By Alyn Turner
In every school closure conversation, there are two groups of students whose experiences matter: those being displaced and those already enrolled in the schools that will receive them. District closure plans typically focus heavily on the first group—where displaced students will go, what supports they’ll receive, how transitions will be managed.
But research has helped us understand more about the realities of the second group: receiving schools don’t just absorb new students neutrally. They can experience measurable disruption—academic, operational, and relational—that can harm both newly arrived students and those who were already there.
This has been documented across multiple cities in achievement data, attendance records, crime statistics, and teacher retention rates. The receiving school reality is this: without proactive, substantial support, receiving schools become the location where closure harm concentrates rather than the solution that prevents it.
#1 The Achievement Spillover: Real and Measurable
The most rigorous evidence on receiving school impacts comes from Philadelphia, where the district closed more than 10% of its schools between 2011 and 2013 due to declining enrollment and underperformance.
Researchers tracking student outcomes found that receiving school students’ academic achievement declined significantly following the influx of displaced students. This went beyond a short-term adjustment period—the negative effects persisted for up to two years after closure events.
Critically, the magnitude of harm was uneven, greatest in receiving schools with higher concentrations of displaced students. Schools that absorbed displaced students representing more than 10% of their enrollment showed the steepest declines in achievement for their existing student populations.
In practice, this means that when a school performing adequately—serving its students reasonably well—takes on a large number of displaced students, within a year, achievement can decline across the board: the newly arrived students struggling with disruption and the students who were already there now navigating a transformed school environment with strained resources and altered dynamics.
The closure was supposed to improve educational quality by consolidating students into stronger schools. Instead, it degraded the quality of receiving schools, producing system-wide harm rather than system-wide benefit.
#2 The Crime and Safety Spillover
Philadelphia’s closures revealed another troubling pattern: neighborhoods that absorbed high concentrations of displaced students experienced increases in crime, especially violent crime.
Similar findings emerged from Chicago’s 2013 mass closures. Researcher Noli Brazil documented increases in crime in neighborhoods near merged schools—schools where displaced students were consolidated with students from other closing schools.
The increases were most pronounced in areas where displaced students came from rival territories or gang boundaries. Brazil interpreted these effects not as inevitable consequences of bringing together different student groups, but as symptoms of poorly planned reassignments that failed to account for territorial dynamics and social integration needs.
This matters because it reveals how implementation choices shape safety outcomes. Districts that assign students without considering neighborhood geography, existing conflicts, or integration supports can inadvertently create dangerous situations—not just inside school buildings but in surrounding communities.
#3 Teacher Turnover and Staff Instability
Receiving schools may face increased staff turnover and morale challenges.
A multi-district study examining teacher labor markets found that when large numbers of displaced students were assigned to a single school, teacher departure rates increased—especially among mid-career educators with the experience and options to move to more stable environments.
The mechanism appears to be multifaceted. Teachers in receiving schools can face:
- Larger class sizes as enrollment surges
- New students who may be struggling with disruption and displacement trauma
- Disrupted instructional teams when staff from closing schools are reassigned
- Increased demands without commensurate increases in planning time or support staff
- Climate challenges as new and existing students navigate social integration
When these pressures accumulate without adequate support, even committed teachers reach breaking points. The receiving schools most impacted by closures—those absorbing the most displaced students—may risk losing the veteran staff most able to navigate complexity.
This creates a compounding problem: receiving schools need their strongest, most experienced educators precisely when those educators are most likely to leave.
#4 The Special Education Service Gap
School closures disproportionately affect students with disabilities, and receiving schools often face a particular challenge: program capacity and service continuity mismatches.
Many underenrolled schools that close have historically served higher-than-average proportions of students with disabilities. When those students transfer to receiving schools, districts often discover that receiving schools lack:
- Sufficient special education staff to handle increased IEP caseloads
- Program capacity for specific disability categories or service models
- Physical spaces configured for specialized instruction
- Expertise in particular interventions or accommodations
What can result is service gaps that go unaddressed for months while districts work to hire staff, reconfigure spaces, and transfer expertise. Students who were receiving appropriate services in closing schools experience disruption precisely when they need continuity most.
