Bolton Primary School West Linn, Ore. on December 17, 2025. West Linn-Wilsonville school board members are considering closing two schools, including Bolton Primary School, as part of a cost savings plan for the district. Parents have expressed concern with the timing of the decision, which comes a little over a month after voters approved a school bond that included improvements for Bolton.
Elizabeth Miller / OPB
When John Armstrong drops his daughter off at Bolton Primary School in West Linn, he sees principal Derek Porter greet every student walking into school. Every week, there’s a school-wide meeting where kids can stand up in front of their classmates and do whatever they want for a few minutes.
“They can tell a joke — it’s usually a bad one, they can dance, they can sing a song,” Armstrong said.
“It allows these kids to be authentically themselves … it builds confidence, and it makes them feel as though they are absolutely connected to their community as their authentic self in a place where they are known by their name.”
Bolton is one of the smaller schools in the West Linn-Wilsonville School District, a suburban Clackamas County district with 16 schools and some of the most affluent neighborhoods in the state.
Like almost every school district in Oregon and nationwide, West Linn-Wilsonville is facing budget challenges.
School districts across the country have announced plans to consolidate and close schools due to declining enrollment and financial challenges. It’s rarely an easy conversation to have. The way districts talk to families and school communities about closing schools is key to making a very painful process a little easier.
West Linn-Wilsonville is learning that lesson the hard way.
This past January, the West Linn-Wilsonville school board voted to keep all primary schools open, rejecting a plan to consolidate the small schools in the district to help save money.
The board unanimously approved the motion, which put off closing schools for two years.
But less than a year later, the district is walking back that motion. This Thursday, the board will decide whether to move forward with a plan that closes two of those three schools. The proposal would also suspend the district’s preschool and Chinese Dual Language programs.
A new school, a board promise, a passed bond, and broken trust
West Linn-Wilsonville had to make $15 million worth of tough budget reductions at both the district and school levels. Most of these reductions were made by cutting staff, including administrators, classroom teachers, and paraeducators, according to budget documents.
Part of the budget tightening is due to declining enrollment and a state formula that pays schools based on how many students they have. But West Linn-Wilsonville officials say the decline isn’t felt equally across the two cities that make up the district, with projections showing schools in Wilsonville adding students, while West Linn shrinks.
That projected enrollment increase in Wilsonville led the district to build a new school, Frog Pond Elementary, set to open in Fall 2026.
And just this past fall, the district put a $190 million bond to voters, seeking funds for construction projects at every school. Both Bolton and Stafford were set to receive roofing replacements, heating and cooling upgrades, and new technology.
But two weeks after voters approved that bond, Superintendent Kathy Ludwig revived the district’s consolidation plans. Ludwig recommended closing Bolton, Stafford, a preschool and a Mandarin immersion program — all to cut $10 million from the district’s budget.
“It feels like a broken promise multiple years in a row,” said Kieran O’Connor, a parent of a third grader and kindergartener at Bolton.
In response to OPB’s questions, WLWV director of communications Andrew Kilstrom noted that the board’s January decision not to close schools “made sense at the time, given hopeful funding advocacy and because the Governor’s proposed biennium budget was not yet approved by the Ways and Means committee.”
“The November recommendation was prompted by the updated enrollment projection, budget challenges across the district, and the cost of operating small schools,” Kilstrom said.
“While incredibly difficult to make, the recommendation is what the superintendent and leadership team believe is needed for the district long-term.”
O’Connor and other parents question the district’s timing and decision-making process. Bolton’s Mandarin immersion program is new, with the first cohort of students only in third grade. The district’s dual-language program page includes a plan to offer Mandarin immersion all the way through 12th grade.
District officials now say they haven’t seen “sustained interest” in the program, a point parents disagree with. Kilstrom said the school board will deliberate on the “future of the program” at a future board meeting.
Both the dual language program and preschool programs represent investments that other districts continue to make. Research shows that both program types often result in better educational outcomes for students. A federal analysis of dual language programs shows possible positive effects for students in literacy. Numerous studies of preschool have shown early learning can improve learning outcomes later on.
