ST. LOUIS, MO – August 26, 2026 (STL.News) – St. Louis Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Myra M. Berry has formally recommended closing and repurposing 12 school buildings as part of a sweeping effort to reshape the district amid declining enrollment, aging facilities, and questions about how SLPS should allocate its resources.
Berry presented the recommendation Tuesday, Aug. 25, during a St. Louis Board of Education work session. The plan is part of Future Ready SLPS, the district’s broader strategy to restructure schools and strengthen academic programs.
The proposal is not final. Board members will continue reviewing the recommendations, and additional community engagement is expected before a final vote, currently anticipated in October. If ultimately approved, changes could begin with the 2027-28 school year.
The recommendation represents one of the most consequential potential changes to the footprint of St. Louis Public Schools in years. It would affect schools across several parts of the city and could change where students attend classes, how grade levels are organized, and how the district uses properties that are no longer needed as traditional schools.
12 SLPS buildings recommended for closure
The current recommendation identifies 12 buildings to be closed and repurposed:
- Hamilton Elementary
- Academy of Entrepreneurship Studies at L’Ouverture
- Ashland Elementary
- Hickey Elementary
- Walbridge Elementary
- Ames Visual & Performing Arts
- Carver Elementary
- Columbia Elementary
- Patrick Henry
- Meramec Elementary
- Monroe Elementary
- Shenandoah Elementary
The district’s own current school directory identifies most of those campuses as elementary schools, while the Academy of Entrepreneurship Studies at L’Ouverture operates as a middle school. The schools span multiple SLPS academic networks and neighborhoods.
The list is smaller than earlier possibilities considered as part of the Future Ready planning process, making Tuesday’s recommendation a significant narrowing of the district’s options.
The district has not determined what would happen to each property after its use as a traditional school ends.
That question is likely to become increasingly important as the process moves forward. Closing a school is not simply an academic decision. School buildings can occupy prominent positions in neighborhoods, and vacant institutional properties can become difficult and expensive to maintain if a new use is not identified.
During Tuesday’s discussion, Board of Education member Dr. Robert S. Harvey raised questions about the readiness of buildings for disposition and communication with neighborhood associations, particularly in communities already dealing with blight.
Those concerns point to a second major challenge facing the district: reducing excess school capacity without creating additional vacant properties that could become liabilities for surrounding neighborhoods.
Future Ready SLPS would reshape the district
The proposed closures are only one component of Future Ready SLPS.
According to the district, Future Ready SLPS is its strategic vision for strengthening the school system and preparing students for success in school, careers and life. SLPS has used the initiative to examine its portfolio of schools, academic programming and long-term use of facilities.
The district began presenting preliminary portfolio models earlier this year and gathered community feedback before Berry brought the latest recommendation to the board.
SLPS says it wants to establish a more coherent system of traditional elementary, middle and high school feeder patterns while continuing some pre-K-through-eighth-grade configurations.
The underlying issue is larger than deciding which buildings remain open.
District leaders must determine how many schools SLPS can realistically operate, where those schools should be located and what academic programs they should provide.
SLPS Chief Technology Officer Natasha Mitchell told the board that maintaining the same number of available seats while expecting enrollment to rebound is not a sustainable long-term strategy.
Instead, district leaders say SLPS needs schools families actively choose for strong academics and programming.
That distinction is central to the Future Ready strategy. The district is trying to move the discussion beyond maintaining buildings and toward how it can concentrate its available financial, instructional, and personnel resources.
Declining enrollment creates difficult choices
Like many urban school systems, St. Louis Public Schools has faced long-term demographic changes that have left the district operating a large portfolio of buildings compared with the number of students it serves.
School buildings carry substantial fixed costs regardless of whether every classroom is full.
Utilities, repairs, security, custodial services, technology, transportation, and building maintenance all require resources. Older facilities can add another layer of expenses when they need major repairs or modernization.
Operating underused buildings can therefore force a school district to spread resources across more properties.
Consolidation can potentially allow a district to direct more money and personnel toward classrooms, academic programs and student services. However, the potential financial and educational benefits must be weighed against disruption for students and families.
A school closure can change transportation arrangements, commuting distances, neighborhood relationships and long-standing school communities.
For families affected by the proposal, those practical considerations may ultimately matter as much as the districtwide financial calculations.
McKinley high school program would end
The recommendation also proposes a major change involving McKinley.
Under the plan, McKinley’s high school program would be phased out, while McKinley would continue operating as a middle school.
Students in McKinley’s high school program would transition to Central Visual and Performing Arts High School, commonly known as Central VPA.
Central VPA would also add advanced academic opportunities as part of the reconfiguration.
The change illustrates how Future Ready SLPS extends beyond closing buildings. The district is also looking at where specific academic programs should be located and how students move from elementary school through middle and high school.
