Enrollment in the Salt Lake City School District in the late 1950s and early 1960s reflected the post-World War II baby boom with head counts some of those years that exceeded 40,000 students in Utah’s capital city. Flash forward to 2023 and the district’s enrollment is less than half of that, with fall enrollment expected to drop to 19,700 students, a decline that is forcing difficult conversations and decisions about school closures in the coming months. Declining student population is “an indicator that action is needed,” Brian Conley, the school district’s boundaries and planning director, said in a recent meeting. Enrollment in grades K-6 has dropped by more than 3,800 students in eight years, he said, adding that the district still has the same number of schools as it did back then. Seven Salt Lake elementary schools are now being studied for possible closure — Emerson, Hawthorne, M. Lynn Bennion, Mary W. Jackson, Newman, Riley and Wasatch. Over the past 39 years, the school district has closed 37 schools, 25 in the 1970s alone. Two were closed in the 1980s, including South High School, which was highly controversial. It later became one of Salt Lake Community College’s campuses. Schools with declining enrollments can become candidates for closure, but other contributing factors can include a building’s age, location, campus size, availability of parking, disability access, proximity to busy streets, low general education enrollment and even a dearth of natural light in classrooms. |