By Alyn Turner
When a school district announces closures, the conversation often focuses exclusively on the closure itself—which buildings will close, where students will go, how much money will be saved. But a growing body of research reveals something that educators and families have long suspected: the announcement is not the starting gun for a smooth transition. It’s the beginning of a period of turbulence that can produce measurable harm before a single student changes schools.
For urban districts navigating declining enrollment and facility challenges, understanding this “announcement runway” is critical. The months between decision and implementation aren’t dead time—they’re a high-stakes window where districts can either stabilize communities and protect learning or inadvertently set off a cascade of disruptions that undermine the very efficiency goals closures are meant to achieve.
The Research Is Clear: Announcement Year = Learning Loss
The most rigorous evidence on pre-closure effects comes from Chicago Public Schools, which experienced waves of closures between 2001 and 2013. Researchers tracking student achievement patterns found something striking: the largest negative achievement effect occurred during the announcement year—the period between when closure was announced and when students actually moved to new schools.
Students in closing schools experienced approximately 1.5 months of learning loss in reading and 0.5 months in math during this announcement period. Similar patterns have been documented in other districts. These are measurable delays in expected student progress occurring while students are still in their original buildings, surrounded by their original teachers and peers.
Why does this happen? The research points to several mechanisms working simultaneously.
“We’re Being Shut Out”: When Students Experience Procedural Injustice
In a detailed case study of a high school closure in California, researchers interviewed students about their experiences during the announcement period. What emerged was a consistent narrative of what scholars call “procedural injustice”—the feeling that a decision-making process was fundamentally unfair, regardless of the outcome.
Students described feeling “locked out,” “screwed over,” and powerless. One student said simply: “Nothing can change it.” This wasn’t about disagreeing with the decision’s merits. It was about the process itself communicating that students weren’t valued participants in decisions about their own education.
This matters because how students interpret institutional actions shapes their engagement. When young people feel the system has dismissed them, disengagement becomes a rational response. The announcement period becomes psychologically corrosive—eroding the very student-school connection that supports attendance, effort, and achievement.
The Early Exit Problem: Who Leaves Before Closure?
National research reveals another troubling pattern: more than 30% of students leave closing schools before the official closure date. Students who exit early tend to have lower achievement scores than peers who stay through the transition.
This creates a compound problem. First, the students most at risk academically are making unplanned transitions at precisely the moment they need stability most. Second, the departures themselves signal decline, potentially precipitating additional exits in a self-reinforcing cycle.
Districts rarely track or support these “early leavers” systematically. They fall through the cracks between the closing schools’ fading capacity and the receiving schools’ not-yet-activated transition supports.
Family Stress and Constrained Choices
Researchers interviewing families after Chicago’s closures heard consistent themes: parents felt overwhelmed during the announcement period and lacked clear information about their options. They wanted to know—concretely and specifically—where their children could go, what transportation would look like, whether special education services would continue, and whether their children would be safe.
In Baltimore, where 17 schools were slated for closure as part of a facilities modernization plan, families expressed acute worry about receiving school quality and travel routes. Interviewees raised fears about bullying, unsafe routes through high-crime areas, and longer commutes—especially given limited discussion of transportation supports.
Here’s what often gets missed: families’ enrollment decisions after closure aren’t only about academic quality, as districts define it. Research shows that actual choices are heavily shaped by constraints—safety concerns, transportation feasibility, and whether a school can match their child’s service needs. When families say they feel they don’t “really” have options, they’re identifying valid structural barriers. Geography, logistics, and safety trump test scores.
The announcement period is when this constraint becomes visible. Families begin mapping routes, researching receiving schools, and confronting gaps between the district’s framing of “choice” and their lived reality of limited viable options.
Teacher Instability and Professional Demoralization
Teachers in closing schools face their own version of procedural injustice. Research from Baltimore and Texas documents how closure announcements invite questions about job security—particularly when districts require educators to reapply for positions. Teachers report feeling “very out of control” and cynical, especially when districts have broken promises before.
A comprehensive Texas study analyzing 17 years of administrative records found that teachers from closed schools were significantly more likely to leave their districts or exit teaching entirely in the year following closure. This was especially pronounced among two groups: more experienced teachers and Black teachers.
This pattern has implications beyond individual career trajectories. The districts losing the most schools are often those that can least afford to lose veteran educators and teachers of color. Closure-induced exits compound existing workforce challenges in systems already experiencing high turnover and underrepresentation.
But the departures begin during the announcement period—when uncertainty peaks, when colleagues start job-searching, when the informal professional networks that sustain teaching start fracturing. What should be a stable final year becomes a period of staff churn and demoralization.
So What Can Districts Do?
