During the board meeting on 10/14/2021, CUSD Board voted (with 3:2 simple majority) to close Meryerholz and Regnart Elementary Schools. This decision had profound consequences to the community.
But this is not the end of it. According to the Board Meeting on 9/23/2021, the district might evaluate another possible school closure in FY2025-26.
It's important to revisit what happened in 2021 to understand the process and the reason leading to the schools' closure, as well as what can be improved.
The Timeline
CUSD failed to pass parcel tax Measure O in March 2020.
CUSD created a Citizen Advisory Committee (CAC) in the Spring of 2020 to consider options for school closures and consolidations.
The CAC presented the final report on 10/22/2020 after five meetings.
In November 2020, right after the election, the community was informed about possible school closures.
CUSD failed to pass another parcel tax Measure A in May 2021. According to [the report] (https://go.boarddocs.com/ca/cusdk8/Board.nsf/files/C78SEY0492B6/$file/Cupertino%20Union%20School%20District%20-%20Final%20Report.pdf), "The Parcel Tax revenue would allow the district to delay the decision of closing schools."
The district resumed school closure process after the failure of Measure A.
The board voted 3:2 to close Meyerholz and Regnart at the Board Meeting at 10/14/2021.
The Reason
The district mentioned two reasons for school closures:
- Declining enrollment
- State funding affecting the district budget
The district expected the enrollment to continue to drop.
The district expected the budget to be in a deficit for many years.
Several years have passed, and I collected the actual data and compared with the prediction below. The enrollment prediction was relatively accurate, but the financial predictions were way off.
Notably, the budget in FY 2023-24 is in a deficit again even though the actual revenue is $42M more than the predicted revenue and $34M more than the predicted expense.
One of the reasons for school closures was to reduce the expense, but the expense was not affected by the school closures at all.
Enrollment Rules The district proposed two enrollment rules during the school closures in 2021.
- Each elementary school should be staffed with at least two Kindergarten classes.
- Each middle school should be more than 700 students. (see above)
According to publicschoolreview.com, average school size in California is 588 students.
What Can Be Better?
Since the CUSD school closures in 2021, possible future school closures have become nightmares among local residents, such as the dispute related to the FUHSD Trustee Area transition.
To restore residents' confidence to the district, I think there are at least two things the district can improve on
- Critical district issues (like school closures, reconfiguration, selling school sites, etc,) should require super-majority (or 4 out of 5) votes from the board.
- If schools are going to be closed due to low enrollment, they need to have opportunity of open enrollment programs across the district.
Note
Someone asked for the voting record for the school closures. You can find the information from the record for the 10/14/2021 board meeting at Agenda - Cupertino Union School District BoardDocs® Plus. They don't have a direct link and you have to manually find the meeting on that day. It was agenda item 13.1. Below is a screenshot.
Please notice Sylvia Leong and Phyllis Vogel's current term end at the end of 2024. Sylvia is seeking for re-election while Phyllis hasn't pulled any paper yet (up to 7/25/2024).