WV native creates online state school closure tracker; 70% of closures impacted elementary schools

A team at the University of Michigan has created an online tool to track school closures and consolidations in West Virginia as the state is grappling with population decline and widespread school financial issues.

The project was led by Roane County native Christina Weiland, who is currently professor of education and social policy at the University of Michigan. 

Since 2011, 139 public schools have closed in West Virginia, and 62% of counties have closed at least one school. Many of the closures impacted elementary schools, and Weiland noted it has created long bus rides for little children across the state. 

She created the tracker with the help of her students after finding it difficult to keep up with the number of school closures and where they were happening.

The public data “hadn’t been kind of presented in a way where people could see what was going on in their county, what was happening over time, where was this hitting and what were those patterns,” Weiland explained.

The online dataset allows individuals to search student population and school closures by county. It also looks at enrollment trends across West Virginia districts from 2011-2026.

“These are big changes in small places … you’ll see in some cases, the enrollment in county schools are dropping faster than the population is, and so that’s a trend that I think we have to understand better around why that’s the case,” Weiland said.

The Together for Public Schools WV Coalition, made up of families, educators and community members, recently called for an immediate pause on school closures in West Virginia while lawmakers consider addressing the state’s antiquated school funding formula. 

West Virginia uses a seven-step formula to determine how much state funding goes to county school systems based on factors including the number of students enrolled. 

Public schools are 2,685.92 school personnel positions over formula, according to the West Virginia Department of Education, and the state has seen another year of widespread teacher and staff cuts. Counties will use local funds, if available, to avoid making job cuts. 

Along with declining population, school finances have been impacted by the growing number of expensive special education students and children leaving the public school system to use the state’s education voucher program, the Hope Scholarship. 

Waning federal pandemic-era funds, which bolstered school’s budgets in recent years, have added to schools’ financial problems.

While lawmakers started the 2026 legislative session with plans to revamp the formula, the session ended in March without any of those measures making it to the governor’s desk for consideration. 

Republican education chairs in the House of Delegates and Senate have said revamping the funding formula, including bolstering funding for special education students, will be a focus going into the 2027 legislative session. 

Weiland noted that her project doesn’t look to offer solutions to the school closures but focused on presenting the data.

“I think it’s just a way — as people are trying to figure out a way forward — to make sure that they have the data easily in their hands to get their arms around it. I think that’s the service that we’re trying to do here,” she said.