TUSD’s School-Closure Debate: The Question Is Not Just Funding — It Is Long-Term Planning

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The current debate over closing and consolidating schools in the Tucson Unified School District should include a question that goes well beyond which schools should close:

Why did TUSD wait so long to bring its physical and administrative infrastructure into alignment with a declining student population?

That question deserves attention after comments by former TUSD Governing Board member and current U.S. Rep. Adelita Grijalva in the September 20, 2026 Arizona Daily Star.

Grijalva described school closures as the most painful experience of her career in elected office. She attributed much of the pressure facing public schools to inadequate public-school funding, charter-school growth and Arizona's voucher system. She advised today's TUSD Governing Board to minimize harm to school communities as it considers another round of closures.

Those concerns deserve consideration. But they do not answer the central management and governance question confronting TUSD:

Did the district adjust its operating structure rapidly enough as its student population declined?

TUSD Knew About the Problem More Than a Decade Ago

The demographic and capacity problem is not new.

When TUSD approved the closure of 11 schools in December 2012, the district was attempting to address a projected $17 million budget shortfall.

At the time, TUSD reportedly had approximately 13,000 empty seats—capacity equivalent to about 26 elementary schools.

Closing the 11 schools was expected to save approximately $4 million annually.

Those facts established something important: by 2012, declining enrollment and excess physical capacity were already material financial and operational issues.

School closures were painful. But the underlying problem did not disappear simply because the district had completed one round of closures.

Enrollment Continued to Decline

TUSD's Average Daily Membership has declined substantially since that period.

Using the figures we have examined, TUSD ADM was approximately 46,600 in FY2013–14. By FY2025–26, it was approximately 35,900.

That represents a loss of approximately 10,700 ADM—or about 23%.

The district's FY2026–27 budget projects another decline.

This is not a one-year fluctuation. It is a long-term structural trend.

That distinction matters enormously from an audit, governance and financial-management perspective.

When an organization's customer or service population declines persistently, management should periodically reassess its:

Facilities and physical capacity
Administrative staffing
Support functions
Transportation network
School staffing models
Capital requirements
Fixed operating costs
Long-range financial forecasts

A school district cannot necessarily reduce every expense proportionately with enrollment.

But neither can it reasonably assume that an infrastructure designed for a materially larger student population should remain unchanged indefinitely.

The Warning Signs Continued After 2013

The enrollment problem was still being discussed publicly years after the 2013 closures.

In 2019, the Arizona Daily Star reported that TUSD had taken relatively few steps to address dwindling enrollment. Then-Governing Board President Mark Stegeman said:

“In a broad sense, the board hasn’t paid enough attention to enrollment loss over the years.”

That is a significant historical statement because it was made years before the current financial crisis and school-reconfiguration process.

The present situation therefore should not be analyzed solely as an unexpected 2026 financial problem.

The Governing Board should determine what TUSD knew about its demographic and enrollment trends, when management knew it, what forecasts were prepared, and what actions were taken in response.

Grijalva Was Part of This Governance History

Adelita Grijalva served on the TUSD Governing Board for approximately 20 years after her father left the Board.

That means her comments today should also be considered in the context of the governance decisions made during her tenure.

She participated in the difficult 2012 school-closure process. She therefore had direct knowledge of TUSD's declining enrollment, excess capacity and financial pressures.

She was also on the Governing Board when Gabriel Trujillo joined TUSD's senior administration.

In August 2016, the Governing Board unanimously approved Trujillo as Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction.

After H.T. Sánchez left the district, the Board unanimously appointed Trujillo interim superintendent in March 2017.

Trujillo subsequently became permanent superintendent.

Grijalva continued to support his leadership. In 2022, when the Board approved a contract extension and substantial raise for Trujillo, she publicly described stability in the district as crucial and characterized his contract positively.

Those are matters of public record.

They do not establish that any single board member or superintendent caused TUSD's present financial problems. They do establish that today's problems should be evaluated as the product of years of governance, budgeting, enrollment forecasting and management decisions, rather than viewed only through the lens of current state or federal education funding.

Funding Is Only One Side of the Equation

Grijalva's argument about public-school funding raises a legitimate policy issue.

But financial management has two sides:

Revenue and expenditures.

If revenues are constrained while enrollment is declining, expenditure management becomes more—not less—important.

The appropriate questions are therefore not simply: Did Arizona adequately fund public education?

They also include:

Did TUSD appropriately resize its organization as enrollment declined?
Did administrative expenditures decline as student enrollment declined?
Did TUSD maintain too much physical capacity for too long?
Were school-utilization rates regularly presented to the Governing Board?
Did management prepare long-range demographic forecasts?
Did those forecasts identify when additional schools would become economically inefficient?
What corrective actions did management recommend?

And perhaps most importantly:

Why is TUSD confronting these structural questions so urgently in 2026 when declining enrollment and excess capacity were clearly identified more than a decade ago?

School Closures Should Have Been Part of Long-Range Planning

This does not mean TUSD necessarily should have closed a school every single year beginning in 2013.

That conclusion would require school-by-school enrollment, capacity, operating-cost, transportation and demographic analysis.

A better management model would have required annual facilities-utilization and demographic reviews beginning after the 2013 closures.

Each year, management should have reported to the Governing Board:

Enrollment trends.
ADM and Weighted Student Count trends.
School-age population forecasts.
Enrollment by individual school.
Capacity utilization by campus.
Cost per student by school.
Administrative cost trends.
Five- and ten-year demographic projections.
Schools falling below established utilization thresholds.
Estimated savings from consolidation.
The financial consequences of taking no action.

That process would have transformed school consolidation from an occasional crisis into a normal component of long-range financial and facilities planning.

This Is Ultimately a Governance Question

The current TUSD Governing Board faces difficult decisions. Closing a neighborhood school affects students, parents, teachers, employees and entire communities.

That human impact should not be minimized.

But good governance requires leaders to address structural problems before financial conditions force emergency action.

The central question should therefore not be whether previous board members cared about schools. Nor should the discussion become a search for a single individual to blame.

The more useful accountability question is:

For more than a decade, did TUSD's Governing Boards and senior management adequately respond to the demographic, enrollment and capacity information available to them?

If the answer is going to be credible, it should be supported by data.

TUSD should reconstruct the record from FY2013–14 through FY2026–27 showing ADM, enrollment, school-age population, number of operating schools, school capacity, administrative FTE, administrative expenditures, M&O expenditures and cash/reserve levels.

Put those measures on one timeline.

Then taxpayers, employees, parents and the Governing Board can see whether TUSD's operating structure contracted as its student population contracted.

That analysis would move the discussion beyond political explanations and emotional arguments.

It would provide something the TUSD Governing Board badly needs:

Facts.

I is my opinion as the former Vice Chair of the TUSD Audit Committee that the current management of the district does not like to share the FACTS with anyone.