Ninety minutes into Tuesday night’s Tucson Unified School District special Governing Board meeting, board member Natalie Luna Rose asked staff to “turn up the mic” at the lectern.
With fewer than 200 people in the 1,400-seat Palo Verde High School theater, a venue the district picked to hold a bigger crowd, her request carried easily across the room.
Those who came heard the history and financial breakdown behind the district’s recommendation to close or consolidate 10 schools by next school year with as many as six more in 2028-29.
The meeting’s public comment section was lengthened to include more voices. But while the conviction was there, the energy in the room was not. Audience speakers ranged from a middle schooler to parents, a bus driver and board candidates in next week’s election. Some drew applause.
No tears. No voices cracking with emotion. No shouting.
Realignment timeline
Nov. 10: Governing board meeting to study more closure/consolidation proposals
Nov. 17: A legally-mandated public hearing
Dec. 8: Scheduled board vote on the recommendations
It was a sharp contrast to the passionate public school meetings over the last year, including when Amphitheater Public Schools closed four elementary schools and when Arizona State Schools for the Deaf and the Blind closed its 100-year-old campus in May.
“I expected this to be full and I am concerned,” board member Jennifer Eckstrom said more than four hours into Tuesday’s meeting. It seemed apathetic and lacking empathy, she noted.
Southern Arizona’s largest school district says enrollment decline has forced it to recommend closing or consolidating 12 of the district’s 88 schools over the next two years, pending a board vote in December.
The meeting’s understated vibe may have belied what the community learned Tuesday night, including:
- More closures and consolidations are coming: TUSD Superintendent Gabriel Trujillo says he will make two more recommendations over the next week, involving possibly four more schools. In one scenario, “we are looking at a very, very large campus absorbing potentially two smaller elementary schools,” Trujillo told reporters before the board meeting.
- Free before- and after-school care will be available starting next school year: No-cost child care is budgeted for at least a year at receiving schools. “We also want to make sure that we’re incentivizing families from outside the district who can see, ‘Wow, it’s no cost. I’m going to go in here and be a part of this,’” Trujillo said.
- The No. 1 issue is declining enrollment, the district says: Trujillo focused on this point, steering away from budget analysis. “The primary goal is solving the enrollment crisis and creating a product and creating opportunities and creating environments that are attractive for families to start selecting our schools,” Trujillo said.
- Closures would save money: TUSD’s financial picture shows a $3.4 million in savings in operational costs with the first five scenarios, most of that due to job cuts — about 40 full-time equivalent staff, including 15 teachers. Trujillo says savings could reach $7 million in operational costs with all scenarios combined and does not include selling or leasing the buildings. TUSD needs to close a $27 million budget gap, TUSD Chief Financial Officer Ricky Hernández told Arizona Luminaria. And the district is one of nine in the state on the Arizona auditor general’s list of “highest financial risk.”
- Sales or leases of empty buildings must be approved by voters: It will be at least six months and likely more before the district can see the money from sales or leases of empty buildings because voters must approve the changes, Hernández said.
- Students are guaranteed transportation. “There will be a no-walk zone,” Trujillo said, adding, “If a parent wants the bus, they’re getting the bus. And it will be guaranteed transportation from the neighborhoods of the closing schools over to the receiving schools.”
Bus driver Nicholas Bruno wonders how that will happen. As a TUSD driver for the last three years, Bruno has traversed the city taking students to and from school and on field trips.
This week, a student boarded his bus and had a question:
“Are you sad?” she asked.
He is, he says. And he’s also questioning how the district is going to create new routes and staff them, he told Arizona Luminaria after Tuesday’s meeting where he spoke to the board.
“I don’t think that this is a good idea,” he says of closing schools. “It’s going to be devastating, like, not just academically but socially.”
Bruno, 31 has also worked as a preschool classroom assistant in the district and has a first grader in the district. He is concerned about the cost for families who may have to take their children to a campus farther away and for the bus crew, which is already understaffed, he says.
“There hasn’t been anything compelling to show that this is a good idea,” Bruno said. “There’s nothing that people are like, ‘Oh my gosh, yes. Let’s, yeah! Let’s do that.’”
As of Oct. 27, TUSD administrators have recommended 10 schools be merged or closed for the 2027-28 school year:
• Hudlow Elementary closing and merging into Sewell Elementary
• Dunham Elementary closing and merging into Marshall Elementary
• Cragin Elementary closing and merging into Blenman Elementary
• Collier Elementary closing and merging into Bloom Elementary
• Magee Middle School closing and merging into Sabino High School
In 2028-29:
• Secrist Middle School closing and merging into Santa Rita High School in the 2028-29 school year
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