TUSD meeting on school closures reveals concerns about class size, program loss

The meeting, part of what district officials are calling a "reimagining" process, comes as TUSD grapples with a two-decade enrollment slide that has left the district serving about 39,000 students in buildings once built for tens of thousands more.

"Closing schools is not just about closing doors," Superintendent Gabriel Trujillo told the crowd. "It's about closing what really ends up being one of the most beautiful chapters in people's lives."

Trujillo said the district is spending millions of dollars maintaining half-empty campuses, which could go towards smaller class sizes, full-time art and PE teachers and other resources that are difficult to sustain in under-enrolled schools.

The district’s enrollment has struggled because of two primary factors, Trujillo said: low birthrates and a loss of students to the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Account program.

Roughly 5,200 K-12 students within TUSD boundaries are now using ESA funds, he said.

“That 5,200 number represents about $29 million in state funding that would have been available to TUSD,” Trujillo said. “That's $29 million that we don't have for facilities or uniforms or teacher salaries or blue-collar salaries.”

Bill de la Cruz, a contracted consultant from De La Cruz Leadership Solutions, walked roughly 150 attendees, about half of the expected turnout based on signups, through district data before having groups share answers to the district’s prompts.

Some of the questions included “As a parent or community member, what concerns do you have about school closures or consolidations?” and “As a parent or community member, what opportunities do you see for the district to improve and strengthen its quality of education through this process of closing or consolidating schools?”

"We want honest and frank feedback from our parents," Trujillo told reporters before the meeting began, adding that facilitators were instructed to keep conversations moving rather than respond to criticism.

Common threads of concerns during the meeting included fear over larger class sizes, concerns about exceptional education programs, the need for district transportation and worry about losing the school-based relationships and identity that come with a neighborhood campus.

Some attendees pushed back on the premise of the conversation itself. Several community members asked how the district plans to prevent this same crisis from recurring, floating ideas like better marketing of TUSD's existing programs to compete with charter schools.

Nick Bruno, a TUSD bus driver, said he worries students will leave the district entirely if it closes schools.

“You know that saying ‘build it and they will come?’ If you close it, they’ll leave. That’s my thought,” he said. “The impact on communities isn’t very quantifiable … they might say ‘we have to make the hard cuts,’ but I really think that if you close them, you won’t get them back.”

Governing board president Ravi Shah, who walked around the room and listened in on breakout sessions, told the Star the value of the meetings lay less in choosing which schools close and more in shaping how the transition happens.

“There's no right way to talk about closing consolidations. I hope we're doing this in the least worst way possible in terms of making sure we're responsive and responsible to the community,” he said. “It's a rough process. I'm really glad that we had scores of people here tonight willing to be part of that process and give their feedback and engage what we're doing.”

All five TUSD governing board members were in attendance Monday evening.

Trujillo said a formal proposal, which will likely cover 10 schools in two implementation phases for the 2027-28 school year and the 2028-29 school year, will be built from themes gathered at this week’s three listening sessions along with staff interviews. The district plans to release information school-by-school in October to each school community before posting a full proposal online.

The governing board is expected to hold study sessions in October, so the district can work on its asks, along with a state-mandated public hearing in November. A final vote is expected Dec. 8.

Not everyone left the gym confident in the process. Jabril Thomas, a former district employee and TUSD parent, said he came looking for more detailed enrollment and demographic data than the meeting provided.

“Raw data, I know, is everything. It wasn't bad. Do I think it could have been better in some ways? Sure, but it was good,” Thomas said. “I feel like there was something that was gained from it.”

Melinda Gomez, a member of the 31-person advisory committee, said she liked seeing the "community first, students first" approach at her table.

“We're looking at data, but we also know that there's a human factor involved in this as well, and I think it's important that we find a balance between the two,” she said of the committee’s role.

Trujillo said before the meeting success for the evening meant walking away with clear, non-negotiable expectations from parents — particularly around what services and programs must follow students to a new school if their current one closes.

Two more community sessions are scheduled this week, both at full capacity. Monday’s meeting was livestreamed on the district’s YouTube page and will be posted to the district website.