A recent Columbus Dispatch article revealed stunningly low enrollment rates in several Columbus City Schools’ buildings. Columbus Preparatory School for Boys and Columbus Scioto 6-12, for instance, operate at less than 30 percent of their enrollment capacities. Six more schools are less than half full.
That’s alarming on a couple levels. First, maintaining severely underenrolled schools is a terrible use of public funds. The district is spending far more taxpayer dollars than necessary on staffing, utilities, maintenance, and transportation just to keep these facilities open. Airlines don’t operate routes that are routinely half-empty; manufacturers don’t keep factories running in the face of plummeting demand. If they did this, they’d go bankrupt. While school systems don’t go out of business, they shouldn’t be operating facilities at half capacity, either, as it consumes dollars that could be allocated to better uses or requires them to seek additional taxpayer funding.
Beyond dubious fiscal management, the article also raises questions about whether Columbus City Schools is following a state law that requires districts to offer underutilized facilities to public charter schools. Under this provision, a district must offer—for lease or sale—a vacant facility or one that is at less than 60 percent of capacity to local charter schools.[1]
These provisions are perfectly sensible. Districts shouldn’t be hoarding taxpayer-funded classroom space that could be put to use by other educational entities. Columbus’s charter schools enjoy swelling enrollments thanks to booming parental demand—they’ve increased by 11.4 percent from 2018–19 to 2023–24—and many of them would benefit from having access to affordable, purpose-built facilities that allow them to meet rising demand.
Districts are required to offer these facilities in the year after they are identified as vacant or underutilized. So one explanation for this seemingly obvious violation of state law is that Columbus’s underenrolled schools this year were at more than 60 percent capacity in 2022–23 and not officially identified. As table 1 indicates, that isn’t the case. The underenrolled schools identified by the Dispatch for the 2023–24 school year were at less than 60 percent capacity in 2022–23, as well.
Table 1: Underenrolled school buildings operated by Columbus City Schools
Perhaps Columbus City Schools offered these schools behind the scenes to charters, but no one sought to purchase or lease them. Maybe so, but it’s also possible that the district is playing games, something that doesn’t seem far-fetched, given the anti-charter sentiment in the district and past efforts to keep facilities away from charters. Without much transparency, it’s hard to know what has or has not happened.
It shouldn’t be this way. Next school year, Columbus should make widely known that its underutilized facilities are available for purchase or lease to charters. State legislators—having seen a seemingly obvious violation of the law—should step up and revise the law in ways that leave no question that districts are actually offering such buildings to charters.
Good stewardship of taxpayer dollars means ensuring that publicly funded buildings are cared for and well used. When districts aren’t making adequate use of a building, they should offer the space to another educational institution. It’s the law. And it’s also the right thing to do, as communities benefit when charters have the capacity to serve more families and students.
[1] In addition to public charter schools, districts are also required to offer underutilized facilities to independent STEM schools (there is one such school in Columbus).
