JEFFERSON PARISH, La. — El año escolar de la escuela primaria Washington concluyó a las 2:35 pm de un caluroso martes de mayo. Aun así, Malaysia Robertson, de 9 años, permaneció afuera del plantel.

Ella había pasado la mayor parte de su vida en la pequeña escuela pública de este suburbio de Nuevo Orleans, donde vive con su abuela. Su escuela no volvería a abrir sus puertas al comienzo del nuevo año escolar en septiembre. Al igual que miles de otros estudiantes del distrito escolar más grande de Luisiana, a ella se le asignó a un nuevo colegio como parte de un plan de consolidación que afecta a casi uno de cada 10 estudiantes afroamericanos como Malaysia. Esta es una cifra desproporcionada.

En ese último día de clases, ella no quería despedirse. 

“Íbamos corriendo por los pasillos llorando y todo eso”, dijo Malaysia, recordando su último día en tercer grado. El estacionamiento seguía lleno de estudiantes, familias y maestros mucho después de la 4 p.m., todos abrazándose antes de salir de la escuela por última vez.

La decisión de la junta escolar de cerrar 6 escuelas permanentemente ha estremecido a Jefferson Parish, donde la inscripción de estudiantes en escuelas públicas disminuyó casi un 10% desde el inicio de la pandemia.

Esta disminución empeoró casi una década de avances en el distrito, en la que se buscó revitalizar la inscripción escolar después del huracán Katrina. Los funcionarios del distrito han dicho que los cierres de escuelas son una respuesta necesaria a la disminución de la población estudiantil. Datos del distrito muestran que aproximadamente 1 de 3 cupos permanecieron vacantes el año escolar pasado y varios edificios albergaron a menos de la mitad de los estudiantes para los cuales fueron diseñados.

“Tenemos escuelas poco utilizadas — eso es un hecho”, explicó el vicepresidente de la junta escolar Derrick Shepherd durante una votación en abril. “Las cifras no se pueden cambiar”.

 El distrito volvió a dibujar su mapa para distribuir a los alumnos en una manera que requiere que muchos estudiantes deban viajar fuera de sus vecindarios y más lejos de casa. Los oficiales explicaron que los nuevos mapas hacen que las rutas de transporte por autobús sean más estables y que ninguno de sus maestros se quedará sin empleo. Pero la decisión ha enfurecido a los líderes comunitarios y abogados de derechos civiles, quienes dicen que los cierres no son solo dañinos para familias como la de Malasia, sino además son discriminatorios.

A pesar de que los estudiantes blancos representan casi un cuarto de los estudiantes del distrito, según los datos estatales de inscripción escolar estos solo representan al 12% de los estudiantes afectados por los cierres de escuelas. El plan que la junta escolar aprobó, el cual se diseñó teniendo en cuenta cuáles instalaciones escolares tenían más espacio sin usar y su estado, cerró dos escuelas secundarias con alto rendimiento escolar en las cuales la mayoría de los estudiantes eran hispanos y afroamericanos.

Como resultado cientos de estudiantes hispanos y afroamericanos serán asignados a escuelas de rendimiento más bajo el próximo año escolar, repitiendo para algunas familias el pasado de racismo y segregación del distrito.

“¿Quién se va beneficiar de todo este proceso? No serán los niños afromericanos y latinos”, dijo Debra Houston Edwards, de 77 años, quien se graduó de Washington hace más de sesenta años y comenzó a trabajar para el distrito en la década de los ochenta y fue una de las pocas administradoras afroamericanas en aquel entonces. “No hay equidad en lo que está pasando.”

Shepherd y el presidente de la junta escolar, Ralph Brandt, no respondieron a las solicitudes de comentario para esta nota. En un correo electrónico, la persona encargada de comunicaciones del distrito señaló a una página en línea sobre los cierres pero no respondió a preguntas.

La organización sin ánimo de lucro, El Southern Poverty Law Center SPLC (por sus siglas en inglés), presentó una denuncia por incumplimiento a los derechos civiles al departamento de educación, donde alegan que los cierres discriminan a los estudiantes basados en su raza y que el distrito falló en compartir información sobre los cierres con familias que tienen un dominio limitado de inglés. En una segunda denuncia, SPLC alega que los cierres son parte de una tendencia de discriminación racial generalizada, y de otros tipos , contra algunos estudiantes.

