Olympia School District superintendent revives school closure debate to balance budget

Olympia School District revisited the controversial idea of school closures at its June 12 board meeting.

Following declining enrollment and funding since the COVID-19 pandemic, and a $3.5 million deficit in 2024, OSD considered closing Madison and McKenny Elementary last year to balance the district’s budget.

However, after several parents took legal action against the district, saying the decision to close schools did not involve enough community input, courts ordered the district to restart the school closure process. Madison and McKenny remained open in the 2024 to 2025 school year. The district opted for central office and in-school reductions to address budget issues, instead

However, amid ongoing questions surrounding OSD’s budget, Superintendent Patrick Murphy revived the question around school closures at last week’s board meeting. Murphy said closing and consolidating schools can save money and boost staffing efficiency.

“If you close schools, and you take those students from two schools and put them in one school, you make that school bigger,” he said. “It drives out more allocation for a principal, for a librarian, for a nurse, for a reading specialist, for a family liaison.”

With help from an outside consulting agency, the district narrowed down seven schools for potential closure, in order from most plausible, including: McKenny, Reeves, Madison, Pioneer, Boston Harbor, L.P. Brown, and Jefferson.

School size, school utilization, facility condition, prior investment, future development potential, combinability of boundary areas, socio-economic factors, future development potential, walkability, and cost savings were the parameters used to determine which schools could be up for closure.

Based on an analysis from two years ago, Murphy said that closing an elementary school would save the district over one million dollars, and closing a middle school would save the district even more, with most savings coming from more efficient staff utilization.

“... An elementary school closure would save a little bit more than a million dollars. Middle schools would save a little bit more than that. The largest chunks come from a better utilization of classroom teaching staff, and like I mentioned, savings and those other one-off areas, like custodial, kitchen, utilities, grounds, principal, that type of thing,” he said.

However, the district will not pursue school closures in the next school year.

Murphy said, “I want to make it very clear, we’re not closing any schools in the 25-26 school year. But if we were going to close a school in the 26-27 school year, we would want to complete that process, hopefully by the midpoint of the school year.”

While the district does not intend to close any schools in the upcoming school year, Murphy said remodeling schools to accommodate more students can make school closures more appealing.

“I mentioned that we did big remodels on some schools, and that was really cool, and if we were doing a remodel and closing a school to better handle more kids, that’s something that I think would be more attractive to families.”