The news from St. Louis Public Schools is bleak: the proposal announced in late June calls for the closure of seventeen elementary schools and two high schools.

The schools marked for closure come from many different eras in the district’s history: the late Nineteenth Century and the designs of August Kirchner, the early Twentieth and the masterpieces of William Ittner and Rockwell Milligan, the final post-war building campaign of F. Ray Leimkuehler and schools built in the last couple of decades.

I have actually looked at a fair number of the nineteen schools marked for potential closure, which I have listed here with the elementary schools first: Ashland, Columbia, Hamilton, Henry, Humboldt, Laclede, Lyon, Monroe, Shenandoah and Walbridge. I have photographed McKinley High School, which will cease to be a high school but will remain a middle school. One elementary school, Dunbar, will reopen. These closures are in addition to the proposed demolition of several schools announced last winter. It should be emphasized that this is only a proposal with several variations at this point, and the final list of closures could change. Over the next week or so I will look at the remaining schools slated for closures that have not yet been featured here.

Perhaps some perspective is in order. A while back someone compared the Rockwood School District to Saint Louis Public Schools. Is that really fair? Probably not on many different levels, but I think it is fair to compare the two districts’ physical plant and a couple of other metrics. Rockwood has 19 elementary schools, six middle schools and five high schools; it serves an area of 150 square miles, around 21,000 students with a budget of around $285,000,000. St. Louis Public Schools has 60 schools; it serves an area of 62 square miles, expects 16,723 students for the 2026-2027 school year with a budget of around $385,000,000. Anyone see a couple of problems?