Some trustees, parents and staff have been pushing to have a formal discussion about school closures. The topic could be on the March 18 board meeting agenda. (Amaya Edwards — Santa Cruz Local/CatchLight Local)
WATSONVILLE >> Trustees of the Pajaro Valley Unified School District are preparing to discuss the prospect of closing schools as a response to a shrinking budget and declining enrollment.
But some parents are questioning why the process didn’t start earlier — and whether the delay is related to a proposed tax extension that the district is likely to place on the November ballot. The potential bond measure would maintain the current property tax rate for PVUSD homeowners, which would otherwise decline in the coming years, and fund facilities improvements in the school district.
At a district board meeting last week, trustees considered the potential tax extension.
Mads Realmuto, parent of two students at Rio Del Mar Elementary School, has been advocating for months for the board to take up the issue of school closures.
“The message you’re sending voters is really, we know that everyone in this community knows we need to close schools, but we don’t really want to address it because it feels uncomfortable, but we want more money,” Realmuto said at the meeting. “You should really consider the timing of this and not addressing school closures.”
Realmuto said he believes that if a school closure process had started sooner, it could have reduced the number of staff cuts, including mental health and special education positions, approved by trustees in December.
“If the choice is between closing a school so that we can maintain staffing and support for children, versus eliminating the supports for children, then let’s close the schools,” he said in an interview.
A foreseeable problem
Over the past five years, an increasing number of California school districts like PVUSD have been facing declining enrollment, less money and emptier campuses, and have either closed schools or are considering doing so.
That’s largely because there are fewer children living in the state. Some areas of California that have a high cost of living have seen especially sharp declines in enrollment as families are pushed into less expensive areas.
The prospect of closing schools in PVUSD was raised more than two years ago, at a February 2024 trustee meeting about planning for declining student enrollment.
A consultant study found that many PVUSD schools are operating far below capacity, with multiple serving less than half than they could accommodate. The report said the board could rent out the facilities, or use them for another purpose with the help of grant money.
But the board didn’t pursue a plan to close schools or use them for another purpose, and pursued a bond measure for facility improvements. The bonds were approved by voters with Measure M in November 2024.
In fall of 2024, the district convened a committee of staff and parents to form a sustainable budget team. The group, led by Superintendent Heather Contreras, consulted on a plan for cuts amid the district’s budget crisis. The idea of school closures was brushed off, said committee member Nora Yerena, a founder of family support nonprofit Raíces y Cariño who has four children in the district.
District staff told the committee the idea “is going to be too confrontational,” Yerena said.
Superintendent Heather Contreras was hired by the district in 2024 after the former superintendent resigned. (Amaya Edwards — Santa Cruz Local/CatchLight Local file)
In a November 2024 meeting of the sustainable budget team, Contreras said of closures, “I don’t foresee a need to do that this year.” She added, “it is something that, as we reimagine and reprioritize, people might think through or play with different ideas.”
In June of 2025, after the first full year under Contreras’s leadership, district leaders reported at a trustee meeting that a major goal for the 2025-2026 school year would be to explore school consolidation.
That fall, the district released a long-term master plan for facility repairs. The report documented millions of dollars of needed repairs across the district’s facilities, and did not mention the possibility of closing or repurposing school sites. Although “it appears on the surface that the District has substantially more classroom space than is required,” some of those classrooms are portable structures that need to be demolished, the report stated.
Delayed discussion
The topic of school closures reignited at a November board meeting, as a budget shortfall prompted plans for severe staff cuts. Some staff and parents urged trustees to cut costs by closing schools rather than laying off mental health and special education staff. The layoffs were approved the following month.
The trustees then voted in January for district staff to create a potential plan and timeline for consolidating schools. Closing schools is typically a multi-year process that requires extensive community outreach to determine which schools should be shuttered, and how. Sometimes, the process can move more quickly — the San José Unified School District is set to approve closures by the end of the year after forming an advisory committee in September.
Since the January vote for the plan and timeline report, “district staff have been working to gather data, review enrollment trends, evaluate fiscal projections, and understand the operational impacts” of school closures, Contreras, the superintendent, wrote in an email. “As with any matter of this scale, careful analysis and planning are necessary” before formally proposing a plan, she wrote.
Now, district trustees and staff are in the uneasy position of preparing to talk about closing schools even as they consider asking voters for a renewed tax measure.
As Pajaro Valley Unified School District struggles with stabilizing its budget amid declining enrollment, trustees might soon consider closing schools. (Stephen Baxter — Santa Cruz Local)
In last week’s board meeting, Chief Business Officer Gerardo Castillo said trustees could place a tax extension measure on the November ballot and decide afterwards which schools the money would be spent on, excluding any that are considered for closure. Castillo said the staff report on school closures should be ready for presentation at the next board meeting March 18.
Contreras, the superintendent, did not confirm whether the topic of school closures has been formally agendized for the meeting.
Realmuto, the parent of two PVUSD students, said in an interview he recently met with Contreras about the issue, and was told that “she’s got a lot of consultants telling her that it would be unpopular to talk about school closures at the same time that they’re asking for more money,” he said. “That’s her push against not doing it yet and pushing it off for a year.”
In a March 4 email, Contreras disputed that and said consultants have “emphasized that decisions of this magnitude require thoughtful planning, clear data, and community engagement.”
Trustee Gabriel Medina said that trustees have been trying to place the discussion on the agenda, but were prevented by Contreras.
Contreras said the agenda is set by Board President Carol Turley and any request to agendize a topic must be emailed to one or both of them.
“I have not received a written request for an agenda item on school closures,” she wrote.
Turley was out of the office this week and could not be reached for comment. At the Feb. 25 board meeting, following comments by Medina and Trustee Joy Flynn in favor of discussing school closures and an ask by Trustee Misty Navarro to agendize a discussion of school closures at the next meeting, Turley said she would.
At the meeting, Flynn said that “it’s important to have the transparency of both things happening at the same time, school closures and bringing these bonds along.” She added, “I feel like our community can handle it.”
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Jesse Kathan is a staff reporter for Santa Cruz Local. They hold a master's degree in science communications from UC Santa Cruz.
