These Treasure Valley schools are closing. What happens to the buildings?

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Several schools across the Treasure Valley will shut down or be repurposed because of declining enrollment and budget shortfalls — and more could follow.

But for the most part, those buildings won’t sit empty or be demolished or sold. Instead, districts plan to transition the buildings to provide more space for other programs, or to move students out of even older buildings in need of more repairs.

Districts are still looking at what it will cost to make the necessary renovations or changes to buildings as they transition, and how much money the closures will save, but they said they hope some of the changes will create a better learning environment for students and staff.

Nampa School District spokesperson Matthew Sizemore said none of the buildings the school board decided to close are unsafe, so with updates, they could better serve the district.

“They all just need work,” he told the Idaho Statesman. In a lot of cases, he added, they weren’t being used to their potential given the declining enrollment in the district. “Now they’re going to be able to bring in a lot more students, a lot more teachers, a lot more staff, and fill these. It’s basically just about maximizing space.”

Nampa school to become police station, transit hub

The Nampa school board voted earlier this year to close down four schools, a decision that came, in part, because the district’s enrollment has dropped over the past decade. Since the 2019-2020 school year, the district has lost 884 students, according to previous Statesman reporting.

When enrollment goes down, funding follows. But even though the students at those four schools will be directed to other buildings next year, Nampa plans to continue using most of the schools it shut down in other ways.

Centennial Elementary School, which served about 370 students last school year, will be split in two. Half of the building will be used by the Boys & Girls Club of Nampa, while the other half will become a Nampa Police Department substation, Sizemore said.

He said the building’s structure is still good and it likely won’t need major updates. The district has a memorandum of understanding with the Boys & Girls Club to fund program operations, including utilities and cleaning, for the first six months. The program is expected to serve 250 to 300 students before and after school and on Fridays, when students won’t have classes because Nampa is moving to a four-day school week next school year.

After those six months, the district will reassess whether to renew the memorandum, look at leasing options or initiate a formal bidding process. The district will also consider the community’s need for the fifth-day services, Sizemore said.

“The goal is for them to become self-sufficient by attracting enough kids, at which point we can discuss potential leasing options,” Sizemore said in an email.

Greenhurst Elementary, which housed about 250 students the most recent school year, will continue to serve as the child care center for children of staff members and the district’s Early Childhood Learning Center. It will also be the home of the Nampa Online Virtual Academy. Students can receive in-person tutoring or mentoring at the online school on some days, and the building will serve as a hub for the administration at that school, Sizemore said.

The third elementary school the board voted to close, Snake River, will house the district’s Gateways program, a K-12 alternative school that has been housed at the former Lincoln Elementary, a 70-year-old building in need of significant updates. The other half of the building will be used by the district’s federal programs staff.

The Gateways building will be left vacant. The school board will have to decide what happens to that facility, but that likely won’t be brought to trustees for several months, when the district finishes moving Gateways into the Snake River building, Sizemore said. The goal is to have that move completed in December, he said.

West Middle School will be converted to West Learning Campus, and the students and teachers at Union School will move into that building. The students at Nampa Academy, another alternative school previously held in a wing at Columbia High, will also occupy the West building. The building won’t be completely full with those two programs, but Sizemore said it will be “financially feasible” because both alternative schools receive other funding from the state.

Union will be converted to a transportation center, which the district did not have before, with lounge spaces for bus drivers and a parking lot for buses.

Sizemore said the district will monitor the changes and look at how much money it’s saving with the new structure.

“There’s been so many changes,” he said. “They had an idea of how much they were going to be saving before they kind of realized or planned what was going to happen.”

Boise considers shuttering elementary school

In the Caldwell School District, Lincoln Elementary, which served about 300 students over the past year, will also be repurposed. The district decided to close the school after a failed levy and budget cuts.

The top floor of the school will be used by district office personnel, while the bottom floor will house the Boys & Girls Club and preschool, spokesperson Jessica Watts said.

The district office will then be used by students at Canyon Springs High School, the district’s alternative school. Watts said the timeline on this move hasn’t been finalized. During a board meeting last month, Caldwell Superintendent N. Shalene French said it would cost a significant amount of money to repair Canyon Springs, and the district office is in better shape.

Watts said the moves will allow the district to maximize the facility space in its buildings.

The Boise School District is also considering shutting down Owyhee Elementary School, a facility on the Bench that has seen declining enrollment. The district proposed using the school as another early childhood learning center that can accommodate more pre-K students in that area. The district said housing the program all in one location will mean it can retrofit the building specifically for young learners.

The Boise school board is expected to vote next month on whether the school will close after public outcry from parents who said the district wasn’t being transparent with its decision.