Research suggests this is a predictable consequence of closure planning that focuses on enrollment numbers without adequately planning for program and service transfers.
#5 The Planning Process Often Fails
One of the most revealing studies of receiving school experiences comes from Chicago’s 2013 closures, where researchers interviewed principals, teachers, and staff in schools that absorbed displaced students.
What emerged was a consistent story of planning processes that were ill-fated from the start:
As one summary of findings noted: “Leaders had to adapt in real time to shifting and changing circumstances. Staff cited a number of reasons why the whole welcoming school planning process was flawed, including the truncated and rushed planning time, not knowing how many students or staff would be joining the welcoming school from closed schools, funding uncertainties associated with student-based budgeting, and uncertainties around planning for the physical accommodation of large influxes of new staff and students.” (Gorden et al., 2018, p.26).
Receiving school staff consistently wished for:
- More support and training in managing logistical challenges
- More care and effort in physically moving supplies and materials
- Greater investments and attention to receiving schools in a timely manner (not as afterthoughts)
- More thoughtful efforts to bring principals together throughout the transition
- Longer-term funding to retain support staff and upgrade technology
The pattern is clear: It’s a missed opportunity for districts to treat receiving schools as passive containers that will simply absorb new students. Instead, a careful planning process should consider them as active sites requiring substantial investment, preparation, and ongoing support.
#6 The Cultural Integration Challenge
Multiple qualitative studies from Chicago, Newark, and Baltimore show that receiving schools often lack support to integrate students culturally and socially, not just logistically.
Doing this requires deep work:
- Understanding the cultural and historical context of incoming students and their communities. What are the histories, strengths, and challenges of neighborhoods being disrupted? What does closure mean to families who have experienced multiple waves of displacement?
- Critiquing internal practices that may unintentionally reproduce exclusion. Are discipline systems, classroom norms, or extracurricular access structured in ways that make integration harder? Do receiving school staff approach displaced students as problems to manage or young people experiencing disruption who need support?
- Building bridges between student communities. When students from different neighborhoods, different school cultures, and different peer networks merge, social integration doesn’t happen automatically. It requires intentional structures—shared activities, peer leadership opportunities, explicit norm-setting about respect and inclusion.
Researchers have documented what happens when this cultural work doesn’t occur: displaced students may feel unwelcome, existing students may feel their school has been taken over, conflicts can emerge along old school lines, and both groups can wind up disengaged.
The academic spillover effects documented in Philadelphia likely reflect not just resource strain but social fragmentation—schools that failed to build cohesive communities from fractured parts.
So What Can Districts Do?
The evidence points toward receiving school preparation and support as essential elements of any closure plan:
- Cap and Spread Displacement to Reduce Harm
Based on Philadelphia’s clear finding that negative spillovers emerge above a ~10% displaced student threshold, districts should:
- Set hard caps on the percentage of displaced students any receiving school will absorb
- Spread students across more schools rather than concentrating in a few
- Monitor concentration in real-time and adjust if planning assumptions prove wrong
This may require opening more receiving school options than initially planned or adjusting boundaries more extensively. The cost of spreading is worth avoiding the harm concentration produces.
- Resource Receiving Schools Before Transition Begins
Rather than waiting to see what receiving schools need after students arrive, districts should provide early, substantial investment:
- Staffing adjustments: Use enrollment projections to add teachers, counselors, special education staff, and social workers before the school year when displaced students arrive.
- Facilities preparation: Ensure receiving schools have adequate classrooms, specialist spaces, technology, and materials to handle enrollment increases.
- Professional development: Provide training in trauma-informed practice, restorative approaches, and supporting students experiencing displacement—before displaced students arrive, not as a reaction to problems that emerge.
- Planning time: Give receiving school leadership and staff dedicated time (with substitutes covering classes) to plan for integration, adjust schedules, and prepare culturally.
