Bellevue closed two elementary schools. Are middle schools next?

The Bellevue School District is considering more school consolidations — this time at the middle school level.

District leaders unveiled a timeline for potential school consolidations at a school board study session Thursday, and called for parents, students, and community members to join a Superintendent Advisory Council to help inform their decisions.

The district has also hired two demographers to study enrollment trends for the next eight years across Bellevue’s five middle schools, and assess whether consolidating into fewer schools would allow the district to better maintain existing programs and services for students.

Earlier this year, the Bellevue School Board decided to close two elementary schools — Wilburton and Eastgate — as part of a school consolidation plan. The district had lost about 10% of its students over the last three years, creating a budget deficit of $20 million this school year.

Bellevue is far from alone: School districts across the state and nation have been grappling with severe budget shortfalls in the wake of the pandemic. Consequently, many school communities had to have painful conversations about what programs, services, and jobs leaders should cut — or whether they should close schools.

Earlier this week, Seattle Public Schools leaders also laid out a timeline for this year's budget process as the district faces a $104 million shortfall and may have to consolidate schools next fall. School officials were able to close a $131 million gap last year without closing schools.

In an interview with KUOW earlier this year, Bellevue’s new superintendent, Kelly Aramaki, acknowledged the district is still in a financially precarious time. Enrollment is projected to shrink another 8% over the next decade. But Aramaki says he’s ready to face it head on with structural changes.

“I think the worst thing we could do for our kids and for the community is to not be in control of our finances and then just be constantly cutting and trimming back,” he told KUOW. “That is not the kind of future that we want."

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Under Bellevue’s new timeline, data from the demographers is expected to be made public by the end of this month.

Next month, district officials will review that data as part of community forums at all five middle schools, and create a plan for “equitable and targeted outreach to specific groups.”

In November and December, the district will compile all the feedback from the community meetings. Aramaki and his team will develop a draft recommendation, which will be shared at a school board meeting in January.

In February, the district plans to conduct more community forums and surveys, and Aramaki will revise his recommendations based on feedback.

The school board is then slated to vote on that plan in March.

The district says it hopes this new process — and the Superintendent Advisory Council —will address concerns and criticisms from the process to consolidate elementary schools last year.