Responding to enrollment declines, the Chambers County (Ala.) district is proposing to close three of its schools.
Since 2017, student numbers in the district have dropped from just over 3,500 students to 3,200, reports AL.com.
As part of the restructuring plan, Five Points Elementary School and J.P. Powell Middle School will close and temporarily merge with Lafayette Eastside Elementary School. Lafayette Lanier Elementary will close and merge into Fairfax Elementary next year.
The county’s two high schools, Valley High School and Lafayette High School, will stay open in 2022-23, but officials plan to close both of those schools eventually and replace them with a new, larger building.
While a new high school is being built, Valley High will house all high school students, and a renovated Lafayette High campus will house students from Five Points, J.P. Powell and Eastside. Students in the new Lafayette K-8 school will also have access to the school’s magnet program.
District officials say the new plan will enable them to allocate funding more fairly.
Because Chambers County schools operate under a desegregation order, the consolidation plan will have to be approved by a federal judge. The district hopes to file the plan to the courts this month.
