U.S. school closures reached 1,156 in 2025–26, highest since pandemic

Big Local News at Stanford counted 1,156 U.S. school closures during the 2025–26 academic year, the highest tally since the pandemic, according to Associated Press reporting published Nov. 9, 2026. A separate working paper found that public-school enrollment fell by more than 1 million in the post-pandemic period it examined, while operating-school counts were effectively unchanged and teacher numbers increased.

The closure tally came from Big Local News’ analysis of federal data. The October 2026 working paper by Thomas S. Dee and Jaymes Pyne uses national data through 2024–25. The findings describe separate analyses and periods, not one combined count.

Closures, enrollment and staffing measure different things i

The national figures show how campus closures and changes in enrollment or staffing do not move in lockstep. The table separates the closure tally from the enrollment and staffing comparisons:

The enrollment figures are not competing estimates for an identical period: AP’s analysis covers fall 2019 to 2024, while the working paper reports its own post-pandemic comparison using data through 2024–25. The closure tally concerns 2025–26 and is not verified by the working paper. Neither analysis establishes that closures caused enrollment to decline.

The lower national pupil-teacher ratio indicates a change in the overall relationship between enrollment and teacher numbers; it does not tell readers what class sizes were in any particular district. The working paper is descriptive, not a forecast of how individual districts will respond, and does not show that closures will resolve local budget problems.

The paper also found that closures, where they occurred, were more common among schools in lower-income neighborhoods, schools serving higher concentrations of Black students, and charter schools. These are reported associations, not evidence that those characteristics caused a closure.

Vallejo families faced changes at individual schools i

In Vallejo, California, Superintendent Rubén Aurelio of Vallejo City Unified said closures were intended to right-size a district built for more students and concentrate resources. A parent described the transition as disruptive and raised concerns about class size.

Reporting from Vallejo described students and families adjusting to different schools after closures. The national figures do not establish how many students were affected by closures, and the Vallejo accounts describe a local experience rather than a national consensus.