Stewartsville Elementary School will close at the end of the school year, but it will be the only Bedford County school to do so in the near future, school board members decided Thursday.
That’s despite weeks of sometimes contentious public meetings as the board considered whether to close additional elementary schools as the school division grapples with declining enrollment and aging facilities.
The Bedford County School Board voted unanimously on a plan to close Stewartsville and redraw the county’s elementary school attendance zones at a special meeting Thursday night.
The plan was one of four options, all of which included closing Stewartsville, that the board has been weighing this fall.
Student enrollment in Bedford County schools has declined by more than 22% over the past 20 years, but the drop has been inconsistent across the division. Many of the county’s elementary schools are under capacity, while others, like Forest Elementary, are bursting at the seams.
Board members had to decide whether to close only Stewartsville or also close either Bedford Primary, Big Island or Otter River elementary as well.
These scenarios were the four recommended options that came from consultants Demographic Analytics Advisors. The consulting firm was hired by the school board in June and presented a study and recommendations in August.
Board Chair Chris Daniels said closing additional schools may have been “detrimental to kids and families,” despite each option having both positive and negative impacts.
“It just seemed like there was too much unknown at this point to be able to do that with any sense of confidence,” he said in an interview with reporters after the meeting.
Earlier proposals considered moving Stewartsville students to Goodview Elementary and Staunton River Middle School, but where the school’s approximately 266 students will go isn’t clear now that the board has also directed division staff to redraw attendance zones.
Whether closing just one school will stave off other closures is also uncertain.
Daniels said closing Stewartsville and redistricting alone are “two really big moves” for one year, but the need to close other schools in the future came up at several town halls over the past few weeks.
“For us as a division, let the dust settle from that. Let’s see what happens, and then in the future, if there’s other decisions that need to be made at that point, a future board can make those decisions,” Daniels said.
Board member Steven Hill also told reporters that the division still has a budget deficit to worry about in addition to declining enrollment.
“I’m definitely not going to ever speak for any other iteration of our board,” Hill said. He noted that the division anticipates an upcoming budget decline in the 2028-29 fiscal year.
“We’re still going to be short about $3 million in our funding. We’re going to have to find that money somewhere,” he said.
“I’m not going to say that we are or are not going to make any other decisions going down the road. That’s still a bridge that has to be crossed. My hope is that we’ll find a way to pick up enrollment, but at the end of the day, at the end of the ’27-’28 fiscal year, we’re going to have to figure out a way to make sure our budget is balanced for the next year.”
To close or not to close Stewartsville
Thursday night wasn’t the first time the board had voted to close Stewartsville.
The Goodview school has been on the chopping block since 2024, when the county first considered shuttering the century-old school.
At the time, it was in need of major repairs that could have cost the county $20 million to $30 million. The board decided to leave the school open, but the issue resurfaced this spring.
In March, the board voted 5-2 to close Stewartsville at the end of the 2025-26 school year. Officials argued it could save the division about $900,000, but parents immediately filed a lawsuit challenging what plaintiffs alleged was an expedited process.
In April, the board reversed its decision, deciding instead to keep Stewartsville open another year while it completed a countywide redistricting study.
As of September, board members were discussing keeping the school open through the end of the 2027-28 school year, but Hill and Daniels confirmed that the school would close at the end of this school year.
The need for future closures remains unknown
Stewartsville does not have the smallest student population of Bedford County’s elementary schools, but it is operating at the lowest capacity — under 45% — according to data from Demographic Analytics Advisors.
Big Island and Otter River, which each serve fewer than 200 students, are operating at less than 55%.
School consultants regularly recommend schools operate between 80% and 90% capacity, or even higher in areas that are seeing enrollment declines, as the cost of operating a school building doesn’t decrease with enrollment drops.
School divisions across Virginia, especially in rural areas, are considering closing and consolidating aging schools as they operate at less of their capacity each year.
Under Bedford schools’ current enrollment predictions, closing only Stewartsville and redrawing attendance zones could help with capacity concerns at schools like Forest Elementary, which is operating at around 98% of capacity.
Some school officials had argued that closing an additional school could help prevent the need to redistrict again. But Daniels said closing additional schools did not pan out.
“When we’re doing these things, we’re trying to do it for not just efficiency or saving money, but also to make sure that we’re giving the students the best chance to be successful,” he told reporters. “That’s quite honestly why a lot of these other options just did not seem to work. The juice would not have been worth the squeeze, and it would have been really detrimental to kids and to families.”
What’s next for families
Board members also discussed Thursday how lenient the division should be as it redraws attendance zones this year.
In the coming weeks, consultants will give the division up to three scenarios, which the community will have the chance to weigh in on at a public hearing scheduled for Nov. 12.
Hill also told reporters he anticipates more town halls to ensure that the information gets out.
In December, the board is slated to vote on a final map. After that vote, families will immediately be notified of the boundary changes and where their children will attend school next year.
Hill said in the past the division had had a “fairly generous grandfathering policy” that allowed students and their siblings to stay in their school even after it had been rezoned.
“With doing a countywide model, it would be almost impossible to really do that type of grandfathering and still achieve the results that we’re wanting to achieve,” he told reporters. “We want to make it very clear that from the board perspective, we more than likely will not be as generous this time around when it comes to the grandfathering policies.”
Multiple board members did note the need for a clear zone transfer policy for families who want their child to attend somewhere other than their zoned school. Whether a student has a disability and where parents can transport their child to school themselves could weigh into those guidelines, board members noted.
Board member Jordan Karnes also requested that current fourth graders be allowed to stay at their current school as fifth graders for their final year of elementary school.
These parameters will likely be determined after the board votes in December.
Find more information about the redistricting process here.
