BEAVERTON, Ore. — Some Beaverton School District parents are growing increasingly concerned that the school district may close several elementary schools in a couple of years. On Friday, parents discovered the Beaverton School District was studying proposals to consolidate schools in the southeast quadrant of the district.
The proposals, which the district said are preliminary, are due to the opening of a new Raleigh Hills Elementary School in the 2026-27 school year.
"We're really trying to understand why,” Sara Gardner-Smith said. “Why is the district pushing for this philosophy?"
Gardner-Smith has a second grader at Raleigh Park, a school of around 300 students. She said her child benefits from the smaller school size. Other parents agree that the smaller schools are beneficial for students.
"Kids do better in small schools, based on pretty much every measure of student success," Smith said.
Parents told KGW that the school district has not been transparent about its studies to possibly close schools.
"We really didn't get a lot of heads-up into what was going on," Liz Terzo, a Raleigh Park parent, said.
KGW reached out to the Beaverton School District for an interview, though they declined our request. A spokesperson did tell KGW, however, that the district wasn’t ready to tell families about the proposal because the planning committee just began studying options in February. Since the studies have just begun, there’s a chance no schools close, they added.
"It is a study group. It is not making any decisions whatsoever," Steven Sparks, Beaverton’s long-term planning administrator, said of the group studying different scenarios to close schools in order to fill Raleigh Hills.
"The superintendent will take that recommendation and decide whether or not to proceed," he added.
Still, hundreds of people attended a Q&A session with school district administrators Tuesday evening. Many are still concerned that in 2026-27, kids in several southeast Beaverton elementary schools could be relocated.
Recommended scenarios are expected to be presented to the superintendent on June 5. He will then decide whether or not to proceed. If he does proceed with a plan to close schools, that proposal would then go before the school board.
A final decision would likely come in 2025.