Surviving closings and consolidations: the secret may be an open attitude and a healthy dose of public input

School Administrator, August, 2003 by Brad Hughes

First-year Superintendent Mike Gray of Hancock County, Ky., got an unusual assist in gaining community support for a $27 million facilities upgrade plan that included closing a school: A wing in another building was condemned as unsafe.

Paul Fanning got an even stranger boost during a divisive facilities planning process that will consolidate several schools in Floyd County, Ky.: a two-year extension of his superintendent contract.

Both school systems shared the oddest lift of all: expanded construction bonding authority from the seemingly cash-strapped state legislature. The funding came with a catch, however. It was available only to school districts that formally committed to replacing specific outdated buildings.

Citing reduced state funding, lower local revenues or declining enrollment, at least 10 Kentucky districts either closed or consolidated schools or have considered such actions this year. And Bluegrass state administrators aren't facing these decisions alone. A simple Internet search on a single spring day produced news stories of school closings and/or proposals to close in 22 states.

School leaders take few actions that can evoke the levels of passion like closing a school, says George Cawood, a consultant with the Kentucky School Boards Association who works with districts to comply with the state's Local Planning Committee process. "That's one of the toughest things because every community considers that school to be the center of the community, and if you remove the school, you're removing the heart of the community," he says.

"The only way to counteract that reaction is to do a lot of research and use the data to show how it will benefit students from curriculum offerings, nicer facilities or savings in terms of maintenance," Cawood adds. "But sometimes, you can get all that data out there and it still won't change the attitudes in the community."

Clarity of Purpose

Five years earlier, Hancock County Schools, with its 1,560 students on the Ohio River in west Kentucky, underwent a facilities planning process that failed on multiple levels: an inaccurate assessment of needs, an unworkable timetable for action and no community buy-in. However, the discovery in April 2002 that a crumbling wall made an entire wing of Hawesville Elementary School unsafe for use became a catalyst for reform.

"Part of our success was just luck, because having one-third of that building condemned put us in a crisis mode in terms of people's mentality that we couldn't put this off another couple of years," Gray says.

Hancock County leaders decided to take plenty of time in developing the new plan. "We were not in any hurry because we knew the issue of consolidation was one where we had to have all of the questions answered," he said. "We sat down with paper and pencil and gave people facts and figures. That was a key-factual information."

A series of forums, above and beyond the state-required public hearing, became critical. "One key was that we broke people down into small groups a little bit differently in every meeting, so that people wouldn't be working in the same group each time," Gray says. "We also had the meetings on neutral ground, at churches, not at the schools themselves."

In Floyd County, a 7,000-student district near the Kentucky-West Virginia border, hard feelings over an earlier school consolidation process still linger, says Fanning, the superintendent since 1999. The state rejected the original facilities plan, citing too much underutilized space for the district and its declining enrollment. Ultimately, the success of the second process--which calls for consolidating high schools and K-4 elementary schools--rested on two points, Fanning says: a clear purpose and an open, credible process.

"We went above and beyond the required public meetings," he says. "The committee took time to give everyone a forum to have their say, and that was part of why it worked."

But a greater impact on public support came from the credibility that Floyd County's Local Planning Committee built. "People came to the meetings and saw that everyone was working with a purpose. Plain old grunt work," Fanning says. "Were the discussions vigorous and contentious at times? Yes. But the meetings were open to the public and the press, and people came and saw a committee with high expectations for themselves and for the final plan."

In the end, Fanning says, "Some people came up and said, 'We don't like consolidation, but to be able to offer our children opportunities that they're having a difficult time obtaining now in a small school setting is something we understand we have to look at.'"

Cawood has worked with five school districts this year on facilities' plans that include closing or consolidating schools. He advises school leaders to build a cross-section of the district into the early discussions.

"You need to have a mix of people, a diverse representation because whatever the solution is, it's going to affect the whole district, even if the consolidation is only in one area," he says. "If you come out with a plan first without getting that part of the discussion, you're going to have problems. Don't say, 'This is what we've got to do.' Say, 'Here are our problems and here are some potential solutions. Please look at this and give us some feedback.'"