Shuttering Schools in the Gateway City: School District Viability and Black Community Relations After Mass K-12 School Closures in St. Louis, MO

ABSTRACT

Since 1990, over 40% of schools have closed in the St. Louis Public Schools District (SLPSD) because of steep enrollment decline. Tracing educational trends over 30 years, I examine when, where, and why K-12 public schools closed in St. Louis in order to highlight the social conditions and policy decisions that contract contemporary urban education. I ask: What key social factors influence K-12 school closure patterns in St. Louis, Missouri? This mixed methods study summarizes analyses of data from the U.S. Department of Education, the St. Louis Public Schools District, and local news coverage to describe trends, determinants, and consequences of K-12 public school closures in St. Louis, Missouri (1990–2020). Findings demonstrated that closures in the city district were concentrated in majority-Black neighborhoods, with limited evidence of benefits to youth and communities. Findings also indicated that attempts to create educational change through the desegregation transfers program, charter school expansion, and administrative restructuring all triggered waves of closures. Drawing from community relations perspectives, I interpret mass closures as racialized policy practices that strain Black community relations and contract city districts. I argue that recurrent closures undermine youth and community development and disengage Black communities in ways that threaten district viability. Conclusions weigh whether the closure practices in the district have caused irreparable damage to Black community relations or if new policy objectives can foster long-term growth.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ “The Delmar Divide” is a moniker for Delmar Boulevard, the notorious boundary segregating Black and White St. Louis into north and south city, respectively.

² Underutilization is a term used among education officials to describe when the ratio of enrolled students to building capacity falls under desired efficiency thresholds.

³ For the purpose of this study, mass closure was defined as multiple closures at once or multiple closures across consecutive years. Periods of mass closures were distinguished from others based on trends in the data. Schools opened and closed between periods of mass closure.

⁴ The schools that closed at the end of the 2020–2021 school year will be reported in 2021–2022 federal data.

⁵ Over the course of the 30-year period, some schools were closed multiple times and other buildings housed multiple schools that closed. As such, the number of closed schools exceeds the number of closed buildings. The APPENDIX includes lists of closed district and charter schools (see Table A1).

⁶ Among cities with populations of 50,000 or more, St. Louis ranked fifteenth nationally for numeric decrease (−7,218) in population between 2020 and 2021—2.5 times the total estimated loss between 2018 and 2019 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2022b). St. Louis City was ranked eighth in 2018–2019 for a loss of 2,843 residents (U.S. Census Bureau, 2022b).

⁷ The pandemic also ushered in an era of renewed interest in homeschooling, educational co-ops, pandemic pods, and a host of other alternative K-12 schooling arrangements. Results from the Census Bureau’s 2021 Household Pulse Survey on the effects of the coronavirus pandemic indicate that rates of homeschooling in Missouri increased from 5.9% at the end of the 2019–2020 school year to 10.9% by the start of the 2020–2021 school year (Eggleston & Fields, 2021). Nationally, the rates of homeschooling for African American/Black families increased from 3.3% to 16.1%—a statistically significant increase relative to other racial groups (Eggleston & Fields, 2021). While the magnitude of the increase in St. Louis remains unclear, anecdotal evidence suggests greater interest in homeschooling among local Black families (Lewis-Thompson, 2021a). It is not yet clear whether the short-term impacts of COVID-19 disruptions on record increases in homeschooling rates and new/expanded cooperative educational arrangements will translate into long-term ones, or if public school districts will recoup some enrollment losses.

⁸ St. Louis City (and the region broadly) often ranks in the top 10 for most racially and economically segregated cities in the United States (Othering & Belonging Institute, 2022).

⁹ Closures also stemmed from a 1987 court order to implement a $110.3 M plan for capital renovations (Banks, 2018, p. 7).

¹⁰ An earlier intra-district plan was implemented in the city of St. Louis in 1980–1981 (Heaney & Uchitelle, 2004; VICC, 2022a).

¹¹ In 1999, St. Louis voters approved a two-thirds of a cent sales tax increase to fund the transfer program and the state committed to pay $180 million for capital improvements through 2009 (Freeman & Danforth, 2006; VICC, 2022d).

