After dwindling attendance numbers during the 2023-2024 academic year, Hudson Elementary School will be permanently closing due to low enrollment.
Most students will be transferred about half a mile down the street to Garfield Elementary School. Special education students will be transferred to Bixby Elementary School. Families are also eligible to receive priority in the school of choice process if there are other schools they are interested in.
During the Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD) Oct. 16 board meeting, district staff said the decision to close the school was made based on factors such as space utilization and efforts to create the best learning environment.
According to Facilities Executive Director David Miranda, the process began with the creation of a working group to assess classroom space capacities across the district. Some of the group’s tasks included creating a framework to access school facility data such as enrollment data, capacity utilization, room sizes and program needs.
The group met several times over the course of a year and consisted of different representatives from various district departments such as special education, child development and research and evaluation.
All enrollment in the district has been steadily declining over the years but for the 2023-2024 school year, Hudson Elementary enrolled 231 students. Miranda said that data from professional consultants estimated enrollment at Hudson Elementary would continue to decline under 200 next year and remain that way for the next couple of years.
Miranda said his team also did a spot check to gauge the accuracy of the estimates by comparing the enrollment estimates from five years ago with the actual enrollment numbers of the last five years.
“It was really accurate, so that really gives us that confidence in the numbers going forward, that the projection is going to be accurate going into next year,” Miranda said.
Miranda said the data also helped them look at two different forms of capacity: school site versus program capacity. School site capacity refers to the number of students a school can hold based on the original design of the building, while program capacity is based on the number of classrooms where instruction happens. Miranda said calculating program capacity more accurately represents how LBUSD uses space.
School site capacity is calculated by taking the total count of classrooms at a given campus and multiplying it by a loading factor — which is the maximum students per room. Program capacity removes certain non-load rooms — such as wellness centers, Head Start or career tech-type labs — from the equation. The Signal Tribune reached out to Miranda on Oct. 22 and 23 for clarification on these terms but did not get a response.
Miranda said the data analysis showed that Hudson Elementary has a very low utilization rate: under 20% based on program capacity. Additionally, the elementary school has only one teacher per grade level from kindergarten through fifth grade. According to Chief Academic Officer Brian Moskovitz, this can impact the quality of the education students receive.
“One of the greatest ways that we can ensure teacher success is that teachers have a partner to collaborate with, somebody to help create assessments, somebody to help to support students,” Moskovitz said.
The work group looked at Garfield Elementary and found it was using around 40% to 43% of its capacity at this point in time, which made them confident that the school can take on “quite a bit, if not all” of Hudson Elementary’s students, according to Miranda.
Low student enrollment also means Hudson Elementary students have had access to fewer resources such as counselors or a school librarian because state funding is on a per-pupil basis. Schools with fewer students are allocated less funds.
“Educationally, as schools get small like Hudson is right now, it’s really hard to continue to maintain a high-quality program, and that really is our number one priority,” Moskovitz said.
The district held an informational Hudson parent meeting on Oct. 21 and will be hosting a meeting for Garfield parents on Oct. 22 as well as offering opportunities for parents to visit the Garfield and Bixby campuses. Similarly, Assistant Superintendent of Elementary & K-8 Schools David Zaid said the district has held general meetings for Hudson and Garfield staff as well as one-on-one discussions to talk about their options.
Board member Doug Otto emphasized that the decision is both a difficult but necessary one. It is also potentially the first of many, as the district grapples with declining enrollment across the city.
“We’re just on a ride now that we have to be aware of and not just think of this as an isolated incident, but as something that’s an outcropping of all kinds of things that are happening with declining enrollments and funds,” Otto said.
