Staffed Up is a monthly series examining school staffing best practices and solutions for teacher recruitment and retention.
With widespread declining enrollment and budget challenges persisting, it’s anticipated that more districts will continue to grapple with difficult decisions to shutter or merge their schools. And those decisions can take an emotional toll not just on students and families, but on staff who are affected as well.
Closures raise questions about how districts handle staffing. Sometimes, it requires cutting roles or relocating teachers. Districts also typically cite a need to close a school for cost-saving measures and to address budget shortfalls.
Once a school board approves a closure or consolidation, it’s common for staff morale and productivity to lower during the transition period before that decision officially takes effect.
On top of that, previous research suggests closures can negatively impact teacher turnover rates. A study published in 2020 by researchers from Southern Methodist University, Rice University and Texas A&M University-Commerce examined labor data for more than 15,000 teachers across nearly 700 Texas schools impacted by closures between 2003 and 2015.
That study found educators were more likely to leave teaching or change school districts if their school closed. Experienced teachers, Black teachers and charter school teachers were all especially likely to leave, according to the researchers.
How teacher retention and closures conflict
Concerns with a possible uptick in teacher turnover are growing as the Learning Policy Institute reported this month that, at minimum, 425,412 teaching positions were vacant or filled by an uncertified teacher in 2026. That represents about 1 in 8 teaching roles nationwide.
Teacher recruitment and retention is “really important to maintaining the quality of your schools and your education,” said Cassandra Schug, superintendent of Belvidere Community Unit School District 100 in Illinois. Yet that’s at odds with the growing challenges involving enrollment declines, financial pressures and the need for districts to consolidate schools, she said.
Despite ongoing enrollment declines, however, total staffing in public schools has increased.
A recent Bellwether analysis showed that, between fall 2013 and fall 2022, enrollment shrank 1% — or by 426,058 students. In that same period, total staffing increased 10% with an additional 607,569 employees. School instructional and administrative staff hirings specifically rose 8%, or by 331,750 staff members.
Still, there isn’t quite enough evidence to demonstrate that closures always equate to losing high-quality teachers, said Alyn Turner, senior director of impact at Research for Action, in an email to K-12 Dive. But what is known, she said, is that high turnover and closures are more likely to occur in disinvested communities, and closures may put further strain on retention issues in those school communities.
School leaders and experts emphasize that if teachers depart after a closure, it’s more difficult for students to adjust to their new school environment because they don’t see familiar faces or lose well-established teacher relationships.
One possible pattern that could emerge from districts losing teachers due to closures, Turner said, is that leaders may have to increasingly lean on hiring novice teachers — especially if veteran educators leave. That would also happen at a time when students transitioning to new schools may likely need teacher stability and experience even more, she said.
How to mitigate turnover
Belvidere Community Unit School District 100 recently had to close one of its elementary schools starting in the 2026-27 school year, Schug said. Perry Elementary School was 130 years old and needed $14 million to $16 million in repairs.
The school’s longstanding history in the community made the closure especially challenging, she said.
Most of the Perry Elementary staff chose to stay in the district, and they were able to serve in similar roles, Schug said. But some staff did choose to leave the district, particularly those in paraprofessional positions.
The closure was “emotional” and “heart-wrenching,” Schug said. “And we definitely did lose some people that I think we would not have lost if Perry would have stayed open.”
Districts are not always in a position during closures to ensure everyone still has a job, she said. But in Belvidere Community School District 100’s case, the district was able to clearly communicate to the Perry Elementary staff that no one would lose their jobs, Schug said.
“I think sometimes what happens is people feel like, ‘Well, I better look, because I don't know what my future is going to hold.’ And I still think our staff struggled with some of that,” Schug said. Teachers might also struggle with not knowing where or what they’ll be teaching once the closure goes into effect, she said.
That’s why it’s crucial for district leaders to make staff feel as secure as possible about their futures, Schug added. Additionally, she suggested, districts need to help staff feel welcomed at their new schools to ensure stability.
Turner agreed that districts should limit job uncertainty by settling new staffing assignments as soon as possible. Job insecurity seems to play a much larger role than the closure itself as “what drives people out,” she said.
To help process Perry Elementary’s closure, the staff held a citywide celebration in May honoring the school’s history and its significance to the community, Schug said. The building was open to the public for tours and staff collected newspaper articles, yearbooks and photos about the building over the years.
Citing a 2018 study by the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research that looked at teacher turnover during Chicago’s school closures in 2013, Turner said the staff impacted by those closures “wanted their own grief and disruption acknowledged, along with training on how to actually integrate two staff cultures.”
Additionally, Turner said, transition periods can be prolonged, and districts should prepare to support receiving schools for at least a year after a closure takes place. That allows for culture-building and other new initiatives “to take hold,” she said.