The evidence base points toward specific, actionable responses that districts can implement during the announcement runway to prevent pre-closure turbulence:
- Treat the Announcement Period as Its Own Planning Phase
Rather than treating closure as a single decision point, districts should adopt a “pre-closure stabilization plan” with clear owners, milestones, and dedicated resources. This isn’t the same as a closure implementation plan. It’s a time-bound strategy focused specifically on preventing disruption during the runway period—covering students, families, and school staff in buildings identified for closure.
- Maintain Core Offerings Through the Final Year
Research on pre-closure turbulence and early exits supports explicit guarantees that closing schools will keep key programs, electives, extracurriculars, and student supports until the transition. These commitments serve both practical and symbolic functions—signaling that students in closing schools remain a priority and preventing the program cuts that can precipitate early departures.
- Identify and Support Potential “Early Leavers”
Given evidence that many students leave before closure—often those with lower achievement—districts should implement proactive outreach and case management for students most at risk of disengaging or transferring early. This means using existing early-warning systems and creating dedicated support roles, not waiting for families to seek help.
- Reduce Uncertainty with Plain-Language Timelines
Family stress and constrained choices are directly tied to information gaps. Districts should publish and regularly update a simple “what’s decided / what’s not / what happens next” calendar with deadlines, options, and decision points. Crucially, this should be in plain language and accessible in families’ home languages, not buried in board documents.
- Make “Choice” Feasible by Addressing Real Constraints
Evidence consistently shows that safety, transportation, and service match limit what families can actually choose. Rather than presenting options as if all are equally accessible, districts should bundle school options with transportation commitments, route safety planning, and special education continuity guidance. If a receiving school isn’t reachable safely and reliably, it’s not really an option.
- Publish Travel-Time and Safety Information Early
Because families frequently raise concerns about routes and neighborhood safety, districts should publish travel-time estimates and safe-route supports for each impacted community well before enrollment decisions are due. This might include partnerships with transportation providers, safe passage programs, or adjusted school start times to avoid high-crime periods.
- Create Structured Channels for Student Voice
Evidence on procedural injustice suggests that exclusion from decision-making processes compounds harm. While districts may not reopen closure decisions during implementation, they can create meaningful student voice channels around how transitions happen. This could include youth advisory groups for impacted school clusters, regular “you said/we did” feedback loops, and student participation in transition planning teams.
- Stabilize the Educator Workforce with Early Clarity
Given evidence that closures increase teacher exits—especially among veteran and Black educators—districts should provide early clarity on placement processes, minimize uncertainty about job security, and offer retention supports. This might include guaranteed interviews for positions in receiving schools, moving stipends, or professional development focused on supporting students through transitions.
The Bigger Picture
The announcement runway matters because it reveals a fundamental truth about school closures: they are not singular administrative acts but extended processes that reshape communities over time. When districts announce closures without planning for the announcement period itself, they inadvertently create the conditions for the very harms closure opponents predict—learning loss, family stress, community destabilization, and workforce attrition.
But this research also carries a message of agency. Pre-closure turbulence isn’t inevitable. It’s the product of specific, changeable implementation choices. Districts that acknowledge the announcement period as a distinct planning phase—with its own risks, stakeholders, and required supports—can materially reduce harm.
For education leaders and community advocates, the question isn’t whether to close schools. That decision has often already been made. The question is whether the months between announcement and closure become a period of managed transition or unmanaged crisis. The research shows both are possible. The choice is ours.
This is the first article in a four-part series examining what happens after school closure decisions. Coming next: how closures function as neighborhood policy and what happens to buildings after students leave.
Research Sources
This article synthesizes findings from the following peer-reviewed studies and research reports:
Chicago Public Schools closures (2001-2013):
- de la Torre, M., Gordon, M. F., Moore, P., & Cowhy, J. (2015). School closings in Chicago: Understanding families’ choices and constraints for new school enrollment. UChicago Consortium on School Research.
- 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.
- Gwynne, J. A., & de la Torre, M. (2009). When schools close: Effects on displaced students in Chicago Public Schools. Consortium on Chicago School Research, University of Chicago.
Student experience and procedural justice:
- Kirshner, B., Gaertner, M., & Pozzoboni, K. (2010). Tracing transitions: The effect of high school closure on displaced students. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 32(3), 407-429.
- Kirshner, B., & Pozzoboni, K. M. (2011). Student interpretations of a school closure: Implications for student voice in equity-based school reform. Teachers College Record, 113(8), 1633-1667.
Early leavers and mobility patterns:
- Han, C., Raymond, M. E., Woodworth, J. L., Negassi, Y., Richardson, W. P., & Snow, W. (2017). Lights off: Practice and impact of closing low-performing schools (Vols. I-II). Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO), Stanford University.
Family constraints and decision-making:
- 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.
Teacher workforce impacts:
- 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.