Craig Thiel, research director, nonprofit Citizens Research Council of Michigan. Credit: Citizens Research Council of Michigan.

LANSING – Low enrollment numbers are causing schools across the state to permanently shut some doors.

According to the Michigan Center for Data and Analytics, around 80% of districts have seen their enrollment decrease since 2009.

Major factors include an aging population with fewer and fewer children.

The Detroit Public Schools Community District plans to close four schools in June. The school board first approved that action in 2022.

“The phase-out plan was accelerated due to lower levels of enrollment at the phase out schools, higher costs to maintain them with fewer students enrolled, and the need to generate more general revenue,” the Detroit district said in a statement.

Other districts that have planned to consolidate buildings include Flint, North Central Area Schools in Menominee County and Union City Community Schools in Branch and Calhoun counties.

Luke Stier, the communications director at Grand Rapids Public Schools, said low enrollment is the reason his district plans to close 10 schools.

“Our buildings were at about 50% utilization rate across the district,” Stier said, “which meant we were spending too much money on maintaining spaces that we were not using for education.”

The district began planning the restructuring in 2022 and started closing schools after passing a $305 million bond in 2023.

The restructuring includes a mix of erecting new buildings when existing ones don’t have room for a merged student body or they are beyond repair. It also includes renovating existing buildings.

“The schools are closing over a period of years so we can do these renovations and get those buildings ready for scholars,” Stier said.

Stier also said merging schools allows a district to have a wider variety of course offerings.

“At Ottawa Hills High School, we have a media production studio that is very unique in any school where scholars can essentially walk out of the high school ready to go into a recording studio out in L.A.,” Stier said.

Ottawa Hills High will merge with Alger Middle School next year.

“Now, our middle schoolers will have access to that media production studio when they combine next year,” Stier said.

Stier said he thinks multiple factors contribute to shrinking enrollment in the district.

“The birth rate has decreased here in Grand Rapids quite a bit. There is a lack of affordable housing that has pushed a lot of families out of the city,” Stier said. There are also many other schools in the city that students can attend, according to Stier.

“All of that working together has contributed to some declines in our enrollment,” Stier said.

Eric Gordon is the principal of Saginaw United High School. He said similar reasons led Saginaw Public Schools to merge two high schools.

Many residents originally moved there to work at General Motors.

“Saginaw was built on General Motors,” Gordon said. “When those plant jobs started leaving and plants started shutting down, a lot of families started moving. Jobs run everything.”

He said the district was able to improve course offerings after merging high schools.

“We’re offering classes like Mandarin, STEM (science, technology, engineering and math), classes that we honestly weren’t able to afford when we had two high schools,” Gordon said.

He said combining the schools helped put certified teachers in front of students instead of substitutes, who were sometimes necessary.

“We didn’t put anyone out of a job,” Gordon said. “We were able to keep all the teachers. It helped us fill some voids and put all of our resources in one spot.”

The district had been considering merging the schools for a while but didn’t initially get the necessary community support.

In 2020, a millage gave the district $100 million to upgrade its buildings. The money was used to build Saginaw United High School.

“We tried to have two high schools but enrollment has been shrinking over the last 10 years, so it made more fiscal sense to put all the kids under one roof,” Gordon said. “That way we can give them the best possible education we can.”

Craig Thiel, the research director for the nonprofit Citizens Research Council of Michigan, said public school enrollment in the state has been dropping for nearly 30 years.

“Basically since the early 2000s we’ve seen enrollments declining, on average anywhere from 0.5% a year to above 1% per year,” Thiel said.

That’s a result of an aging population, according to Thiel.

He said that’s led to districts navigating lower funding because public schools receive only $10,050 a year in state aid per student.

“It’s much harder to provide the whole complement of education services when your customer base is declining,” Thiel said. “You have fewer dollars. You can’t provide all of the services that a growing district can provide.”

A lot of districts postponed some closures because they received federal relief money during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Thiel.

“Districts likely saw their budgets stay steady during a period of fewer and fewer students, which in normal circumstances would require some adjustments to spending or closing schools,” Thiel said.