Beaverton School District closed McKay Elementary this year, cut 159 positions and burned through $16.6 million in reserves to plug a $37 million budget gap.

Now Oregon's largest district is signaling that the enrollment crisis hitting Beaverton is far from local.

Portland Public Schools Superintendent Kimberlee Armstrong told the Portland school board on Wednesday, Sept. 2, that the district needs to shutter as many as 15 elementary schools and three middle schools.

PPS has lost 6,086 students since 2018 and expects to lose 3,446 more by 2031, OPB reported.

Margaret Calvert, PPS executive director for school planning and modernization, said at the meeting that fewer students spread across the same 81 buildings means each school gets less staffing and fewer resources.

Not every board member is convinced the scale is right. Director Christy Splitt pushed back.

"I worry that a 'hammer' approach, where we're closing a quarter of our schools in the name of big schools just strikes me as possibly doing more damage than we're meaning to," Splitt said.

PPS has not named which schools would close. Factors including enrollment, boundaries and building condition will guide the decision.

Armstrong is expected to propose specific closures in November, with a board vote anticipated in late fall, KATU reported.

Beaverton's own numbers tell a parallel story. The state's second-largest district has lost more than 1,800 students over four years and now enrolls 35,703 across 53 schools, according to the Beaverton Valley Times.

For 2026-27, a separate $11.5 million budget shortfall is projected to cost about 75 more positions, The Oregonian reported. BSD does hold roughly $150 million in reserves, a buffer The Oregonian called a notable exception among Oregon districts that have spent down their savings.

The trend is statewide. Oregon public schools have shed more than 50,000 students, roughly 10%, since 2018, driven by falling birth rates and growing interest in private and online schools, The Oregonian reported.

Salem-Keizer announced plans in July to close up to eight elementary schools. West Linn-Wilsonville and Corvallis each closed two.

Superintendent Tony Smith, who took over BSD on July 1, told the Beaverton Valley Times on Sept. 1 that community members "recognize this is a different day, and challenges exist and they want us to be transparent."

Whether Beaverton will need to close additional schools beyond McKay remains an open question.

Smith is two months into a 100-day listening tour across the district's 53 campuses.