Marysville seeks input from parents on school closures

MARYSVILLE — If you were to close three elementary schools in your district, which ones would you choose and why?

That’s a question the Marysville School District Interim Superintendent David Burgess asked parents at a meeting Wednesday night, as leadership seeks feedback on possible school closures at the embattled district. Roughly 75 people attended the meeting.

In May, district leaders identified Cascade and Liberty elementary schools, as well as Totem Middle School, as schools it recommended closing for the 2025-2026 school year.

Burgess stressed no decisions have been finalized, and said district officials are starting the process over from scratch, seeking input from community members on next steps. Burgess did not offer a timeline regarding decisions about closures, only that any final action would be in effect for the 2025-2026 school year.

“I would not ask you to give up your night to be here and do some kind of smoke screen and say, ‘Well, I’ve already got my mind made up,’” Burgess said Wednesday at the meeting at Marysville Pilchuck High School. “I will never operate like that. We’re going to engage in authentic conversations about this process, and we’re looking to learn as much from you as you’re going to hear from us.”

An elementary school closure could save the district over $500,000 per year. Closing a middle school could save $750,000. Burgess said those estimates were conservative, based on the reduction of administrative staff and lower maintenance costs. Burgess said he is looking to save $1 million to $2 million a year.

The district does not yet know the impacts the closures may have on staff, spokesperson Jodi Runyon said Thursday in an email, because it’s not clear which schools will close. Staff from closed schools would follow students, with the possible exception of support staff and administration, Runyon said.

Custodial Manager James Long said staff would continue to secure and maintain any closed buildings.

“We want to give as much information as we can so people want to buy into the process and help us create a system for closing schools that’s community-based,” Long said. “If five people make a decision, everybody wants to know why you made that decision. If 250 people make the decision, you’ve got 250 people saying, ‘This is why we made the decision.’”

The district has been burdened by financial trouble for years. A double levy failure in 2022 and a significant decrease in enrollment over the past decade has strained the district, also plagued by administrative issues. Five superintendents have been in charge in the past four years. The school board removed the latest, Zachary Robbins, paying him over $400,000 to dissolve their contract. The board appointed Burgess in his place.

In August, the state superintendent’s office placed the district under enhanced financial oversight, and then assigned a special administrator, Arthur Jarvis, to oversee the district’s finances. Jarvis attended Wednesday’s meeting. He was encouraged, saying school closures are a “hard decision, no matter what you do,” but they would allow more staff to keep their jobs.

The district said the state’s Financial Oversight Committee recommended school closures.

Enrollment in the district has decreased by nearly 20% since 2011, from 11,500 students to the 9,000 projected in the 2025-2026 school year, the district said. Because of this, schools are operating significantly under their maximum capacity.

The state funds schools on a per-pupil basis. As each school requires its own infrastructure and administrative staff, costs to run them either remain the same or grow over time, all while revenues continue to fall due to reduced enrollment.

“If you keep all of the buildings, but you still have to cut dollars on the budget, those have to come directly out of people,” Jarvis said. “You’d start cutting the assistant principal, you start cutting the library, you start cutting the counselor, and you end up with the same number of buildings that are emaciated in terms of programs. You could probably take a poll and find out 98% of people love their school, but they love their staff even more.”

Parents at the meeting were given Post-it notes and feedback forms to raise concerns, including on topics such as bus routes, security, class sizes and minimizing disruption for students and educators.

“If we fail to take on these tough challenges, those decisions will be made in Olympia,” Burgess said. “That, in my opinion, would be a terrible mistake. We’re capable of doing this.”

The next community meeting will be 6 p.m. Monday at the Marysville Middle School gym. A meeting on school closures for Spanish-speaking families still needs to be scheduled, the district said. The same information is shared at each meeting.

The district will post a recorded presentation, along with a feedback form on its website, once the three meetings are complete.

Will Geschke: 425-339-3443; william.geschke@heraldnet.com; X: @willgeschke.