- Establish School-Level Transition Teams
Create site-based planning teams for each receiving school, composed of:
- School leadership from the receiving school
- Teachers and support staff from the receiving school
- Leadership and key staff from closing schools whose students will arrive
- Parents representing both continuing and incoming student communities
These teams should have:
- Clear decision-making authority over integration planning
- Regular meeting schedules beginning well before closure and lasting well into the new school year
- Dedicated facilitation (not just added to administrators’ existing workloads)
- District support to implement decisions (budget authority, policy flexibility)
- Assign Dedicated Transition Coordinators
Each receiving school should have a transition coordinator with:
- Authority to resolve issues quickly (not just escalate to central office)
- Release time to focus on coordination (not a 10% add-on to existing role)
- Direct relationships with families, staff, and students from closing schools
- Accountability for both displaced student integration and receiving school stability
These coordinators should work side-by-side with school leadership during planning phases and throughout the following school year, helping adjust and adapt as issues unfold.
- Fund Relational Infrastructure, Not Just Logistics
Districts typically budget for buses, desks, and books. The research suggests they should invest equally in relational and cultural integration:
Student integration supports:
- Peer mentorship programs pairing displaced and continuing students
- Welcome events and shared activities before the school year starts
- Culturally affirming programming that honors both communities
- Structured opportunities for students to build new friendships
- Explicit teaching of integration and inclusion norms
Staff development:
- Training in community trauma and displacement impacts
- Restorative practice for building relationships across groups
- Skill-building in cultural responsiveness and anti-bias
- Joint professional development for staff from closing and receiving schools
Climate restoration work:
- Pre-transition climate audits to establish baselines
- Regular pulse-checks on relationships and belonging
- Rapid response protocols when conflicts emerge
- Celebration of integration successes
- Conduct Pre-Transition Audits of Receiving School Conditions
Before assigning students to receiving schools, districts should assess whether those schools actually have the capacity to support new arrivals:
- Mental health and counseling services: Are there sufficient counselors and social workers for projected enrollment? Can the school provide trauma-informed support?
- Safe transportation access: Can students get to the school safely and reliably? Are routes mapped and safe passage supports in place?
- Sufficient facilities: Does the building have adequate classrooms, cafeteria capacity, bathroom facilities, and specialized spaces for projected enrollment?
- Welcoming school climate: What do climate surveys show about existing students’ sense of safety and belonging? Does the school have capacity to integrate new students positively?
- Special education capacity: Can the school provide the full range of services displaced students will need? Are staff trained and spaces configured appropriately?
If a school fails these audits, it shouldn’t be designated as a receiving school until deficiencies are addressed—regardless of proximity or test scores.
- Create Feedback Loops and Adjustment Mechanisms
Rather than assuming plans will unfold as designed, districts should build in structured opportunities to learn and adjust:
- Monthly check-ins with receiving school leaders, transition teams, and student/family advisory groups to identify emerging issues.
- Real-time data monitoring of key indicators: attendance, discipline, achievement, staff retention, and student belonging surveys.
- Rapid response protocols when data signals problems: What triggers district intervention? Who has authority to adjust plans? What resources can be deployed quickly?
- Public reporting on receiving school impacts, not just displaced student outcomes. Transparency builds accountability and surfaces issues before they compound.
- Acknowledge and Address Receiving School Concerns
Staff and families in receiving schools often feel their concerns are dismissed in closure planning. Districts should:
- Explicitly acknowledge that receiving schools will experience disruption and will need support—not frame absorption as easy or automatic.
- Create channels for receiving school communities to raise concerns and influence planning before decisions are locked in.
- Provide guarantees about resources, class sizes, staff additions, and climate supports—in writing, with accountability if promises aren’t kept.
- Recognize contributions of receiving school staff who successfully integrate displaced students—not just treat successful integration as expected.
The Bigger Picture
Receiving schools are where closure theory meets closure reality. They’re where promises about improved educational quality either materialize or collapse. They’re where the question of whether closures help or harm students gets answered—not in district projections but in lived experience.