¹² Charter schools may operate in some provisionally accredited districts and in accredited districts where a local school board sponsors the charter school. Missouri law also permits any student residing in an unaccredited district the ability to transfer to an approved charter school in the same or adjoining county (https://dese.mo.gov/quality-schools/charter-schools).

¹³ The St. Louis Public Schools District sponsored two charter schools: Youthbuild St. Louis Charter and Construction Careers Center. Youthbuild closed in 2005 after operating for three years and the Construction Careers Center closed in 2015 after operating for 14 years (Pollack, 2021).

¹⁴ The for-profit Imagine Schools Network still operates schools in Arizona, California, Florida, Maryland, Nevada, Ohio, and Texas (Imagine Schools, 2022).

¹⁵ The Leadership Academy opened in the Normandy School District in August 2022. It is the first charter school in Missouri to operate outside of St. Louis City or Kansas City (Bernhard, 2022a).

¹⁶ The governor of Missouri, mayor of St. Louis, and president of the St. Louis City Board of Alderman each appointed officers to the Special Administrative Board of the Transitional District of the St. Louis City Public Schools. The elected Board of Education of the City of St. Louis retained authority over severely limited auditing and reporting activities (Moss, 2009).

¹⁷ In August 2022, Adams announced plans to retire from his role as Superintendent of SLPS on December 31, 2022 (Adams, 2022).

¹⁸ The sharpest increase in student enrollment, albeit contrived, also occurred under the SAB’s leadership. The city district reopened three schools in 2012 in order to accommodate 3,800 students returning from a charter network closed by state order (Strauss, 2017). This closure was historic for the SLPSD and the for-profit charter school operator, Imagine Schools, as it represented the largest one-time closures of charter schools in the United States (Strauss, 2017).

¹⁹ In December 2020, Superintendent Dr. Kelvin Adams presented an updated consolidation plan identifying 10 schools for closure (Adams, 2020). Seven of the recommended schools closed at the end of the 2020–2021 school year: Clay, Dunbar, Farragut, and Ford Elementary Schools; Fanning Middle School; Cleveland NJROTC Academy and Northwest Academy of Law High Schools. The board voted to transition Carnahan from a high school to middle school (Banks, 2021, p. 2). Hickey, Monroe, and Sumner were spared.

²⁰ The district ended the 2021 fiscal year with $103.3 M in allocations in federal funds from the American Rescue Plan Act and $46 M from the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations. As of June 2021, the SLPSD spent $10.7 in Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security Act (CARES) funds (Banks, 2021, p. 3).

²¹ The Facilities Capital Action Plan also supported the district’s Prop S campaign—a no-tax increase $160 M bond measure for capital improvements. Although 87% of city voters approved the bond in August 2022, the amount covers less than half of the analysts’ estimates for facility improvement (Bernhard, 2021).

²² The Consolidation Matrix used ratings of building conditions from the Facilities Capital Action Plan in selecting schools for closure and listing district buildings for sale. For example, the district’s main office has been listed for $10.5 M, along with five of the seven schools closed in 2020–2021 (St. Louis Public Schools, 2022a).

²³ Consultants from Alvarez & Marsal warned the SLPSD of continued underutilization after mass closures 20 years ago (Garry & Uchitelle, 2020, p. 202).

²⁴ The Transformation Plan 3.0 sets out to achieve a system of fair, equitable, and excellent schools with emphases on culturally responsive educators, literacy, and community partnerships (SLPS, 2022b).

²⁵ The “Great Resignation” refers to the voluntary mass resignations from jobs in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

²⁶ Ashland and Meramec Elementary Schools participated in the program for the pilot year during the 2019–2020 pilot year.

²⁷ While accountable to the Board of Education of St. Louis City, the CPN is a separate administrative layer with an executive director and five-member board of directors (i.e., the superintendent, a parent representative, and appointees from the Board of Education, Board of Alderman, and Office of the Mayor) (Pierce, 2019).

Additional information

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes on contributors

Ebony M. Duncan-Shippy

Ebony M. Duncan-Shippy (Ph.D.) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Education at Washington University in St. Louis. She examines the impacts of race & racism on education reform policy and school-community relationships.