Vallejo superintendent recommends closing three elementary campuses; board set to vote Dec. 17

The Vallejo City Unified School District superintendent told the board on Dec. 10 that closing schools is intended to align the district with its strategic plan, protect program quality and restore fiscal stability, and she recommended closing three of the six conventional schools under review while retaining John Phinney as a program to be relocated if necessary.

"My recommendation is that we close 3 of the 6," the superintendent said, urging trustees to use maps and site‑level analyses to weigh program and equity tradeoffs. She said any board action would be taken at the district's Dec. 17 regular meeting and that approved closures would take effect in the 2026–27 school year.

Staff presented the list of sites under study — Cooper, Federal Terrace, Highland, John Phinney Education Complex, Lincoln, Pennycook and Stephen Manor — and emphasized the analyses that informed the recommendation: classroom‑by‑classroom capacity reviews, equity impact analysis (EIA) work, program‑continuum planning for special education, and transportation surveys. The presenters said the district is "overbuilt for our student enrollment," citing long‑term declines and transfer losses and noting that state funding follows enrollment.

Assistant Superintendent Sue Fernandez told trustees the draft solvency plan includes roughly $3 million in current non‑salary reductions, a hiring freeze holding about $6 million in vacancies this year, and a proposed next‑year package that includes 122 full‑time equivalent layoffs and an additional $1.2 million in non‑salary reductions. Fernandez said the district's $13 million savings estimate for next year "is intertwined with those closures and also the staffing reductions."

Staff walked trustees through site dashboards, map‑based estimates of how students might redistribute if a campus closes, and program‑placement scenarios for specialized programs such as deaf and hard‑of‑hearing services and other special day classes. For example, staff showed a Cooper map that estimated roughly 117 students in a local bubble might feed Federal Terrace and Highland in one scenario, while cautioning that the maps use legacy data and household dots can represent multiple siblings.

Trustees pressed staff on specifics. Trustee Flores said the boundary maps do not yet answer the family‑level question ‘‘where is my child going?’’ and asked for the detailed pages and dot maps showing household addresses. Other trustees warned that closing schools that are showing academic growth could disrupt cultures that are beginning to produce results, while some board members said concentrating students at higher‑performing campuses could help struggling students by exposing them to established instructional cultures.

Staff emphasized interdependency: which campuses are chosen together changes the feasible distribution of students and the resulting transportation needs. The presenters invited trustees to submit alternate closure scenarios; staff committed to model those configurations and report back before the Dec. 17 meeting.

No final vote on closures was taken at the study session. The board adopted the meeting agenda at the start of the night by roll call (4 yes, 1 absent). The superintendent urged trustees to consider equity impacts, transportation logistics and program continuity as they weigh the fiscal case for closures.

The board will reconvene Dec. 17 at Hogan Auditorium for the meeting where staff will bring final recommendations for possible adoption.