TUSD spent $2.6M on schools now recommended for closure

The district has proposed closing Collier, Dunham, Hudlow, Cragin and Cavett elementary schools, along with Secrist and Magee middle schools, as part of a school consolidation effort.

The planned upgrades were included in the district’s voter-approved 2023 bond proposal, which generated $480 million for school facilities and other capital improvements.

But as the district evaluated which schools to close, officials said they prioritized necessary repairs and safety improvements, rather than proceeding with every project originally planned.

“When we started having conversations about targeting specific schools, the discussion was ‘Here's what we at minimum have to do,” Chief Financial Officer Ricky Hernandez told the Star. “For every school, we were looking at making sure (to do) any security upgrades, so security film and fencing, and any HVAC, right? As long as there were kids on those campuses, at minimum we were going to do those types of things.”

While bond spending was not the only consideration in the closure process, schools with larger investments already made were less likely to be recommended for closure.

“You don't want to make the wrong decision and leave millions of dollars that you've invested in a building laying by the wayside because you didn't look at that, right?” Superintendent Gabriel Trujillo said in a press conference Tuesday.

Recent improvements surprised some parents

For some parents, even relatively small investments in their schools made the closure recommendations confusing.

Kathleen Shooshtari, a parent at Cragin, said the campus has received several building improvements in recent years, including plumbing work and repairs to a roof that had suffered from severe, long-term leaks.

“The sewer line just got done last year,” Shooshtari told the Star.

“Last year we got plumbing, we have new fences, you know, we have a new roof,” she said. “There's all sorts of different things that are happening that they don't see. They only look at the numbers, and that's kind of devastating.”

Ratna Fernandez, a fifth-grade parent at Hudlow, told the Star she was surprised the school was recommended for closure after the district installed new fencing.

“They just did all of this fencing and they put a lot of money in it,” she told the Star on Oct. 20. “All this fencing right here (was done) within these three months, and we were like, ‘Okay, you know, they're doing something.’”

Did TUSD plan to close schools when asking for the bond?

School closures were not part of the district’s discussions when it sought voter approval for the 2023 bond, Hernandez said.

“There really wasn't a conversation during the time of the bond that surrounded the idea of school closures or consolidations,” Hernandez said. “Around the time of the (2025) override, we made public statements that we were going to have to talk about the future footprint of the school district.”

The 2023 bond funds physical infrastructure and capital improvements, while the 2025 budget override pays for day-to-day operations, programs and people.

“In 2025 there was an awareness . . . we knew that we would have to take a look at what our school district would look like into the future, knowing what our enrollment challenges were or are,” he said. “In terms of this (closure) process, none of this started in earnest until earlier this year.”

In January 2024, Superintendent Trujillo told the Star “there are absolutely no recommendations or conversation about closing any schools.”

His comments followed the release of Arizona Department of Education data showing that 12 TUSD schools had lost more than 20% of their enrollment between the 2019-20 and 2020-21 school years.

The schools included Dunham Elementary, Booth-Fickett Math/Science Magnet, Ford Elementary, Gridley Middle, Henry Elementary, Magee Middle, Myers-Ganoung Elementary, Harold Steele Elementary, Utterback Middle, Sewel Elementary, Warren Elementary and Borton Primary Magnet.

Four of those schools are now included in the consolidation proposal.

Will property taxes decrease if schools close?

No, Hernandez said. Closing schools will not increase or decrease property taxes that go towards the district.

The district also does not plan to leave unused bond money sitting idle if a school closes. Instead, any remaining funds allocated for projects at closing schools can be redirected to other district schools that need improvements, Trujillo said.

“People get territorial about the bond money. The electorate approved six categories of expenditures. Six categories of expenditures in the 2023 bond,” Trujillo told reporters Tuesday. “They did not approve a slate of schools getting their own bond accounts.”

For example, if Secrist Middle School were to close in the 2028-29 school year, the remaining bond funds originally intended for the campus could help improve facilities at Santa Rita High School, where students would be sent, he said.

“We have some of that bond money that is going to help us to be able to do that. That belongs to the district,” Trujillo said. “Dollars that have not yet been spent will be able to get pressed into service for the schools that need it, like Palo Verde.”

But that approach raises concerns among some taxpayers.

Brad Dickson, a homeowner within TUSD boundaries, says it feels like a “bait and switch.”

“They're acting like it's ‘unused campaign money’ and they can transfer it to another party cause without accountability,” Dickson said in an email. “TUSD should respond as to whether the bond and subsequent draws can be reduced over the remaining term and whether taxpayers' future property tax assessments can be reduced accordingly.”

Dickson said he believes excess bond funds should potentially be returned to taxpayers or accounted for through adjustments to future assessments.

Visit bond2023.tusd1.org for more information about the 2023 bond.