Pasadena Unified Opens Community Survey on School Closures as District Faces $30 Million Deficit

The Pasadena Unified School District on Tuesday opened a community survey asking parents, staff and residents how open they are to consolidating or closing schools, the latest step in a process that could result in the Board of Education voting to shutter campuses on June 25.

The survey, sent by Superintendent Elizabeth Blanco on March 3, arrives less than a week after the board unanimously voted to approve preliminary layoff notices affecting 161.35 full-time equivalent certificated positions and scores of classified positions — and amid a fiscal crisis driven by years of declining enrollment and a structural budget deficit exceeding $30 million.

“As we plan for the district’s long-term future, your voice is essential,” Blanco wrote in a message accompanying the survey. “The decisions ahead involve balancing programs, facilities, and financial sustainability to best serve our students.”

The survey can be accessed by clicking here.

Responses are due by March 17. The survey is available in English, Spanish and Mandarin, according to the district. The English version also includes Armenian translations within the form.

In addition to the community survey and SCAC meetings, the district plans to hold two town hall meetings and provide updates at Board of Education meetings throughout the spring. The next SCAC meeting is scheduled for Monday, March 9, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at PUSD headquarters, 351 S. Hudson Ave.

Before any questions are posed, the survey’s introductory text tells respondents that PUSD “has experienced a significant decrease in public school enrollment over the past several years,” that enrollment is “projected to continue declining,” and that “many school districts in LA County have closed schools to maintain programs for students, make better use of facility funds, offer employees competitive salaries and benefits, or in some way to better serve students.”

The introduction frames consolidation as a tool other districts have already used, and does not mention alternative strategies such as boundary changes, facility leasing, program restructuring or administrative reductions.

The survey’s 15 questions are divided into several categories. Questions 7 through 11 ask respondents to rate their openness to closing or merging schools under scenarios that promise specific benefits — preserving academic and enrichment programs, concentrating facility improvement funds at fewer campuses, and investing more in programs and supplies. Each of those questions uses a scale ranging from “very open” to “very opposed,” with an additional option allowing respondents to express skepticism that the proposed benefit would materialize. Three of those five questions — Questions 9, 10 and 11 — ask variations of the same proposition: whether merging schools would help preserve or fund programs, a structure the survey analysis notes could inflate apparent agreement by repeatedly testing essentially the same idea.

Questions 12, 13 and 14 shift to a different scale, asking respondents to rate the “importance” of educational conditions associated with school size — whether teachers should be assigned to a single grade level rather than multi-grade combination classes, whether teachers should have grade-level colleagues for collaboration and planning, and how much the condition of school facilities matters to parents’ satisfaction. These questions use a scale from “very important” to “unimportant” with a “no opinion” option.

The survey collects respondents’ names, email addresses, school affiliations and roles — parent or caregiver, certificated staff, classified staff, community member, or alumni. Although the Microsoft Forms platform states it does not automatically collect identifying details, the PUSD survey requires first name, last name and email address.

The final question presents three statements and asks respondents to choose one: keep all current school sites open, even if it eventually leads to a reduction in programs and services and does not allow the district to focus facility funds at fewer sites for more significant improvements; keep all current school sites open because there will be no benefit to PUSD or the community in closing smaller sites; or merge some smaller schools if doing so helps maintain programs and services and helps focus facility dollars at fewer sites for more significant improvements.

The survey does not include parallel questions about potential drawbacks of consolidation that some parents and community members have raised — such as longer commutes, loss of neighborhood identity, transportation burdens or disproportionate impacts on specific communities. It does not include an open-ended comment field.

One analysis of the survey form also identified what it called potentially serious mismatches between the English and Armenian translations. In Question 11, the Armenian text appears to ask about a different topic than the English version, and some answer-choice pairings appear misaligned, with “very open” in English paired with the Armenian equivalent of “very important.”

If Armenian-speaking respondents interpret different questions than English readers, the results could be internally inconsistent, according to the analysis.

The survey is one component of the Superintendent’s School Consolidation Advisory Committee process.

The SCAC, a committee of parents, staff, community members and district partners, held its first of seven scheduled meetings on February 23 at the district’s headquarters at 351 S. Hudson Ave. The committee is working with Total School Solutions, an outside consultant hired under a $233,300 contract the board approved on January 22 in a 5-2 vote.

Committee meetings are scheduled to continue through May 11. The SCAC’s recommendations will go to the Board of Education, which holds the final vote on any consolidation. That vote is scheduled for June 25. Any school closures would take effect for the 2027-2028 school year.

The consolidation planning process began with the board’s passage of Resolution 2852 on December 11, which established minimum enrollment thresholds — 300 students for elementary schools, 400 for middle schools and 900 for high schools. The board subsequently passed Resolution 2857 in January, establishing nine equity metrics for the committee to analyze, as required by state law AB 1912.

The district’s enrollment has fallen approximately 23.4 percent over the past decade, from 17,267 students in the 2014-2015 school year to 13,228 in the current 2025-2026 school year, according to district data. PUSD, which serves Pasadena, Altadena and Sierra Madre, has closed 11 schools since 1989 because of declining enrollment.

The most recent closures, in 2019, shuttered Roosevelt, Jefferson and Franklin elementary schools and drew a lawsuit from the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund alleging the closures disproportionately and illegally discriminated against the district’s Latino students. A Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled in the district’s favor on January 30, according to Pasadena Now.

The fiscal pressures on the district have been compounded by the January 2025 Eaton Fire, which destroyed or severely damaged five PUSD schools, all in Altadena. One year later, all displaced schools remain at temporary locations.

The SCAC is scheduled to deliver its recommendations to the board by May, setting the stage for the June 25 vote that will determine which Pasadena Unified schools, if any, will close.