El departamento no ha anunciado una investigación a raíz de estas denuncias.

Mientras tanto, a los expertos les preocupa que los distritos escolares en todo el país pronto enfrenten problemas parecidos. A nivel nacional, más de un millón de alumnos no regresaron a escuelas públicas después de la pandemia. Algunos se matricularon en colegios privados, otros comenzaron a recibir educación en su hogar y otros simplemente desaparecieron, dijo Thomas S. Dee, profesor en la escuela de posgrado en educación de la Universidad Standford. Dado la  disminución de tasas de nacimiento, el departamento de educación estima que la inscripción a nivel nacional en escuelas públicas va a bajar un 5% o más para el 2031. Este es un descenso drástico después de décadas en las que la matrícula ha sido creciente.

“Va a haber un ajuste de cuentas para muchos distritos escolares que no han reconocido su nueva realidad”, agrega Dee, quien estudia el éxodo de las escuelas públicas. Él anticipa que muchos distritos se verán obligados a considerar el cierre de escuelas.

Este debate sobre el cierre de escuelas y cómo hacerlo, también es sobre para identificar cuáles cuáles estudiantes tendrán que asumir las cargas. Hasta ahora los estudiantes hispanos y afroamercanos se han visto afectados de forma desproporcionada. Investigadores académicos y defensores les preocupa que la decreciente inscripción en las escuelas públicas, y los cierres que probablemente seguirán, intensifican la desigualdad académica  en la educación pública.

“Los siguientes 10 años van a estar repletos de este tipo de historias”, dijo Douglas N. Harris, presidente del departamento de economía en la Universidad Tulane y director del Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre Acceso y Elección en Educación. Al analizar cierres de escuelas y tendencias de reestructuración en todo el país durante los últimos 30 años, Harris encontró que escuelas con altos porcentajes de estudiantes de color tenian una probablidad mas alta de cerrarr que las que tienen una mayoría de estudiantes blancos.

Harris explicó que esto a veces ocurre por desigualdades históricas, como cuando colegios donde asisten más estudiantes de color reciben menos inversión a largo plazo y terminan con resultados bajos en los exámenes y edificios deteriorados. Eso puede empeorar la baja inscripción, y al considerar el rendimiento escolar y el panorama financiero, puede hacer parecer que cerrar la escuela es una opción sensata.

Pero incluso cuando Harris y sus co-investigadores compararon escuelas con niveles de inscripción y rendimiento parecido, las de mayor cantidad de estudiantes de color y de bajos ingresos seguían siendo las más propensas a cerrar. Investigaciones previamente realizadas por el Centro de Investigación sobre Resultados en la Educación de Stanford revelaron hallazgos similares al observar que de entre las escuelas con bajo rendimiento académico, las que tienen una mayor proporción de estudiantes hispanos y afroamericanos tienen mayor probabilidad de cerrar cuando se las compara con las que tienen más alumnos blancos, aunque tengan una clasificación similar.

Para la tía de Malaysia, Cheryl Earl, la decisión de la junta ha sido devastadora. Su hija mayor se mudó a Washington hace dos años y su hija menor comenzó el primer grado en esa escuela el año pasado. Igual que Malaysia, sus niñas prosperaron en la escuela comunitaria de 240 estudiantes.

Antes de transferirse a Washington para el cuarto grado, la niña mayor de Earl, Ce’Vanne Ursin, le había dicho a su mamá que odiaba la escuela. “No podía esperar llegar al doceavo grado para abandonar la escuela”, recordó Earl. Pero Ce’Vanne cambió de opinión en Washington. Para el quinto grado fue seleccionada para el programa de estudiantes dotados y talentosos. Al finalizar el año escolar, fue nombrada maestra de ceremonias para la graduación final, un puesto codiciado entre los estudiantes.

“Antes pensaba que era tonta, pero realmente no lo soy”, dijo Ce’Vanne, de 12 años. “Washington me hizo sentir cómoda. Me hizo sentir que todos en la escuela eran mis amigos y familiares”.

Ce’Vanne dijo sentirse afortunada de formar parte de la última generación que se graduará en Washington. Pero el cierre significa que su hermana de ocho años, Canyon Sunday, no tendrá la misma experiencia. En cambio, el distrito asignó a Canyon a cursos el segundo grado en el  mismo colegio donde Ce’Vanne tuvo malas experiencias, antes de ir a Washington. Su madre dijo que está demasiado cicatrizada  por el tiempo de Ce’Vanne en esa escuela como para enviar a su hermana menor allí, por lo cual decidió inscribir a ambas niñas en una escuela privada católica cercana.

Cuando las escuelas cierran, el efecto dominó dura años, explica Molly F. Gordon, quien fue científica investigadora del Consorcio de Investigación Escolar en la Universidad de Chicago. El rendimiento académico de los estudiantes sufre, algunas familias optan por mudarse a medida que sus vecindarios se vuelven menos deseables, y como consecuencia se borran historias importantes.

Después de que Chicago cerró casi 50 escuelas públicas en el 2013, Gordon y su equipo siguieron los resultados de los estudiantes afectados. Incluso antes de que ocurrieran los cierres, durante el año que se anunciaron, la lectura y matemáticas de los estudiantes afectados sufrieron y los estudiantes quedaron retrasados por meses comparados con los estudiantes de escuelas que permanecieron abiertas.

“Los estudiantes que venían de las escuelas cerradas sentían que habían perdido algo, porque lo perdieron”, dijo Gordon, ahora científica investigadora senior en el Centro Nacional de Investigación de Opinión en la Universidad de Chicago. “Ellos estaban viviendo un duelo”.

Los cierres en Chicago tenían el objetivo de ahorrarle dinero al distrito y cerrar escuelas con bajo rendimiento, donde casi exclusivamente asistían estudiantes hispanos y afromericanos. Los funcionarios prometieron que el cambio resultaría en colocar a esos estudiantes en escuelas con mejor rendimiento académico. Una investigación del periódico The Chicago Sun Times y la estación local de radio WBEZ descubrió que una década después muchos de los beneficios anunciados con el cierre masivo, hasta la fecha, nunca se materializaron.

Los estudiantes de las escuelas cerradas no mostraron mejor rendimiento académico que los alumnos de escuelas parecidas que permanecieron abiertas, y su índice de graduación era ligeramente más bajo que el de estudiantes de las escuelas comparadas, por debajo del promedio del distrito escolar. Y, a pesar de que el cambio recortó costos, los ahorros probablemente fueron mucho menores de lo que originalmente habían calculado los funcionarios. 

La pregunta que permanece es una que le plantean frecuentemente a Marguerite Roza, directora del Edunomics Lab en la Universidad de Georgetown: ¿Con pocos recursos y la disminución cifras de inscripción, que deben hacer los distritos escolares?

Roza enfatiza dos factores esenciales para limitar la interrupción: planear con anticipación y darle prioridad al rendimiento. Esencialmente, al cerrar escuelas se debe beneficiar a todos los estudiantes del distrito; y liberar recursos para usarlos en personal y programas. Pero para asegurarse de eso, los distritos deben prestar atención especial a los estudiantes a los que reubican, cambiándolos a escuelas de mejor rendimiento y siendo transparentes al explicarle a las familias el razonamiento tras el cambio.

Pero en Jefferson Parish, los datos estatales del rendimiento muestran que este no ha sido el caso. Mientras los estudiantes de primaria serán incorporados a escuelas de alta clasificación, los de secundaria enfrentan una realidad distinta. El nuevo plan cerrará las escuelas secundarias que ocupaban el segundo y tercer lugar de rendimiento en el distrito -un paso que “desafía la lógica” dijo Roza. .

Una de esas escuelas es la secundaria Grace King, donde los dos nietos de Lillie Magee, residente por largo tiempo de Jefferson Parish, completaron el décimo y undécimo grado en mayo. La escuela estaba compuesta en su mayoría por estudiantes hispanos y afroamericanos, como los nietos de Magee, y todos parecían llevarse bien, dijo ella.

Magee siente que sus nietos, a quienes cuidaba, estaban seguros dentro de las paredes de la escuela. Ella conocía a sus profesores y entrenadores y había asistido a juegos de fútbol americano, llena de pasión y orgullo escolar. Ahora, ella se preocupa de que al reasignar a muchos estudiantes de Grace King a su antigua escuela secundaria rival resulte en violencia y peleas. Sus chicos han perdido la escuela que conocían, y ella ha perdido la comunidad en la que confiaba para mantenerlos a salvo.

“La forma en que nos trataron, fue simplemente muy injusta”, dijo Magee. La escuela a la que asistirá su nieto mayor el próximo año está clasificada como la segunda peor del distrito en términos de rendimiento.

Mientras tanto, en la primaria Washington, los edificios están oscuros y vacíos, el césped exterior está descuidado y lleno de basura. Un mes después del cierre, un incendio arrasó el edificio que albergaba el gimnasio y la cafetería, dejando escombros esparcidos sobre las largas mesas donde los maestros habían organizado un desayuno de graduación semanas antes. Ahora, las ventanas siguen cubiertas con madera y las puertas exteriores están cerradas con llave.

El momento del incendio, que la policía dijo que parecía haberse originado como un incendio eléctrico, dejó a muchos miembros de la comunidad con sospechas. El distrito ahora planea vender el terreno, permitiendo que el futuro comprador restaure o derribe la escuela.

Debra Houston Edwards, la anterior administradora del distrito, espera que al menos los edificios puedan ser salvados, dado su importancia histórica y para que puedan seguir sirviendo como centro para la comunidad.

A principios de la década de 1930, el abuelo de Edwards y otros cinco hombres del condado que vivían en la ribera Este del río Mississippi pidieron a la junta escolar que abriera una escuela secundaria para estudiantes afroamericanos en la zona. Pero la junta les dijo que era su responsabilidad: tendrían que comprar el terreno y cubrir parte de los costos de construcción. En respuesta, la comunidad recaudó fondos de puerta en puerta. En 1936, se convirtió en la primera escuela en la ribera este donde los niños afroamericanos podían recibir una educación superior al octavo grado.

“Nadie más tuvo que hacerlo excepto nosotros”, dijo Edwards, quien ha conservado la historia de la escuela en recortes de periódico antiguos y fotografías que se desvanecen. “Y aquí estamos de nuevo, pasando por el mismo proceso”.

A principios del mes pasado, Edwards y un grupo de miembros de la comunidad ofrecieron comprar la escuela por un dólar, esencialmente solicitando a la junta escolar donara el terreno, un sitio “por el que nuestros antepasados ya han pagado”, escribió el grupo en una carta a Brandt, el presidente de la junta.

Pero el grupo dijo que no ha recibido una respuesta formal. En una declaración a los medios de comunicación locales  Brandt dijo que la junta está “legalmente obligada a buscar el valor justo de mercado” por cualquier propiedad que tenga la intención de vender.

Cuando Malaysia se imagina el nuevo año escolar ella dice que siente esperanza. Varios de sus profesores se van a mudar con ella al nuevo colegio y ella espera que varios de sus compañeros de clase la acompañen en el nuevo edificio desconocido.

Pero para su abuela, Angie Robertson, es un mundo diferente – un vecindario en el cual no viven y una comunidad a la cual no pertenecen.

“Tenía profesores allá,” en Washington, “que era como parte de la familia”, dijo Robertson, quien también va a enseñar en el programa de aprendizaje temprano del Head Strart de la escuela. “Para mí, yo siento que ese era el hogar fuera del hogar de los niños”.

Ahora, ese hogar ha desaparecido.

Este artículo acerca del cierre de escuelas en Louisiana fue producido por The Hechinger Report, una organización de noticias independiente sin fines de lucro enfocada en la desigualdad y la innovación en la educación. Lea sus otros artículos en español.

The post Se acerca un precipicio de cierres de escuelas. Los estudiantes hispanos y afroamericanos son los más propensos a sufrir las consecuencias. appeared first on The Hechinger Report.

Each weekday, children and teens hospitalized in the psychiatric unit at the University of North Carolina’s Neurosciences Hospital spend a few hours in a part of the building that doesn’t look like a hospital at all.

They leave their locked unit and head down to UNC’s Hospital School on the second floor, where three classrooms are furnished with desks, smart boards and white boards. A closet in the hallway has been transformed into a makeshift library. For the duration of class, the young patients have only one responsibility: They’re there to learn.

The year-round school is part of Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools, but it operates unlike any other campus in the district. The teachers meet daily with students’ treatment teams, prepare lessons and serve as a bridge between the hospital and the student’s regular school. Lessons are important, principal Marny Ruben said, but so is providing a sense of normalcy to students whose lives have been upended by a mental health crisis.

“Oftentimes, things are happening at schools that are contributing to their crisis,” Ruben said, pointing to intense school work, bullying and overwhelming social dynamics. By arranging academic support and a connection back to a student’s regular school, hospital school staff work to alleviate that stress and prepare students for a smooth transition once they leave, she added.

“Kids don’t get better right away, but kids can get better. Schools can play a role in that recovery just by doing what they do.”

Marisa E. Marraccini, an associate professor of school psychology at UNC’s School of Education

Now, as the rate of young people experiencing mental health distress climbs, with in-patient mental health hospitalizations rising by more than 120 percent between 2016 and 2022 according to one measure, the need for school support programs has grown. For young people receiving in-patient psychiatric care, hospital school programs like the one at UNC not only keep them on track academically, but can also be helpful to their recovery, said Marisa E. Marraccini, an associate professor of school psychology at UNC’s School of Education.

Related: Schools struggle to help students return to class after a mental health crisis

Past research has shown that children and teens are at a very high risk of attempting suicide after being discharged from psychiatric hospitalization. School connectedness — the way kids feel about their school community and whether they feel cared for by peers and teachers — can help curb the risk, according to research by Marraccini. In one study, her team found that students who said they felt more connected to their teachers were less likely to experience severe or intensive suicidal thoughts after discharge.

“Kids don’t get better right away, but kids can get better,” Marraccini said. “Schools can play a role in that recovery just by doing what they do.”

Her results don’t establish causation, meaning that kids who feel better might report feeling more connected. But the findings do indicate that strong school relationships likely make a difference in a young person’s recovery, Marraccini said.

It’s the kind of support that Grace Richmond, a teacher at UNC’s Hospital School, works to provide for the students she teaches, a small group of fourth through seventh graders from the child psychiatric unit.

“If they haven’t engaged in school while they’ve been in the hospital, if they haven’t had some kind of connection to learning and possibly even to their teachers or their school … then when they do go back to their typical school, it is a much more difficult transition.”

Mindy Elliott, secretary of the Hospital Educator and Academic Liaison Association, or HEAL

Each week, Richmond prepares lessons across grade levels and subjects to engage her students, and often spends time supporting them as they complete work from their regular school. Her classes are small — usually no more than five students — and she aims to make each day fun and comfortable. During a recent lesson, students designed food trucks and developed menus; during another, just before Discovery TV’s Shark Week, students created giant Megalodon shark teeth out of plaster.

“Some of them have had really difficult things going on in their lives,” Richmond said. “The fact that they’re able to kind of forget that for a while and come to school and be kids and be silly and be their age again is probably the most important thing to me.”

Later in the afternoons, after class ends, Richmond frequently calls her contacts at her students’ regular schools, often the guidance counselors. She keeps them updated about the student’s academic progress and suggests plans for their return to class. After discussions with the student’s parents and treatment team, she might recommend the returning student start with a shortened school day, or take a lunch break in a low-stress environment, or have a daily five-minute check-in with a guidance counselor.

Related: A surprising remedy for teens in mental health crisis

At UNC’s hospitals, any child admitted to treatment gains access to the school’s supports, no matter what school district they regularly attend or where in the hospital they receive care. School staff also work with children held in the emergency room over a long period, ensuring they, too, have access to academic materials. On average, students stay in the psychiatric unit for roughly two weeks, Richmond said, attending class throughout their stay.

“If there is no process set, then the kids are just kind of dumped back to school. Even when I request for information, the medical team doesn’t really know exactly what to give me, or they don’t respond because they just don’t have time.”

Sara Midura, an engagement and behavior specialist with Northwest Education Services, a local state agency in Michigan

But, at other hospitals, the quality of academic programming for students varies greatly, according to Mindy Elliott, secretary of the Hospital Educator and Academic Liaison Association, or HEAL. Though state accreditation rules usually require hospitals to provide some school services to children and teens, there is no standard for the kind of support students receive, she said. HEAL has recently begun tracking hospital school programs across the country. Generally, programs in large, urban hospitals are better equipped to provide wraparound school support for students, Elliott said.

The result is that children and teens hospitalized at less-resourced and rural hospitals often receive minimal school services. Those hospitals may employ limited teaching staff, leaving students with far less support to help them stay on top of class work and reintegrate into their schools after discharge.

“If they haven’t engaged in school while they’ve been in the hospital, if they haven’t had some kind of connection to learning and possibly even to their teachers or their school,” Elliott said, “then when they do go back to their typical school, it is a much more difficult transition.”

Sara Midura, who used to work as a teacher at a hospital school program in Indianapolis, has seen that contrast play out first-hand in recent years. At Riley Hospital for Children, where she taught, Midura regularly communicated with students’ teachers at their regular schools to smooth the transition out of the hospital.

In-patient mental health hospitalizations for young people rose by more than 120 percent between 2016 and 2022.

But in 2020 she moved to northern Michigan to be with her now-husband. There’s no hospital school program in either the 15,000-person city where she now lives or in the surrounding rural area. She now works as an engagement and behavior specialist with Northwest Education Services, a government agency that supports school districts, helping students with emotional needs. Without a program to help schools and hospitals communicate, information falls through the cracks, and young peoples’ care is fragmented, she said.

“If there is no process set, then the kids are just kind of dumped back to school,” Midura said. “Even when I request for information, the medical team doesn’t really know exactly what to give me, or they don’t respond because they just don’t have time.”

That kind of disconnect ultimately fails students, Midura said.

“If we don’t talk to each other, then we’re giving them so much different information,” she said. “We’re basically telling them that your mental health has nothing to do with school and vice versa. Which we just know isn’t true.”

This story about hospital schools was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

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JEFFERSON PARISH, La. — The school year ended at Washington Elementary at 2:35 p.m. on a hot Tuesday afternoon in May, but one hour later, 9-year-old Malaysia Robertson lingered outside.

She had spent most of her life at this small public school in the New Orleans suburb where she lives with her grandmother, but when she returned to school this month, it had closed. Like thousands of other students in Louisiana’s largest school district, she has been shuffled to a new campus in a consolidation plan that affects nearly one in 10 of the district’s Black students, like Malaysia, a disproportionate number.

On the last day of classes, she didn’t want to say goodbye.

“We were running down the hall, crying and everything,” Malaysia said later, remembering her final day of third grade. The parking lot remained filled with students, families and teachers well past 4 p.m., sharing hugs as they scattered from the campus for the last time.

The school board’s decision this spring to permanently close six schools has rocked Jefferson Parish, where the number of students enrolled in public schools has dropped by nearly 10 percent since the pandemic began. The decline exacerbated the district’s nearly decade-long struggle to revive its enrollment after Hurricane Katrina, and district officials have said the closures are the necessary response to its shrinking student body. District data show that last school year, approximately 1 in 3 available student seats remained unfilled, and several buildings housed fewer than half the number of students they were initially built for.

“We have schools that are underutilized — that’s a fact,” said school board Vice President Derrick Shepherd at the April vote. “Math cannot be changed.”

The district has redrawn its map to redistribute its students, requiring many to travel out of their neighborhoods and farther from home. Officials have said the new maps will make bus transportation more reliable, and no teachers will lose their jobs. But the decision has brought ire from community advocates and civil rights lawyers, who say the closures are not only harmful to families like Malaysia’s, but discriminatory too.

Though white students make up nearly a quarter of the district’s enrollment, they represent only 12 percent of the students affected by the closures, according to state enrollment data. The plan the school board approved, which weighed which schools had the most empty space and inadequate facilities, closed two of its top-performing and majority Black and Hispanic high schools.

As a result, hundreds of Black and Hispanic students will be shuffled to lower-performing schools next school year — an echo, to some families, of the district’s segregated and racist past.

“Who is going to benefit from this whole process? It’s not the Black and brown children,” said Debra Houston Edwards, 77, who graduated from Washington over six decades ago and began working for the district in the 1980s, one of the few Black administrators at the time. “There is no equity in what is going on.”

Shepherd and board president Ralph Brandt did not respond to requests for comment for this story. In an email, the district’s communication director pointed to an online information page about the closures but did not respond to further questions.

Related: Nearly all the seniors at this charter school went to college. Only 6 out of 52 finished on time

The nonprofit Southern Poverty Law Center has filed a civil rights complaint with the Department of Education alleging that the closures discriminate against students based on race and that the district failed to share information about the closures with families who speak limited English. A second complaint from the SPLC alleges that the closures are part of a trend of pervasive discrimination against some students based on race, as well as other attributes.

The department has not announced that it has opened an investigation into either complaint.

In the meantime, experts worry that districts across the country may soon face a similar problem. More than one million students nationwide did not return to public school after the pandemic. Some enrolled at private schools, others began homeschooling, and still others seemingly disappeared, according to Thomas S. Dee, a professor at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education. Amid declining birth rates, the Education Department estimates that national public school enrollment will drop by 5 percent or more by 2031 — a sharp change after decades of increasing enrollment.

“There’s going to be a reckoning for many school districts that haven’t acknowledged their new reality,” said Dee, who has studied the exodus from public school districts. For many, he predicts, that will mean considering school closures.

That debate will not only be about whether and how to close schools, but also about which groups of students will bear the burden. Already, Black and Hispanic students have disproportionately taken the brunt, leaving researchers and advocates concerned that the nation’s declining public school enrollment — and the closures that will likely follow — will exacerbate inequities in public education.

“Who is going to benefit from this whole process? It’s not the Black and brown children. There is no equity in what is going on.”

Debra Houston Edwards, 77, a Washington Elementary graduate and former Jefferson Parish schools administrator

“The next 10 years is going to be full of these kinds of stories,” said Douglas N. Harris, chair of the economics department at Tulane University and director of the National Center for Research on Education Access and Choice. Through an analysis of nationwide school closures and restructuring trends over the past 30 years, Harris found that schools with a higher percentage of students of color were more likely to close than those with more white students.

Sometimes, Harris said, that’s because of historical inequalities, when schools serving more students of color have received less long-term investment, resulting in lower test scores and more dilapidated buildings. That can exacerbate their enrollment loss and make them seem, from a financial and performance standpoint, like a more sensible choice to shut down.

But even when Harris and his co-researcher compared only schools with similar enrollment and performance levels, those with more students of color and more low-income students were still more likely to close. Previous research from Stanford’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes showed similar results, finding that among low-performing schools, those with a greater share of Black and Hispanic students are more likely to be closed than those with more white students, even if they ranked similarly.

To Malaysia’s aunt Cheryl Earl, the board’s decision has been devastating. Her eldest daughter transferred to Washington two years earlier, and her younger daughter started there in first grade just last year. Like Malaysia, her girls have thrived at the 240-student community school.

Before transferring to Washington for fourth grade, Earl’s older daughter, Ce’Vanne Ursin, had told her mother she hated school. “She couldn’t wait til she made it to the 12th [grade] to drop out,” Earl recalled. But at Washington, Ce’Vanne’s outlook completely shifted. By fifth grade, she had been selected for the school’s gifted and talented program. And at the end of the school year, she was named Mistress of Ceremonies for the final graduation, a coveted position.

“I used to think I was dumb, but I’m really not,” said Ce’Vanne, who is now 12 years old. “Washington made me feel comfortable. It made me feel like everyone in the school was my friends and family.”

Ce’Vanne said she felt lucky to be part of Washington’s final graduating class. But the closures meant her 8-year-old sister, CanyonSunday, wouldn’t have the same experience. Instead, the district reassigned the rising second grader to the same school where Ce’vanne had her bad experiences before Washington. Their mother said she is too scarred by Ce’Vanne’s time at that school to send her youngest back there and decided to enroll both girls at a nearby Catholic private school. The district will lose two more students; the family will lose their entire school community.

When schools close, the ripple effects play out for years, according to Molly F. Gordon, previously a research scientist at the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research. Students’ academic performance often suffers, some families opt to leave as their neighborhoods become less desirable, and important histories are erased.

After Chicago closed nearly 50 public schools in 2013, Gordon and her team followed the outcomes of students who had been affected. Even before the closures, during the year they were announced, reading and math scores of affected students took a hit, putting them months behind students whose schools would remain open. Though the students’ reading scores eventually rebounded, the effect on their math scores persisted for four years.

“Students coming in from the closed schools felt like they lost something, because they did,” said Gordon, now a senior research scientist at the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center. “They were grieving.”

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Chicago’s closures were meant to save the district money and close low-performing schools, where almost exclusively Black and Hispanic students were enrolled. Officials promised that the move would serve those students by placing them in better-performing schools. But, a decade later, many of the advertised benefits of the nation’s largest mass closure to date never materialized, an investigation by The Chicago Sun-Times and local radio station WBEZ found. Students at schools that closed did no better academically than those at similar schools that stayed open, and they graduated at slightly lower rates than students at comparison schools, well below the district’s average. And though the move did cut costs, the savings were likely much lower than officials had originally estimated.

The question that remains is one that Marguerite Roza, director of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University, gets asked a lot: With resources stretched, enrollment numbers down, and closures on the table, what should districts do?

Roza stresses two key factors as essential to minimizing the disruption — planning ahead and prioritizing performance. Closing schools should, in essence, benefit all students in the district, freeing resources to spend on more staff and programming. But to ensure that’s the case, districts must pay special care to the students they relocate by transitioning them to better-performing schools and transparently conveying the rationale for the move to families.

Yet in Jefferson Parish, state performance data shows that hasn’t been the case. Though elementary school students will be absorbed into higher-rated schools, high schoolers face a different fate. The new plan shutters the district’s second- and third-highest performing high schools — a kind of move “that just defies logic,” Roza said.

One of those schools is Grace King High School, where longtime Jefferson Parish resident Lillie Magee’s two grandsons completed 10th and 11th grade in May. The school was mostly made up of Hispanic and Black students, like Magee’s grandsons, and everyone seemed to get along, she said.

“There’s going to be a reckoning for many school districts that haven’t acknowledged their new reality.”

Thomas S. Dee, a professor at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education

Magee had felt like her grandsons, whom she took care of, were safe within the school’s walls. She knew their teachers and former coaches, and had attended football games full of passion and school pride. Now, she worries that reassigning many Grace King students to their former rival high school will result in violence and fighting. Her boys have lost the school they knew, and she has lost the community she trusted to keep them safe.

“How they treated us, it’s just so unfair,” Magee said. The school her eldest grandson will attend next year is ranked second-worst in the district by performance.

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Back at Washington Elementary, the buildings now sit dark and empty, the grass outside overgrown and littered. One month after the closure, a fire tore through the building that housed the gymnasium and cafeteria, leaving debris strewn over the long tables where teachers had hosted a graduation breakfast weeks earlier. Now, the windows remain boarded up, the gates outside locked.

The timing of the blaze, which police said appeared to have stemmed from an electrical fire, left many community members suspicious. The district now plans to sell the site off, allowing the future buyer to restore or raze the school.

Debra Houston Edwards, the former district administrator, hopes that at least the buildings will be saved for their historical significance so they can continue to serve as a community hub.

Amid declining birth rates, the Education Department estimates that national public school enrollment will drop by 5 percent or more by 2031 — a sharp change after decades of increasing enrollment.

In the early 1930s, Edwards’ grandfather and five other men who lived on the parish’s east bank of the Mississippi River petitioned the school board to open a high school for Black students in the area. But the board told them it was their responsibility — they would have to buy the land and cover part of the construction costs. In response, the community collected funds door to door. In 1936, it became the first school on the east bank where Black children could receive an education beyond the eighth grade.

“Nobody else had to do that but us,” said Edwards, who has preserved the school’s history in old newspaper clippings and fading photographs. “And so here we are again, going back through the same process.”

Earlier this month, Edwards and a group of community members offered to buy the school for $1, essentially requesting the school board donate the land — a site “for which our ancestors have already paid,” the group wrote in a letter to board president Brandt.

But the group said it has received no formal reply. In a statement to local news outlets, Brandt said the board is “legally required to seek fair market value” on any property it intends to sell. 

As for Malaysia, when she pictures the next school year, she says she feels hopeful. Many of her teachers will move to her new school as well, and several of her old classmates will join her in the unfamiliar building.

But to her grandmother, Angie Robertson, it’s a different world — a neighborhood they don’t live in, a community they have not been a part of.

“You had teachers over there,” at Washington, “that were just like family,” said Robertson, who also taught in the school’s Head Start early learning program. “To me, I felt like it was the kids’ home away from home.”

Now, that home has disappeared.

This story about the impact of school closures was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

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