{"id":216582,"date":"2026-03-12T15:46:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T15:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/216582\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T15:46:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T15:46:09","slug":"committee-recommends-closing-fewer-san-jose-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/216582\/","title":{"rendered":"Committee recommends closing fewer San Jose schools"},"content":{"rendered":"

A committee tasked with recommending campus closures in San Jose\u2019s largest school district is suggesting fewer schools should close than expected.<\/p>\n

The San Jose Unified School District Schools of Tomorrow Implementation Committee<\/a> decided Tuesday to recommend shuttering five schools and moving a magnet program, rather than closing nine schools<\/a> as initially planned. The school board will make the final decision March 26.<\/p>\n

The committee, comprised of 23 volunteers across the SJUSD community, recommended closing Canoas, Empire Gardens, Gardner, Lowell and Terrell elementary schools and relocating Hammer Montessori at Galarza Elementary to Gardner. The district is looking to close schools due to declining enrollment, which has dropped by more than 6,000 students since the 2017-18 school year. SJUSD has approximately 25,000 students, from transitional kindergarten through grade 12, across its 41 schools.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe outcome did a good job of balancing the need to deal with very small schools that have significant challenges providing all the services to very small cohorts of students, while at the same time not creating very large schools as a result of eight or nine consolidations,\u201d Patrick Bernhardt, who chaired the committee, told San Jos\u00e9 Spotlight.\u00a0\u201cWe wound up somewhere in the middle of that, which I think from everybody\u2019s perspective was the right balance to strike.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of the district\u2019s 26 elementary schools, 12 have fewer than 350 students, while the largest has more than 800, according to SJUSD. Students impacted by the recommended closures will attend other schools in the district.<\/p>\n

Bernhardt sympathized with the students, parents and teachers who will be affected by the school closures.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can only imagine how difficult that is,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s definitely not a decision I think anybody who is sitting on the committee takes lightly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other local school districts\u00a0have closed\u00a0campuses in recent years due to dropping enrollment. That includes three in the Franklin-McKinley School District<\/a> in 2025, three in the Berryessa Union School District<\/a>\u00a0and six in the Alum Rock Union School District<\/a> in 2024.<\/p>\n

Renata Sanchez, president of the San Jose Teachers Association and committee member, said the recommendation addresses the smallest schools with the most critical need for support. But she said there are still conversations to be had.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are still schools that are going to have two or less classes per grade level, and we do need to talk more about our bilingual programs and magnet programs \u2026 but I want us to see that as an opportunity,\u201d she told San Jos\u00e9 Spotlight.<\/p>\n

\"In-line<\/a><\/p>\n

Parent Nigel Jahn-Hansen isn\u2019t entirely satisfied with the results, but said the committee didn\u2019t have much of a say other than providing a recommendation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese decisions will last for decades to come,\u201d he told San Jos\u00e9 Spotlight.<\/p>\n

Parent Priya Ghandikota said despite Williams Elementary School, where her child attends school, escaping the chopping block, the community isn\u2019t\u00a0overjoyed that other schools are closing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think about all the people that still have to face closures,\u201d she told San Jos\u00e9 Spotlight. \u201cWe\u2019re feeling thankful that Williams, which probably shouldn\u2019t have been on the closure list, is safe, but this has been a very grueling process. For six weeks, we\u2019ve been fighting. We\u2019ll always fight for what we believe in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Contact Lorraine Gabbert at [email\u00a0protected]<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A committee tasked with recommending campus closures in San Jose\u2019s largest school district is suggesting fewer schools should…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":216583,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[712,88,90,89,83178],"class_list":["post-216582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-centerpiece","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-san-jose-unified-school-district"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}