As a growing number of districts consider closing schools to cut costs, civil rights groups want guardrails to ensure students of color don鈥檛 bear the brunt of those decisions.
They鈥檝e asked the U.S. Department of Education鈥檚 office for civil rights to draw a line in the sand by issuing guidance about when school closures run afoul of federal civil rights laws by placing an unfair burden on students from a racial or ethnic minority group or students with disabilities.
鈥淭he research on school closures and lived experiences of the students and families whose neighborhood schools were closed overwhelmingly shows that school closures are harmful to students and their families, not beneficial,鈥� said a from two civil rights organizations, the Advancement Project and the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Even when districts target schools for closure with criteria that appear to be racially neutral, their decisions could violate the Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits racial discrimination in schools, or disability rights laws, said the letter, which the groups sent after meeting with Education Department officials.
A district may cause disparate impact if it closes an elementary school with a disproportionately high enrollment of Black students, forcing displaced children to travel longer distances than their peers to get to school, the groups argued. And selecting schools based on factors like the age of buildings may layer new harms on top of historical patterns of funding inequities and residential segregation, said Katherine Dunn, director of the Opportunity to Learn program at the Advancement Project.
鈥淭hese factors that we鈥檙e seeing [districts consider]鈥攆acility conditions, school utilization, school enrollment鈥攖hose factors are symptoms of disinvestment that have to be critiqued,鈥� Dunn said.
Budget concerns spark school closure discussions
Civil rights groups have long flagged concerns about which schools are closed and who gets a say in that decision. The Chicago district sparked months of protests and political organizing when it closed 50 schools in 2013, displacing 17,000 students and removing community anchors from neighborhoods around the city. Lawmakers have since temporarily frozen the district鈥檚 ability to close campuses.
But a broader, pending national wave of closures threatens to overwhelm national racial-justice organizations who aid local advocates in organizing against closures.
The latest call to action comes as districts prepare for a perfect storm of financial challenges: declining enrollment, inflation, and the September spending deadline for an unprecedented infusion of federal COVID-19 aid. Together they鈥檝e led many school boards to weigh closing campuses and cutting staff.
Through an informal survey of news reports, the Advancement Project has tracked at least 65 districts with schools set to close before the 2024鈥�25 school year. And the organization expects those talks to accelerate in the next few years; at least 21 districts have launched facilities audits and boundary studies, which often precede closures.
The groups have issued toolkits for community and parent groups to identify 鈥測ellow lights"鈥攕igns that districts are about to enter into discussions about closures鈥攐ften guided by consultants on a quick timeline, Dunn said. Even if those groups file a federal civil rights complaint, the districts鈥� decisions are often finalized and schools shuttered more quickly than the time it takes for OCR to investigate, she said.
The Education Department did not respond to a request for comment on the letter.
Civil rights guidance is a non-binding federal document that cites court precedents to support the Education Department鈥檚 interpretation of federal laws, putting districts on notice about factors that could trigger an investigation or legal complaint.
California makes equity a factor in closure decisions
The groups鈥� letter calls for guidance that echoes an 鈥渆quity impact analysis鈥� requirement adopted by California lawmakers in 2023, student demographics, environmental factors like traffic, shifting transportation needs of displaced students, and continued access to special programs.
That state law came after civil rights activists protested planned school closures in the Oakland district, some even going on hunger strikes. In January, the state鈥檚 department of justice agreed that the since-suspended closure plans 鈥渨ould have disproportionately impacted Black and low-income elementary school students and also high-needs students with disabilities in special day classes.鈥�
Parents, teachers, and activists have long argued that school closures have negative effects for students of color and students from low-income households.
After analyzing federal data on enrollment and , researchers at Stanford University found that majority-Black schools were about three times as likely to close as schools with smaller enrollments of Black students, even when accounting for common reasons behind closures, like drops in enrollment and declining student test scores.
鈥淩ace is showing up as a strong predictor of which schools are closing, and conventional explanations that we have for closures can鈥檛 account for that disparity,鈥� Francis A. Pearman, an assistant professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Education who co-authored that unpublished research, told Education Week in November. 鈥淒eliberate or not deliberate, it鈥檚 showing up, and we have to be really careful about the processes that govern closures to ensure that those processes themselves are equitable.鈥�
How federal investigators interrogate school closures
In past investigations of school closures, OCR has applied a three-part analysis to assess for discriminatory effects:
- Does a policy that is 鈥渘eutral on its face鈥� have a disproportionate and harmful effect on students from a particular racial or ethnic group?
- Is that policy justified by the need to meet an important, nondiscriminatory educational goal?
- Did the district consider an alternative course of action that would have eased disparate effects?
For example, a 2022 investigation of the Huntington Beach, Calif., district concluded that , even though that school enrolled a disproportionately high number of Latino students compared to the rest of the district.
Investigators concluded that the district鈥檚 criteria, which factored in enrollment declines and the presence of early childhood centers on other campuses, was not racially discriminatory. The decision met an 鈥渋mportant educational goal鈥� of balancing the district鈥檚 budget, they concluded. And, while many of the displaced Latino students would have to walk as far as two miles to get to their new schools, investigators did not consider that an 鈥渦ndue burden鈥� because many of their peers in other elementary schools walked a similar distance.
Investigators did flag the district for insufficient communication with Spanish-speaking parents during public feedback sessions on the school closure process, which administrators agreed to remedy in future outreach efforts.
Whether or not federal officials issue new guidance on the issue, Dunn said she hopes district leaders will read the groups鈥� letter to identify ways to ensure their decisions are fair and minimize harm.
And district leaders should ensure that closure decisions are not a foregone conclusion before they seek community input, she said.
Affected communities 鈥渁re not confused that these are civil rights issues that are raised by these decisions,鈥� Dunn said. 鈥淭hey want someone with some teeth to step in and name it for what it is.鈥�
