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PBK tells Paramount Unified board low enrollment may force middle‑school consolidation; consultant urges portables reduction and community engagement
Summary
PBK presented a facilities master‑plan utilization study to the Paramount Unified School District board, reporting districtwide utilization falling from about 70% today to a projected 57% by 2034 and recommending steps including removing portables, studying consolidation (especially middle schools), and pursuing long‑term leases or repurposing vacated sites.
Josh Jackson, director of planning at PBK, told the Paramount Unified School District Board at a special meeting that current districtwide utilization—about 11,300 students in roughly 16,000 seats, or roughly 70%—is projected to fall to about 9,200 students (57% utilization) by 2034, a level he called “a red flag.”
Jackson walked the board through his firm’s methodology, which used district enrollment projections and a facilities inventory to calculate capacity with and without portable classrooms. Using Collins Elementary as an illustrative example, he said the campus now shows 688 available seats and 536 students (78% utilization) but is projected to fall to about 459 students (68% utilization) in later projections.
Why it matters: Jackson said underused buildings spread operational costs and staffing across more campuses, weakening resources available to students and making school sites more expensive to…
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