School board members have been hearing vocal pushback from parents, students and community members ever since the closure plan was announced. Parents have organized and researched the district’s decisions and continue to call the district’s enrollment projections and budget decisions into question. A “Small Schools Task Force” organized by the district last year never released a final report discussing their findings or sharing alternatives or solutions to West Linn-Wilsonville’s challenges.
“This does not feel like good faith governance, this feels like betrayal,” said a Bolton parent at one of the two listening sessions the district held this month.
Board members also heard heartfelt testimony from students in defense of their schools.
“I really want to graduate here because of all of the memories and nice teachers,” said a Bolton student at the December 1 listening session. “I learn more in a smaller class because my teacher has time to help me and other students.”
At that listening session, board member Kirsten Wyatt apologized for her January vote to not close schools.
“It’s really bad practice to make decisions that bind the hands of future decision makers, and we did that knowing three of our positions on our board were up for election,” Wyatt said.
“Most district leaders and board members, they don’t like making unpopular decisions, they don’t have a whole lot of experience with it,” said Marguerite Roza, director of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown’s McCourt School of Public Policy.
But Roza said that doesn’t let them off the hook. She said district and board leaders need to explain the math and why things are the way they are.
“They have to explain what’s at stake and then go out there and help build support for that,” she said.
To have or not have a policy
Ahead of the board’s vote to close schools, members approved a new “Retirement of Facilities” policy earlier this month. The policy includes a list of school closure criteria, as well as a line that “time should be allowed to communicate with the public.”
It’s unclear how many other Oregon districts have a similar policy. The Oregon School Boards Association offers a sample policy to its members. Declining enrollment is a trend in numerous school districts in Oregon, which is likely to lead to more debate around closing schools and possibly more calls for clear policies.
At least one district, Portland Public Schools, has a policy that requires the district to create a detailed school closure plan and a public process to review the closures.
A policy is not required, Roza said.
“I don’t know that the policy is for sure going to guarantee good practice, nor do I ever think that a district has to have the policy to do good practice,” Roza said.
But, Roza said, there are things to take into consideration when either closing a school or committing to keeping a small school open.
Other approaches
There are benefits to small schools, said Roza, who authored a piece last December in The 74 Million about how to fund small schools. Small schools can allow students to build stronger connections and receive more individual attention at school, like with John Armstrong’s daughter at Bolton.
Bolton Primary School West Linn, Ore. on December 17, 2025. West Linn-Wilsonville school board members are considering closing two schools, including Bolton Primary School, as part of a cost savings plan for the district. Parents have expressed concern with the timing of the decision, which comes a little over a month after voters approved a school bond that included improvements for Bolton.
Elizabeth Miller / OPB
But Roza said there can be a downside to keeping small schools open: district resources getting spread too thin and limiting opportunities for all students.
“So if you want to have 10 schools instead of eight, that’s 10 principals, 10 nurses … you start to add it up, and now that means you don’t have enough room for an art teacher, you don’t have enough room for orchestra, you don’t have enough money left for soccer,” Roza explained.
That’s the main argument officials in Cleveland, Ohio, made when sharing their recent plan to close several schools in the district. Same with officials in the Spring Independent School District outside of Houston, which approved school closures this month as part of an “optimization plan.” In Oregon, Corvallis recently announced the closure of two schools, with educators defending the closure of schools because it would avoid layoffs or program cuts. Representatives for the union representing WLWV educators did not respond to OPB’s request for comment.
The worst thing to do, Roza said, is for a district to “flip-flop” and keep changing its mind.
“If you’re a parent and you don’t know what’s coming, eventually you start giving up and say well, ‘Maybe I’ll pull my kid out and we’ll go to private school, a choice school, a charter school, home school, maybe I’ll move out of the area. This feels too unstable,’” Roza said, “and then all that does is accelerate enrollment decline.”
Jennifer Zhao, a Bolton parent with children in high school and middle school, said she’s been disheartened by the board’s behavior.
“Even if they decide to keep all schools open and keep all the programs that we are requesting, we still have lost all faith and trust in the school district,” Zhao said.
“We need new leadership in order for us to feel that we should stay. At this point, we could be back here in a few months again, we could be back here in a few years.”