Facilities Plan

Dr. Baker is recommending closure of Columbia and Carl Cozier to the school board, which has the final decision-making authority. The board will hold a formal public hearing for each school at which members of the community can provide direct input to the board via public comment. We expect this to happen sometime this fall. If approved, Columbia and Carl Cozier would close at the end of the current 2026-27 school year.

This proposal saves approximately $2.2 million, which helps us maintain and stabilize current staff and programs for all students in our district in all schools. This budget-saving strategy is one component among many cost-saving decisions we have made to address our budget challenges. 

We have reduced the number of administrators in our schools and across our district over the last few years in response to budget challenges and to reduce expenditure. 

• In spring 2025, we shared a list of positions we were reducing for the 2025-26 school year, including a number of admin roles. You can see this list of cuts made in administration and the District Office in 2025-26. 

• There is misinformation being shared that we have increased the number of administrators recently, and that is untrue.  

• There are 13 administrative positions which receive funding from multiple budget line item sources. We report staff funding to the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI), which is made available via OSPI report cards for each school district. This data presentation makes it appear as though we have more administrators than we actually have, because the data presentation counts by funding source. The OSPI report cards do not reflect full-time equivalent or FTE. Some administrators’ contracts are split between district- and building-level responsibilities, and OSPI report cards count them more than once. 

Projections and estimates for future enrollment are based on city development (permitting and construction plans in the city limits), housing numbers, the number of births in Bellingham based on census data and the Department of Health, and enrollment numbers in our district. 

Bellingham Public Schools regularly works with demographers to analyze birth, development, and enrollment data to help provide projections on enrollment. In addition to the demography reports we typically commission, we contracted FLO Analytics in fall 2025 for more detailed projections and estimates. FLO is a company based in Oregon and they work with districts across the country, including many in Washington state and the Pacific Northwest. 

Revising school attendance areas (boundaries) has been considered. With fewer students overall in our schools, dividing students differently does not change the declining trend in enrollment overall, nor does it solve our problem of empty classrooms in elementary schools. More than half of our funding comes from state revenue, generated in large part from state-level taxes. It is distributed to school districts by a prototypical school model based on student enrollment and a series of formula factors.  

Redistributing enrollment totals at each school does not change the overall district enrollment decline nor the amount of funding we receive. 

We have worked hard to be transparent with our community about this work through messages, videos, public meetings and traditional media.  

You can see resources and a list of communications. 

We have heard consistent feedback from our community that they do not want any buildings sitting empty – we feel the same way. We will work to repurpose it and/or find a renter or other use. At this time, we do not plan to sell the buildings or land to maximize flexibility in case enrollment changes in the future.  If we decide to rent, we will follow applicable laws and policy. 

Rebuilding schools and facilities takes decades of planning. We are grateful to our community for their support in improving our schools and facilities across out district, including the district office.   

We published this news item related to bond and the District Office in the spring. The timeline shows that we’ve been thinking about improving or rebuilding the District Office for nearly 20 years.  

We want all district facilities to be outstanding – we delayed the District Office to prioritize schools for many years, and voters approved these funds to invest in the building. When we were building and opening the District Office, projections showed continued enrollment growth in our schools. It wasn’t until fall 2025/early 2026 that new demographer reports showed new enrollment trends.  

Additionally, school funding is complex. Bonds, which funded the District Office, and maintenance levies are restricted funds. This means we can only use these voter-approved dollars for construction improvements on our schools and facilities, not teaching jobs or other uses. It’s worth clarifying when we are in the midst of budget reductions and challenges. 

Funding for staff, programs and everyday operations comes from four main sources: 

• State revenue: 68% 
• Local levies: 18% 
• Other revenue: 8% 
• Federal revenue: 6% 

A driving factor for the amount of state revenue we receive districtwide student enrollment. Local levies for staff and daily operations (not school construction) are capped by a levy lid, which is the maximum amount of funding a district can collect from its local community via property taxes. 

When costs outpace what we receive and collect for staffing and daily operations, we have needed to reduce budgets annually each year since 2023.  

School construction funding is entirely separate from the funding sources above comes from two main sources via restricted funds: Bonds (three more recent passed in 2022, 2018, 2013) and capital facilities maintenance levy (passed in 2025). 

It is illegal to repurpose funds for school construction to other areas where funding is needed.  

Additionally, school construction bonds collect taxes over a much longer period (typically 20 years, similar to a house mortgage) while levies are typically 2-6 years in duration.  

It takes years to design and build buildings, so the long-term funding of bonds is helpful for that longevity need. These funds are also entirely separate from staffing and daily operations funds. 

Our year-to-year staff and daily operations funding can change based on a number of factors, including enrollment trends and state legislature decisions.  

This can appear confusing and frustrating in seasons of budget cuts but is a reflection of the complex nature of school funding.

Current feeder patterns:

• 2026-27 attendance areas for Carl Cozier and Wade King split between two middle schools, Fairhaven and Kulshan, and feeds into Sehome High School. 
• 2026-27 attendance area for Sunnyland goes to Whatcom Middle School and then splits between two high schools, Bellingham and Squalicum. 
• 2026-27 Columbia and Alderwood elementary schools go to Shuksan Middle School.  Alderwood goes to Squalicum High and Columbia to Bellingham High.
   

Future feeder patterns:

• Pending board approval, changes may be needed to feeder patterns for Sunnyland and Wade King for both middle school and high school for 2027-28 so that elementary/middle/high school attendance areas coincide and students stay with the same cohort and/or minimize splits as they progress through school levels, whenever possible.
• We do not anticipate current Alderwood or Columbia feeder patterns changing for middle or high schools. Ex if someone currently lives in Columbia boundary and will attend Alderwood next year, they will continue to go to Shuksan and Bellingham. 
• You can see in Policy 3130 the other factors we will consider when reviewing possible scenarios.
• Families will also have the option to request an attendance area transfer through the process established in district policy and procedure 3131.

Families make decisions for their children’s education based on many factors. We support families making the decision they feel is best for their family, child and circumstances.

We also know Sunnyland, Wade King and Alderwood elementary schools are ready and waiting to welcome all new classmates and families if the board approves the closures.

Every situation is different, of course, but the most recent time we closed an elementary school (Larrabee in 2014), most of those students went on to attend Happy Valley and Lowell or moved up to Fairhaven to enter middle school. We did not have a large attrition to private school from Larrabee in 2014 – just one student.  You can see this data in last spring's FAQ. You can also see data about private school enrollment on page 15 of the FLO Analytics report.

These principal positions would be reduced if the schools close. Each year, we have attrition occur across our employee groups, including principals and director positions. If closures do happen, there is strong likelihood that some positions will become available due to someone taking leave, moving or retiring. A good example of this is the assistant director of special education. That position will be officially open in July 2027 due to a retirement. Carl Cozier principal Carissa Jangard has a great deal of experience in special education and conducted an interview process early. Carissa was interviewed and ultimately offered the position, which will officially start in July 2027.