US Schools Shut at a Post-Pandemic High, and the Cuts Are Just Starting

Districts across the US closed 1,156 schools during the last academic year, the highest tally since the pandemic, according to an analysis of federal data by Big Local News at Stanford University. Enrollment fell by more than 1.4 million students — roughly 3% — between fall 2019 and 2024, per an Associated Press analysis of federal education data compiled by Stanford economist Thomas Dee and sociologist Jaymes Pyne. But the total number of schools has only dropped back to roughly pre-pandemic levels, meaning districts are shutting buildings far slower than they are losing kids.

Vallejo City Unified School District, a working-class system near San Francisco, is the picture of the squeeze. It has closed five campuses since 2025 — a quarter of its schools — and put up to a third of all staff positions on the chopping block to close a $36 million deficit. Enrollment sat at nearly 18,000 in fall 2006; it now stands at about 9,300, and its schools run at an average of just 46% capacity. Superintendent Rubén Aurelio said the cuts are about "right-sizing a district that was built for significantly more kids," adding that Vallejo isn't "closing schools to close schools."

Falling birth rates are the biggest driver, but a federal immigration crackdown and the post-pandemic boom in private school vouchers and homeschooling have added to the drop. Research groups Bellwether and WestEd estimate shrinking enrollment could cost schools $11.5 billion in state revenue every year by 2030-2031. Lydia Rainey, research principal at the Center on Reinventing Public Education, said expecting states to rescue districts is "extremely wishful thinking."

Closing schools rarely delivers the savings districts hope for. Busing students to new campuses, severance for laid-off staff and security for empty buildings eat into the gains — and closures can dent academics and scare off teachers worried about job stability. They can also spark a spiral: frustrated families leave for charters, neighboring districts or private schools, cutting the per-student funding that remains. Cleveland, Houston and Philadelphia are facing similar rounds of closures.

Vallejo's turbulence began before this wave. Mismanagement in the early 2000s pushed the district to the brink of bankruptcy, and the state bailed it out with $60 million while keeping it under oversight until summer 2024. Aurelio took over around the time receivership lifted, inherited salaries paid with now-expired COVID relief money, and announced two rounds of closures in early 2025. The first shut two K-8 schools at the end of that academic year; he has set a December 2025 deadline for the board to pick three more neighborhood schools to close and approve further staff cuts.

Families are already weighing exits. Kimberly Núñez-Brandão moved her older son to a competing charter school and said she was stunned to learn her fifth grader Penny's new teacher had 32 students in his first class at Glen Cove Elementary. Caitlin Jackson, a Vallejo parent who enrolled her toddler in a district-sponsored charter, called downsizing a system while trying to sustain it "just very difficult" and hasn't ruled out private school or homeschooling. Vallejo is fighting back by renovating older campuses, planning a Tagalog-language school aimed at Filipino families across the Bay Area, denying some transfer requests and courting parents with tours and new classes.