Quick Take
Live Oak School District has decided not to pursue school closures at this time, citing a potential stabilization of student enrollment over the next few years. Officials are remaining cautious of the projections as the district faces continued uncertainties from federal funding cuts.
After Live Oak School District voters approved a $44 million bond measure in March 2024, the governing board asked itself: How can the district best use the funds across its four school sites when enrollment has declined by 17% in the past decade and is projected to continue dropping?
What if the districts spends millions of dollars of bond money to make infrastructure improvements on a school to later have to close it because enrollment is too low to sustainably keep it open?
The answer is now clearer. The board has decided that it is not ready to start a process that would result in the closure of one of its three elementary schools. The district also has a middle school and independent study program, for a total of about 1,500 students.
The board’s action, decided in a workshop meeting Sept. 15, follows its weighing of a consulting firm report, analyzing enrollment trends and projections, and school site capacity.
Superintendent Patrick Sánchez told Lookout this week that the board decided against closing a school for now, citing a potential stabilizing of enrollment going forward. The board also thinks there’s more it can do to better market its schools to attract more students already living in the district but who attend other schools. On average, LOSD enrolls about 82% of elementary- and middle school-age children who live in the district.
“I think there’s a feeling that we could do a better job with marketing to try to stabilize our enrollment and improve our attendance campaign,” Sánchez said. “I think we’re trying to invest in what’s working first and see if that keeps our enrollment stable or going up. And if that does, it may mitigate the need to consider closing a school.”
He added that the district is planning to do a more in-depth analysis of the school sites’ capacities as a next step, which will likely be discussed at their next board meeting, slated for Oct. 15.
The consulting firm, Ryland Strategic Business Consulting, concluded in its June report that with increased housing stock planned within the district’s boundaries, as well as increased birth rates over the past three years, “it may simply not be the right time to consider school consolidation.”
The district has seen lots of change recently. Since the bond measure passed more than a year ago, the district has gone through two rounds of budget cuts and twice transferred students from one school to another. Officials continue work to more efficiently match student enrollment to staffing, and they’re also still planning and prioritizing how bond funding will be used at the sites.
Cost savings are hard to predict
During the second round of budget cuts in February, Sánchez, board members and community members had agreed it was time to explore closing schools or consolidating the district with another neighboring school district, given budget constraints. A few months later, they contracted with Ryland Strategic Business Consulting.
The firm’s report includes an evaluation of current and projected student enrollment and compares it to the capacity of the district’s school sites. The district has one middle school and three elementary schools. The report mentioned the potential closure of Green Acres Elementary – where enrollment is lowest, at 262 students as of the 2024-25 school year.
Del Mar Elementary serves 322 students, Live Oak Elementary serves 362 students and Shoreline Middle School serves 478. The district also has an independent study program, Ocean Alternative School, which serves 76 students. On average across the school sites, the schools are filled to about 84% of their total capacity.
Sánchez said the cost savings of closing a school is hard to predict. But generally, by closing a school, the district cuts costs of the principal and for utilities, which could be about $350,000 to $500,000 in savings annually. But, he added, many of the remaining school staff are still working, but are sent to the other sites.
However, with the new housing units and rising birth rates both potentially increasing enrollment, all of Live Oak’s elementary schools are projected to see an increase in enrollment, while the middle school would see a continued gradual decline, according to the report.
The firm estimates that about 400 new housing units could be occupied in the next four years within the district’s boundaries, which could result in about 63 new students potentially attending the district’s schools. In addition, compared to the 2015 and 2019 period, the number of births to families in the district increased in 2020 to 2023, and could bring higher numbers of kindergarten students for at least the next four years.
Given these factors, the report indicates that by 2028-29, Green Acres Elementary could see an enrollment increase of 20% from 2024-25 levels – from 262 up to 317 students. Del Mar Elementary could increase by about 11% and Live Oak Elementary by more than 3%, while Shoreline Middle could decrease by about 10%.
Live Oak School District’s declining enrollment trends aren’t unique, as Santa Cruz County’s K-12 schools have recorded a similar decline. From 2019-20 to 2023-24, the public schools lost 3,572 students, or 10.6% of its total enrollment. County Superintendent of Schools Faris Sabbah said that in addition to this decline, the next several years are also projected to see drops in enrollment.
“While there are some signs of stabilization, we anticipate ongoing declines in most districts,” he told Lookout in a statement. “Like all districts in Santa Cruz County, Live Oak is carefully evaluating its local indicators to make the decisions that best support its students, staff and community.”
While the analysis had some positive predictions, Sánchez is remaining cautious and said he will continue to monitor enrollment closely. He’s also wary of the disruptions in federal education funding that directly affect the services the district can provide its students, particularly for students in LOSD’s special education program.
Sánchez estimates that the district is losing $100,000 to $200,000 in special education funding, which means it would have to make budget cuts elsewhere. He said LOSD will have a clearer picture of potential budget cuts by the end of December.
“I think because of all those unstable factors from the federal government, from [special education] funding and from knowing how enrollment is going to play out, it’s not the time to decide to close the school,” he said. “The other piece is, even if you do decide to close the school, it’s a one-to-two-year process at minimum. So you’re not going to just close the school and in a couple meetings and have everybody be happy. It’s a painful process that you have to go through and. So I think it’s wise to just wait to see where the money falls.”
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