A $34 million school campus next to Los Angeles Unified’s headquarters has been empty since 2021. Vandals have punched holes in its floors, walls and ceilings. The district now spends about $20,000 a month on security and maintenance, the Los Angeles Times reports. A charter school wants to move in, but the costs could put that out of reach. Even an empty school comes with a bill.

In St. Louis, the average public school building is about half-full. The district has 61 schools serving 16,500 students and a $41 million budget deficit. Its latest consolidation plan would close nine schools next fall and phase out another by 2030. Officials project $20 million in annual savings, though the Post-Dispatch reports it’s still unclear how the district gets there. An earlier proposal called for closing about 20 schools; community meetings and surveys shrank the list. The district already owns about 20 vacant buildings from previous rounds.

The costs of the next round are easiest to see in Colorado’s Poudre School District, where a plan to close nine schools and consolidate two would move three programs for students with disabilities. Receiving schools would need classroom modifications and, for two of the programs, restrooms with adult-sized changing tables and lifts. Parents and staff have told the board that changing schools is a bigger concern for those students than for most.

The squeeze reaches the vendors, too. Bloomberg reports that half of U.S. districts are in deficit, and that loans to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Renaissance Learning are trading near 70 cents on the dollar as districts cut spending on textbooks and software.

A week before the midterms, these are the fights showing up on ballots. “People love their public schools,” Fordham’s Mike Petrilli told Chalkbeat, explaining why red-state Democrats are campaigning against vouchers. “That can be a powerful message.” That attachment is also shaping school board races. Chalkbeat finds candidates running against closures in St. Louis, Minneapolis and Detroit, and Chicago choosing a fully elected board that will inherit a $700 million deficit.

In Wake County, N.C., voters are deciding on a $680 million school bond that would cost the average homeowner about $21 a year and fund three new schools and renovations at nine. The county hasn’t rejected a school bond since 1999. The Wake County Republican Party is urging a no vote; its PR chair, Laura Macklem, says the plan “puts classroom maintenance as a low priority” and leaves older schools behind. The business-backed Friends of Wake County says the needs don’t disappear with a no vote, only the cheapest way to pay for them.

— Thomas

Join us on Wednesday, Oct. 28, at 3 p.m. ET for an Instructional Spotlight webinar from the Council of the Great City Schools and the EdRedesign Lab at Harvard: When Resources Meet Relationships. EdRedesign's Rob Watson and Chris Shelton will be joined by Rachel Ward of Omega Community Development Corporation in Dayton and Aaron Jennings of Chelsea Public Schools to discuss how relationship-based, personalized student supports raise achievement and close gaps in urban districts. Register here.

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