NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — Amid continued declining enrollment of the city’s public schools, Norfolk City Council has called for the city School Board to develop a plan within the next five months for closing and consolidating 10 schools, with the closures starting by August 2026.
The resolution, adopted by council unanimously Tuesday night, threatens to provide consequences to the School Board for any delay, including changing the city’s appropriation to Norfolk Public Schools from a lump-sum one to a directed appropriation to give council more control over school division appropriations “in order to ameliorate the estimated loss of funds due to surplus capacity of school buildings.”
“We need them to take this seriously,” Councilman Tommy Smigiel, said from the dias.
Council said it acknowledges the difficult choices the board faces in closing or consolidating the 10 schools, but “eliminating unneeded buildings must be a priority addressed immediately.”
It wants the board’s list of schools to be closed by Aug. 1. It’s a list that has been talked about for more than six years.
The resolution also stated that the School Board is to close at least two schools per year until the number of school buildings does not exceed the number needed.
In 2025, the city provided Norfolk Public Schools $164.2 million toward its operating costs, with the city responsible for 100% of its capital costs.
The council resolution noted that it has remained committed to increasing per-pupil spending. even with student enrollment declining from 31,176 in 2010 to a projected total of 24,459 in 2025, a 21% decrease.
The school division created a long-range facility plan steering committee in 2024, part of a larger initiative to modernize its facilities.
Council also noted in the resolution that, since 2019, the school division’s facilities master plan highlighted a rebuild of Maury High School as well as Granby, Norview and Jacox elementary schools, and consolidating Tidewater Park Elementary School, Madison Alternative School, Easton Preschool and Lindenwood Elementary School.
Council also cited a survey by the board’s consultant that said the school division has, since 2013, operated at three to 17 schools above its need based on population served, with more than half of the city’s schools at less than 80% capacity. The report cited potential savings of nearly $71 million over a five-year period from 2018 to 2022 — $8.5 million in 2018, $8.4 million in 2019, $16.7 million in 2020, $17.2 million in 2021 and $20.3 million in 2022.
“Over the last 10 years, that surplus capacity has cost the taxpayers of Norfolk $81 million,” Vice Mayor Martin Thomas said in a July 2023 joint-meeting between the City Council and the School Board.
As cities announce their annual budgets, inflation is still very much impacting city projects.
The estimated price tag to replace Maury High School is now at $250 million, and Norfolk City Council said that, in order to pay for it, they want to see the School Board put a plan together to stop spending money now on space that isn’t needed.
“There is a school, or schools, in each one of our wards that are well under capacity,” Smigiel said. “They are aging schools, and to continue investing in those aging buildings when they shouldn’t have been open, we have to address that.”
While four schools have been shuttered since the start of the decade, council has asked on several occasions for a long-term plan to ensure the taxpayers’ investment isn’t being wasted.
Current councilmember and former board member Carlos Clanton told 10 On Your Side that redistricting decisions are often contentious. No matter the community, people don’t like the idea of redistricting. Councilmembers say they believe a plan to close schools can move forward.
And though 10 On Your Side did not hear from School Board members ahead of the story’s airing Wednesday, the board did just form a committee to help identify the schools that should be shuttered, and Superintendent Dr. Sharon Byrdsong’s proposed budget outlined plans to close schools along some of the timeline that council has proposed.
Byrdsong’s budget presentation to the board noted that, in Phase 1 of its “right-sizing effort” that it returned the Coronado School and the Madison Alternative Education Centre properties to the city — having previously returned Poplar Hills and Tidewater Park elementary schools to the city — and Norfolk Public Schools put a plan in place for a major community engagement effort “to support the right-sizing initiative.”
Phase 2 of the plan for the 2025-2026 school year calls for providing the board with the first round of recommended closures and consolidations while continuing its public engagement efforts. In the following school year, Byrdsong said it would be implementing the first round of closures and consolidations while providing the board with the second round of recommended closures and consolidations.