The district currently operates a mixture of traditional neighborhood schools and specialized schools offering programs in areas including visual and performing arts, STEM, medicine and bioscience, international studies and career education.
Restructuring those programs could affect enrollment patterns across the system, including schools not recommended for closure.
Clyde C. Miller would take on a new role
Clyde C. Miller Career Academy would also undergo a significant transformation.
Under the recommendation, Miller would become a districtwide career and technical education school.
The change could make career preparation an increasingly important part of the district’s academic strategy.
Board member Donna Jones emphasized during Tuesday’s discussion that students need to leave high school prepared for employment regardless of which SLPS high school they attend.
Career and technical education can provide students with alternatives and complements to traditional four-year college pathways, including technical training, industry credentials and preparation for skilled occupations.
How Miller’s new model would operate, what programs would be available and how students throughout the district would access those programs will be important details as SLPS develops the proposal.
Transportation remains a major question
Transportation is another unresolved issue.
Consolidating schools inevitably changes where some students travel each day.
SLPS acknowledged that transportation and other operational elements require additional exploration as the Future Ready process continues.
The consequences could differ substantially depending on a student’s neighborhood, age and assigned receiving school.
For younger students in particular, families are likely to scrutinize travel distances, bus schedules, and how consolidation would affect the time children spend getting to and from school.
Transportation costs could also affect the overall financial impact of consolidation. Savings from operating fewer buildings must be weighed against any additional transportation costs from moving students farther from their current schools.
Those details are among the reasons the current proposal should not be treated as a completed closure plan.
What happens to the buildings?
Another unanswered question involves the physical properties themselves.
SLPS owns school buildings throughout St. Louis, including properties with histories extending back generations.
When a school closes, the district must determine whether to retain, lease, sell or otherwise repurpose the property.
Possible reuse can range from educational and community purposes to residential or mixed-use redevelopment, depending on the building, neighborhood, market demand and zoning considerations.
But successful reuse is not guaranteed.
Large former school buildings can be expensive to renovate, particularly when developers must address outdated mechanical systems, accessibility requirements and other rehabilitation costs.
That means the district’s real estate strategy will be an important part of the Future Ready process.
A building that quickly finds a productive new use can become an asset to a neighborhood. A property that remains vacant for years can have the opposite effect.
The board’s questions Tuesday indicate that members are aware of that risk.
Community feedback remains part of the process
SLPS has been gathering public input throughout the Future Ready process.
The district held community meetings after releasing preliminary portfolio models and presented a community feedback overview to the Board of Education on July 28.
Another Future Ready community meeting was held Aug. 17 at Carr Lane Visual and Performing Arts Middle School, according to the district’s published calendar.
Berry asked board members Tuesday to identify schools, recommendations or elements of the plan they could not support in their current form.
That request suggests the recommendation could still change before the board votes.
Parents, employees, neighborhood organizations and other residents therefore have additional opportunities to weigh in before the process concludes.
Closure recommendation is not a final decision
The distinction between a superintendent’s recommendation and an approved closure plan is important.
As of Aug. 26, the 12 buildings have not been finally approved for closure.
Berry has presented a formal recommendation to the Board of Education, which must now evaluate the proposal.
A final recommendation is expected to emerge after further review and community engagement, with a board vote anticipated in October.
If approved, implementation could begin during the 2027-28 school year rather than immediately during the 2026-27 academic year, which began Monday, Aug. 24.
That timeline gives SLPS time to work through student assignments, staffing, transportation, programming, building disposition and other operational issues.
It also gives affected families and neighborhoods time to understand how the proposal could change.
A defining decision for St. Louis schools
The debate ultimately extends beyond the fate of 12 buildings.
SLPS is confronting a fundamental question faced by urban school districts with declining enrollment: whether maintaining a larger network of schools preserves neighborhood access or spreads limited resources too thinly to provide the academic programs families expect.
Future Ready SLPS represents the district’s attempt to answer that question by concentrating resources, reorganizing feeder patterns, and changing how some specialized programs operate.
The potential benefits will be weighed against the disruption of closing schools with students, employees, histories, and ties to their neighborhoods.
Between now and the expected October vote, attention will likely shift increasingly toward the details: where affected students would go, how far they would travel, which teachers and staff would move with them, what academic opportunities receiving schools would offer, and what ultimately happens to the buildings left behind.
For now, Hamilton, AESM L’Ouverture, Ashland, Hickey, Walbridge, Ames, Carver, Columbia, Patrick Henry, Meramec, Monroe and Shenandoah remain operating SLPS schools.
Their future now rests with the district’s continuing Future Ready process and, ultimately, the St. Louis Board of Education.
Sources: Saint Louis Public Schools, Future Ready SLPS materials and district school information; St. Louis Board of Education Aug. 25 work session; First Alert 4 reporting.
Editor’s note: This article describes a superintendent’s recommendation. The proposed school closures and program changes have not received final approval as of Aug. 26, 2026.
