A Message from Superintendent Greg Baker

Dear students, staff, families and community,

I have received the recommendation from our Facilities Planning Task Force, which is a group that has been meeting since February to review enrollment trends, school and facility conditions and programmatic needs. 

I encourage you to read the recommendation and share your feedback.

Thank you to all the members who served; this group represents a lot of people in our community who care deeply about our schools and district, including parents, school and district staff and leaders (many of whom are also parents – we’re all interconnected) as well as a representative from the city of Bellingham. 

As you may know, Bellingham is not alone in figuring out issues related to declining birth and enrollment rates. Our funding from the state is tied to the number of children we serve. Districts across the country are engaged in similar work, and we acknowledge it’s challenging. 

Next steps

I will be taking some time to process these recommendations, and I ask our community to do the same. I understand many want a specific timeline. We know all schools will stay open next year, 2026-27.

Please feel free to share questions and reflections via this form or email me. We are happy to continue meeting with anyone individually or in small groups to better understand various perspectives.

I will be considering next steps including:

• Assemble an attendance area committee to help recommend adjustments to our attendance areas (e.g., school boundaries) so that if we decide to consolidate schools, we are clear where students would go. I may ask the task force to do this next level of work and add additional parent representatives from the affected schools.
• Continue to explore ideas for possible uses of spaces (e.g., how to repurpose closed schools so that they do not sit vacant).

Additional time also allows us to see the next set of birth rates and enrollment data and try to get an indication whether the state legislature plans to make any significant changes to state funding toward education.

Watch video: Q & A

I know our community has great interest in this work, and we appreciate the questions and engagement.

The task force webpage continues to serve as an important resource for those who want to read and understand this work.

One of the most compelling reasons we are working to better understand the declining enrollment picture is to continue to be responsible stewards of our community’s investment in our schools and district. If we have fewer students, we need fewer schools. Fewer elementary schools allow us to be more efficient and better resourced, meaning more robust programs, counselors and music and physical education specialists. This rationale is more fully explained in the task force’s recommendation. Keeping under-resourced schools open would likely result in the loss of jobs and programs, especially if state funding continues to fall short.

I filmed an on-camera Q & A earlier this week to help provide answers to common questions we’re hearing – some about the task force and others are related to topics like bond funding, the District Office and budget cuts. You will notice dots at the bottom of the screen indicate different topics; feel free to bounce between chapters.

You can also listen to it as a podcast (Spotify). This work is complex and I encourage you to watch or listen.

I hope you will continue to stay engaged in this work, and please reach out to share your ideas and thoughts.

Greg Baker

Reply to: greg.baker@bellinghamschools.org