This story has been updated.
San Diego Unified met with a group of principals on Friday to make a big announcement: the district will begin phasing out the middle school portions of four of its K-8 schools starting next school year. While the middle school grades will close, the elementary school portions of the schools will remain open.
The schools are largely concentrated in the southeastern corner of San Diego Unified, where schools serve a higher proportion of low-income families. All K-8 schools north of Interstate 8, like Clairemont’s John Muir Language Academy, were spared. Mission Hills’ Grant TK-8 was also spared.
Three of the schools – Audubon, Fulton and Bethune – are located in the Morse High cluster. Middle school-aged students who would have previously attended those schools will now be routed to Bell Middle.
That rerouting would swell the enrollment of the middle school by nearly 500 students, pushing total enrollment to almost 1,200. If that happens, Bell would be significantly larger than it was a decade ago, when 900 students were enrolled at the school.
The fourth school being downsized – Golden Hill – in the district’s San Diego High cluster. It’s unclear which middle school those students will be rerouted to, but the closest San Diego High cluster middle school is Roosevelt.
The plan is to roll the change out in two phases, with the closure of the middle school grades at Audubon, Fulton and Golden Hill slated to begin next school year, and the closure of those grades at Bethune to begin the year after.
The decision was based on performance data, according to a district official who spoke on background. Leaders plan to discuss the decision in more detail next week.
One significant tension point will likely be that this move was made without soliciting input from the communities the schools serve. Not even the teachers who work at the schools set to be restructured were consulted prior to the decision.
Middle school teachers at the impacted schools would have to engage in the bid process to be placed in a new school, though contract language stipulates they’d be granted priority consideration at the middle school’s students would move to.
Kyle Weinberg is the president of the San Diego Education Association, the union that represents San Diego Unified teachers. He wrote in a statement that stakeholder voices should be included in all stages of decision-making processes.
“As union educators, we advocate for shared decision-making in all aspects of schooling, including decisions about school restructuring,” Weinberg wrote. “The well-being of students, families, and educators in impacted school communities should be the guiding value for this conversation.”
It’s not the first time district officials have made big decisions without an opportunity for stakeholder input. The abrupt closure of iHigh, San Diego Unified’s virtual school, to middle and high schoolers, and leaders’ purging of area superintendents both blindsided and frustrated stakeholders.
K-8 Schools in green will remain intact. Those in red will begin to close in the 2026-27 school year. Those in purple will begin to close in the 2027-28 school year.
Sept. 12 correction: The story has been updated to correct how teachers will be relocated.
Sept. 15 correction: This story has been updated to correct that Grant TK-8 is in Mission Hills.
Hi Jakob, thank you for this story. I am a parent at Bethune and am feeling very blindsided. First, without asking, they turned our library into a “part time library” closed every other week now this. The reason I chose this school for my children was based on the fact that it is a TK-8 school. A school kids can grow in and community they can depend on into their adolescence.
How can San Diego Unified School District do this? How can my voice be heard?
I am just as frustrated as you! My daughter goes to Audubon, and we were thrilled it was a TK-8 school. Now, when she enters 6th grade, we’re forced to go elsewhere? Her current school is within walking distance. The middle school they recommend isn’t! This ridiculous decision by San Diego Unified, with absolutely NO parent or community involvement at all, is just ludicrous. What can we do to make our voices heard?
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Sally, I am devastated to hear of the closure of the middle school there. You can speak at a SDUSD board meeting, and organize a group of parents to come and support/speak too. It’s not difficult to be added to the public portion of the meeting. Here is a link where you can do so:
https://www.sandiegounified.org/about/board_of_education/public_testimony_request
Jakob, your headlines are noticeably biased (still), continually so, and it saddens me. It’s quite the title that SDUSD is “getting rid” of some K-8 schools when a much more appropriate “must close” is not only less biased, but far more accurate.
It further saddens me reading the comments from the great parents at these schools, because I know how much they love the school. And I also know how much it hurts SDUSD leadership to make a decision like that. As education reporter for VOSD, don’t you?
I know many people and students that will be personally affected by this decision, and it is misleading (at best) to say that SDUSD leadership “got rid” of these schools as a grabby headline. I can only imagine being a parent and believing that anyone at SDUSD simply “got rid” of their child’s school.
This language you are using leads parents like I was, like I know, like I serve, to believe that SDUSD leadership just made a quick uncaring decision, rather than being forced to do it because of dropping enrollment and other factors far beyond our control (We do have an acting Secretary of Education attempting to stop all Title 1 funding, Sir among many, many other things). Meanwhile, VOSD in the last couple of years emphasizes a parent guide to help parents “choose” schools. This is starting to seem like an odd mixture of reporting to me. You’ve already reported that charter school enrollment is going up, but when do you plan to report on how charters are actually doing (your coverage of Einstein Academy’s recent issue for example seemed in a far different light, despite the seriousness of what happened there) or what things public school districts like SDUSD are doing well? I can’t find a single title in your education archives that sounds positive in the last three months, towards public schools, and I challenge you to do so.
Keeping in mind that even in charter-friendly San Diego, more than 80% of parents still trust us, and CHOOSE us, why are you writing headlines like this? Since charters are not outperforming public schools on the whole, and in many cases are underperforming, shutting doors, being caught in scandals (many of which you do not investigate) the only answer I have currently is that it seems like it would be antithetical to post a less biased title about a brutally difficult decision (which nearly all large districts are facing nationally), when your VOSD education reporting is now pushing a parents’ guide so continually. This reporting no longer feels like “investigative journalism” to me. It feels like agenda.
It begs the question, why do you keep doing it?
EXAMPLES:
“An Insane Poway Bond Deal…”
“Developers Are Lining Up…”
“San Diego Unified Quietly Watered Down It’s Graduation Requirements”
“San Diego Leaders Expand Restorative Discipline as Funding Dips”
“San Diego Middle School Sports Experiment is Sticking Around”
None of these headlines are all that accurate, nor need to be phrased that way. If I had time I’d point out the biased language within article after article, but I don’t. Suffice to say, these articles are not commentary or oped. Are they?
And if not, then why do VOSD news article headlines now sound like commentary titles in relationship to public schools?
Perhaps someone at VOSD can investigate that for a change instead of misleading the great parents and amazing kids we work tirelessly for into believing our sports programs are “sticking around” because the “experiment” worked.
Or that we simply “got rid” of their child’s school.
Thank you Tom. I had found a way to email public testimony to csfc@sandi.net, but this is even better. Parents, let your voice be heard.
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