them all.
Nearly half of Wichita’s 54 elementary schools have fewer than 350 students, which is inefficient and costly to maintain, consultants said. Twelve elementaries have fewer than 300 students.
Bielefeld said a number of factors will go into deciding which schools to close and consolidate, including enrollment trends, the building’s age and condition, staffing levels and a school’s location within the district.
“There’s not an easy way to do it,” he said. “We have to have schools geographically spread out around the city, just for efficiency purposes… So we want to take an objective, data-based approach in making these decisions.”
Wichita has 54 elementary schools, 15 middle schools, three K-8s, nine high schools and nine special schools. The average age of the district’s buildings is over 60 years.
Wichita’s enrollment has dropped by more than 8% over the past seven years. Some of that came from declining birth rates and shifting housing patterns, but the COVID-19 pandemic worsened the problem.
Bielefeld, the Wichita superintendent, said building closures are part of the natural cycle of school districts. In 2012, as part of budget cuts and boundary changes, Wichita closed four elementary schools – Bryant, Emerson, Lincoln and Mueller – as well as the former Northeast Magnet High School at 17th and Chautauqua.
Bielefeld said the district doesn’t foresee job cuts. Employees at closed buildings will be offered positions elsewhere, including schools where some classrooms are staffed with long-term substitutes.
