Proposal calls for mass school closures as St. Louis shrinks

ST. LOUIS — A new report proposes shuttering more than half the public schools in St. Louis as the city’s population continues to fall.

Starting in fall 2026, St. Louis Public Schools would close 37 schools and keep 31 open under the proposal to be presented Tuesday at a school board meeting.

If the SLPS board follows the suggestion to drastically reduce the district’s footprint, it would mark the largest cluster of school closures in the city’s history. The proposal also means St. Louis would have:

• More vacant schools than occupied schools.
• More than half of neighborhoods without a public school.
• More independent charter schools than public schools.

While the report’s influence is unknown, Superintendent Millicent Borishade will make recommendations for school closures in the coming months, followed by a vote from the school board. The school district has hosted community meetings this year for input on the closure process called “Reimagining SLPS.”

Last year, there were 18,122 students scattered across more than 60 schools in SLPS, which has one of the lowest average building capacity rates in the country.

With too few students in too many buildings, educators struggle to find enough certified teachers, counselors, social workers, bus drivers and coaches. Students miss out on foreign language instruction, advanced courses, sports and extracurricular activities. Many city schools lack the volunteers to form a parent-teacher organization.

The city’s population could drop below 266,000 over the next 10 years, pulling SLPS enrollment even lower, according to the report from architectural firm Cordogan, Clark and Associates. The firm’s analysis estimates SLPS enrollment will fall to 12,700 by 2035, a stunning collapse for a district that enrolled as many as 115,000 baby boomers in the 1960s.

SLPS is projected to lose between 800 and 2,000 students just this summer, mostly because of displacement from the May 16 tornado.

“If families with children leave the city, they’re not coming back,” said Ness Sándoval, a sociology professor at St. Louis University who studies local demographics. “We have to plan for a school district that is going to have fewer children.”

Falling birth rates are an ongoing problem for schools nationwide, Sándoval said. Even the once-booming Rockwood School District in west St. Louis County projects enrollment will continue dropping to 18,073 in 2027, down 4,750 students since its peak in 2011.

“If you look at other school districts around the country, everybody is trying to get ahead of the curve of declining fertility rates,” he said.

For SLPS, the declining population will likely be accelerated in the wake of the tornado. Seven schools in its path will not reopen this fall, with their long-term future in doubt after suffering at least $14.5 million in total damages.

Permanent decisions should wait for more clarity about the impact of the tornado on communities in north St. Louis, said Dorothy Rohde-Collins, who was president of the SLPS board in 2021, when the district shuttered seven schools in the most recent round of closures.

“It is true that SLPS needs to close schools in response to declining population and enrollment but it shouldn’t be now and definitely not like this,” said Rohde-Collins, who studies school closures as a Ph.D. candidate at St. Louis University. “To even talk about permanently closing schools only two months after a devastating tornado is to pour more trauma onto an already traumatized city.”