Amphitheater Public Schools recommends closing four elementary schools — two in metro Tucson, one in Oro Valley and another in unincorporated Pima County — next school year because of declining enrollment, the superintendent said in a letter to staff and parents Monday.
Holaway Elementary and Nash Elementary are both within the Tucson city limits, Donaldson is in unincorporated Pima County and Copper Creek is in Oro Valley. The schools combined — in kindergarten through fifth grade — served about 1,100 students in the 2023-24 school year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
The declining enrollment is due to two main factors, Amphi administrators say: The dropping birth rate in Pima County and the rising number of families using Arizona’s vouchers and Empowerment Scholarship Accounts to homeschool or attend private schools.
Amphi Public Schools is 132 years old and includes 22 schools in pre-K through high school in north Tucson and Oro Valley. Enrollment data for last school year shows Amphi had about 10,500 students across its 112 square miles.
“As enrollment decreases, stretching resources across too many campuses makes it increasingly difficult to sustain the strong academic programs, high-quality staffing, and facility improvements our students deserve,” Amphi Superintendent Todd Jaeger said in the email.
“Our District is facing a significant, structural decline in student enrollment. School districts across Arizona and the nation are grappling with this reality,” the letter said. “To ensure that Amphitheater remains fiscally sound and educationally vibrant for our students now and into the future, we are compelled to make difficult, but necessary, decisions this year.”
In early October, Jaeger sent an initial email to staff and families outlining that up to five elementary schools could close next year. The letter said district enrollment “has declined nearly every year for the past decade,” and Amphi has a “sudden $4.3 million loss due to a particularly steep decline.”
Two years ago, Amphi had 11,835 students, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, an 11% decline in the last couple of years.
For each proposed school closure, Monday’s email lays out the alternative school: Copper Creek students will head to Painted Sky and Harelson; Donaldson students will go to Mesa Verde; Nash students to Keeling and Walker; and Holaway to Rio Vista.
Teachers would likely follow the students to those schools and the classified staff would be dispersed to other locations across the district as needed, Amphi Governing Board member Matt Kopec said.
The fate of the four school sites remains to be seen, Kopec said. “But our incentive obviously as a district is to offload them, because that’s where the savings is — the maintenance, operations and capital expense.”
Right-sizing school districts — an appropriate amount of campuses for the number of students they serve — is an issue facing every Arizona school district.
“In order for us to be able to deliver the highest quality instruction and enrichment beyond just reading, writing and math. To provide the other opportunities that we think need to be provided, the budgetary math just becomes not possible,” Kopec said. “We could continue to attempt to keep sites open for the sake of keeping sites open, but to do that we would have to sacrifice so much of what engages our students and makes them come to school.”
Next steps include information sessions for students and families on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday this week. Jaeger’s email said he will make a formal recommendation at the Dec. 9 board meeting. A board vote is tentatively scheduled for Jan. 13 and Amphi requests families’ input at its website, Kopec said.
Less than two hours after Monday’s email announcement, about two dozen comments and questions had been received by the district, Kopec said.
As people left the Holaway school grounds and parking lot late Monday afternoon, a gentle breeze blew and staffers were solemn. One-by-one, they declined to speak with a reporter about their school or the path ahead.
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