SAN JOSE, Calif. (KRON) — San Jose Unified School District’s choice to close up to nine elementary schools this year will disproportionately impact Black and Latino students, according to data obtained by KRON4.

Parents have been protesting the school closures for days now.

The San Jose elementary school campuses with the highest percentage of Black and Latino student populations will close under the San Jose Unified School District’s potential closure options, according to state data reviewed by KRON4 News.

San Jose Unified School District is weighing two different options to close nine elementary schools, the current list shows schools such as Lowell, Gardner, Olinder and Carson Elementary would close under both options. These four campuses all have some of the highest Latino and Black populations of students.

“No” means the school will not close under the current plans

“Option 1” means said school would close under the district’s option 1 closures. Vice versa for option 2.

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SJUSD claims the need for closures comes from declining enrollment, which has been exacerbated at the district level. A 20% decline was noted from 2018 to 2025.

San Jose Unified told KRON4 News Thursday the list of school closures is not final, and the ‘Schools of Tomorrow’ committee can remove or add schools to the list over the next few weeks. The committee is set to send its finalized proposed list of school closures to the Board of Education by March 12.

KRON4 News arranged the district’s elementary schools in order of population of Black, latino and white students.

Rachel Carson Elementary, which has the third-highest Black student population at 5.03%, would close in both options currently presented to the district. Lowell Elementary, which has the second-highest Latino student population at 92%, would see its campus also closed under both options.

Six out of the 10 elementary school campuses with the highest Black and Latino enrollment would be closed under both options.

When looking at schools with the highest population of white students, the closures are minimal.

Booksin, Shallenberger and Los Alamitos have the largest percentage of white students in the district. None of the campuses would see closures under the current two options.

“Why?” Sean Allen, president of the San Jose NAACP, said. “Why those schools with predominantly people of color when there are other options for the district?”

Allen said his office sees complaints of racial discrimination often from SJUSD. He hopes the district will consider other ways to combat declining enrollment.

“We won’t accept them displacing Black and brown students in this educational environment,” Allen said.

KRON4 reached out to Superintendent Nancy Albarran for an interview on Thursday but couldn’t get the superintendent on record for the report.

“Their voices need to be heard,” David Hernandez, a parent and teacher at Lowell Elementary, said.

His daughter is in Transitional Kindergarten. He and his wife, Liseth, said they haven’t come up with a plan if Lowell ends up closing.

“This is extremely disappointing they’re doing this,” Liseth Hernandez said. “I feel terrible about it because they’re not being considerate about the metrics and aren’t digging into the data.”

The “Schools of Tomorrow” committee is working under a tight deadline. It has until March 12 to finalize its recommended school closures to the Board of Education.

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