The research is unambiguous: receiving schools don’t automatically provide better educational experiences for displaced students, and they can experience significant harm when districts fail to prepare and support them adequately.
But the research also shows that these negative outcomes aren’t inevitable. They’re policy-produced through implementation choices:
- Whether districts cap concentration or allow it to escalate
- Whether receiving schools get resources before students arrive or must scramble to respond
- Whether cultural integration is planned or left to chance
- Whether staff receive training and support or must figure it out alone
- Whether special education continuity is ensured or gaps are allowed to emerge
Districts that invest in receiving schools—treating them as critical implementation sites requiring substantial support—can prevent spillover harm and create conditions where both displaced and continuing students thrive.
Districts that treat receiving schools as passive containers—assuming they’ll simply absorb new students without strain—reliably produce the negative outcomes documented in Philadelphia, Chicago, and beyond.
The difference isn’t the closure itself. It’s whether receiving schools are adequately prepared, resourced, and supported to serve as true educational opportunities rather than just different addresses.
For education leaders, this reframing creates accountability. You can’t claim closures will improve student outcomes while simultaneously failing to invest in the schools where students will land. You can’t promise better educational quality while allowing receiving schools to become overwhelmed, understaffed, and fragmented.
For community advocates, this reframing creates leverage. Receiving school preparation isn’t an add-on to closure planning—it’s the mechanism through which closure benefits (or harms) materialize. Demanding specific, funded, enforceable receiving school supports constitutes the basic implementation architecture required for closures to work as promised.
The receiving school reality is that these schools are the hinge between disruption and opportunity. Whether closures help or harm depends on whether districts treat that reality seriously—with resources, planning, support, and accountability that match the scale of what they’re asking receiving schools to do.
The research shows us what that looks like. The question is whether districts will build it.
This concludes a four-part series examining what happens after school closure decisions. Each article addresses a high-leverage question communities and education systems face during closure implementation: the announcement runway, neighborhood impacts, where displaced students land, and how receiving schools can prepare to support them.
Research Sources
This article synthesizes findings from the following peer-reviewed studies and research reports:
Receiving school achievement spillovers:
- Steinberg, M. P., & MacDonald, J. M. (2019). The effects of closing urban schools on students’ academic and behavioral outcomes: Evidence from Philadelphia. Economics of Education Review, 69, 25-60.
Crime and neighborhood safety impacts:
- Steinberg, M. P., Ukert, B., & MacDonald, J. M. (2019). Schools as places of crime? Evidence from closing chronically underperforming schools. Regional Science and Urban Economics, 77, 125-140.
- Brazil, N. (2020). Effects of public school closures on crime: The case of the 2013 Chicago mass school closure. Sociological Science, 7, 128-151.
Teacher turnover and staff stability:
- Richards, M. P., Stroub, K. J., & Guthery, S. (2020). The effect of school closures on teacher labor market outcomes: Evidence from Texas. AERA Open, 6(2), 1-12.
Special education impacts:
- Weber, R. N., Waitoller, F. R., & Drucker, J. M. (2025). Disposable spaces: How special education enrollment affects school closures. Urban Education, 60(1), 154-184.
Planning processes and implementation challenges:
- Gordon, M. F., de la Torre, M., Cowhy, J. R., Moore, P. T., Sartain, L., & Knight, D. (2018). School closings in Chicago: Staff and student experiences and academic outcomes. University of Chicago Consortium on School Research.
Cultural integration and relational climate:
- Khalifa, M. A., Jennings, M. E., Briscoe, F. M., Oleszewski, A. M., & Abdi, N. (2014). Racism? Administrative and community perspectives in data-driven decision making: Systemic perspectives versus technical-rational perspectives. Urban Education, 49(2), 147-181.
- Shiller, J. (2018). The disposability of Baltimore’s Black communities: A participatory action research project on the impact of school closings. The Urban Review, 50, 23-44.
- Deeds, V., & Pattillo, M. (2015). Organizational “failure” and institutional pluralism: A case study of an urban school closure. Urban Education, 50(4), 474-504.