School Closures Policy: PCAB asks for evidence-based innovation and authentic community engagement

 February 15, 2022

Baltimore City Schools staff will introduce a revision to policy FCA on Closing of Schools to the School Board Policy Committee in April. Rather than waiting to react to the draft, the PCAB Policy Committee has submitted red-lines and comments on the existing policy (click HERE) and administrative regulations (click HERE.)  

In preparing these policy recommendations, we consulted community members with lived experience at schools recommended for closure under the existing policy.  We also referred to evidence from other school districts about the academic performance of students who change schools due to school closure.  For example, Ben Kirshner et al. found declines in academic performance for students who were forced to transfer schools due to school closure.  Deleterious effects of school closure were confirmed in a Chicago study by the Chicago Consortium for School Research published in 2018 and in a 2014 study published by Vontrese Deeds and Mary Pattillo, who contend, based on their findings, that school closure results in the loss of peer connections, children’s decreased trust and confidence in their school futures, and the dismantling of informal but tailored pedagogical strategies. Hence, school closure as a method to manage fiscal constraints runs contrary to a school district’s goal of raising student and school performance because it disrupts the stability and relationships that contribute to school success, undermining the overall aim to improve students' achievement.

Even if we hope to be entering a period in which school closures are behind us, we know now more than ever that hope is not a strategy.  Although City Schools staff followed the Closing of Schools policy and administrative regulations to the “T” and complied with COMAR this year in carrying out its recommendation to close three more schools, its “bare minimum” implementation of the policy felt to many like a corporate factory shutdown.  We know that schools are not factories, and City Schools has prided itself as an innovator with respect to its family and community engagement policy and equity policy.  Why not be a leader for other urban school districts in innovation with respect to school closure policy as well?

PCAB's policy feedback to the district is borne out of a few guiding principles, as follows:

1. Let’s not pretend that we are closing a child’s school because it is the best thing for that child’s academic success.  We know from evidence (such as the research cited previously) that this is not true, and Baltimore City Schools has also not provided any data to demonstrate that students who were moved in previous closures are performing better or graduating at higher rates.  If we are closing a school to promote efficient use of school facilities and resources, then let’s be clear that is the reason.

2. Let’s make sure Baltimore’s school commissioners can make their decision, knowing they have BOTH the district’s recommendation and supporting evidence AND the school community’s arguments and supporting evidence.  Of course, the community of any school recommended for closure is going to be against it.  But, that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have a fair chance to make their case to the school board. This is not a factory closing based on profit metrics, this is a public good and a community asset, usually in a red-lined community of color.  School commissioners shouldn’t only hear from the district staff whose paychecks may be linked to measures of system efficiency, but also from the school community members who will experience the trauma of the closure and have a genuine opportunity to argue against it and to request measures that would ease closure when it is inevitable, such as assistance with safe routes to school or transition services.

3. Let’s honor the commitment this board made last year when it approved the following revisions to Policy KCA Family and Community Engagement

• "To acknowledge that students have the best chance to succeed when youth, families, community partners, and staff work together through full, equal, authentic partnerships, including honoring family knowledge"

• "To elevate the voices of parents, families, and youth who have traditionally been excluded from decision making"; and,

• "To support open, transparent, and effective two-way communications and information sharing."

Honoring that commitment means that the policy as it’s written is woefully inadequate.  Our current policy standard with respect to school closures is to “encourage comments from citizens and groups” rather than ensuring school communities fully participate in the decision-making process.  Authentic engagement BEFORE and DURING the school closure decision-making process will translate to a more effective transition AFTER a school closure as well.

To review PCAB's policy recommendations on school closures, please click HERE for red-lines to the policy and click HERE for red-lines to the administrative regulations.