What Happens If Benton Harbor Area Schools Shuts Down?

Earlier this month I wrote about the decline of Benton Harbor Area Schools. The current trends point to the school district becoming insolvent in 3 years when the yearly deficits burn through the Covid bailouts.  Shortly after this occurs the state of Michigan may step in and shut down the district as the Whitmer administration threatened to do in 2019. Here’s a glimpse of what that might look like.

What Happens If Benton Harbor School District Fully Shuts Down?

As of 2024-25 Benton Harbor had 1,228 students, representing roughly a quarter of the K-12 students in the district. Most likely it will take at least 4 years from now for Benton Harbor to close down, I will state it will close no earlier than the 2030-31 school year, with 2032-33 being the most likely year.

First the district has to burn through the money it received from the Federal and State bailouts. Then it needs to run a deficit for at least 2 years after reaching a negative fund balance, then the final straw will be Benton Harbor losing at least 10% of its students in a single year.

So what happens if this occurs?  Most likely by then Benton Harbor will have under 900 students.  When the state of Michigan shuts down a school district the neighboring districts absorb the now defunct district. In the case of Benton Harbor Schools the majority of the territory would become St. Joseph, Coloma, or Eau Claire Schools. This also makes the most sense because most of the school of choice students who have left are already attending these schools.

Most likely Sodus and Riverside would not expand as they are only K-8 schools.

A decision would likely be made in the February/March time frame for the following school year to allow time for implementation.

Why would the State or could the State shut down a school district? Shouldn’t the school district have self rule?  School districts do have self rule, to a point. Just like a business, the owner has self rule until the business can no longer survive.  If it spends more money than it brings in and there are no willing debt buyers then the business ceases to exist. With school districts, and especially with BHAS the state has thrown several lifelines to it and at this point may be unwilling to loan or give more of State taxpayer dollars to the district.

What would/should the new boundaries be?

Berrien County Intermediate School district and the adjacent school districts would work together to figure out exactly what this would look like. I have made a rough representation of what I think a fair split would be.  In general I would like to keep this as simple as possible. I want to look at geographic boundaries boundaries as well as current capacity of the school systems in question.

prior to setting up these new boundaries the deal would be that students already going to these schools through school of choice would be able to continue at their current schools.  The Charter schools in Benton Harbor would have no change except for the district they are now in.

Coloma, St. Joseph, and Eau Claire would expand to encompass the district. Each of these would get the assets that are in that district as well and of course the tax revenue of the district. Currently BHAS receives 100% of the property tax revenue, yet educates only 27% of the districts students. I also looked to balance the population, school buildings, and tax base as much as possible between the three districts. (I did not include Watervliet in this current expansion, however I think Watervliet and Coloma should eventually consolidate to a single district, but that is another article)

If this were as even as possible, each district would gain roughly $2.5 million in property tax revenue per year and each district would gain roughly 300 students. (estimated BHAS would have around 900 students at the time of dissolution)

BHAS is shaded in tan. The pink outline is expanded Eau Claire, The blue outline is expanded Coloma, and the red outline is expanded St. Joseph

Coloma: Coloma’s boundary would expand West to the Lake and then run along the Border of St. Joseph Twp, which is Colfax Ave, then terminate at Britain avenue as the South border, which would run out to The current south end of the Coloma School district East of Park Road.

This would include:

• The Whirlpool Ad Center
• Half of Downtown Benton Harbor, including the Arts District
• 18,000 ft along Lake Michigan
• Hull School (Recently Closed, but certainly still functional) 31 classrooms, 45,000 sq. ft
• The Discovery Enrichment Center on S Mccord (currently operating) 14 classrooms 38,000 sq. ft
• All of Benton Heights, COGIC, Highland, and Buss

St. Joseph Schools: St. Joseph would expand to North and East to the East boundary of St. Joseph Township, then South of Britain ave expand East to S. M-139 and the St. Joseph River will be the southern expansion boundary.

St. Joseph would get:

• The New Whirlpool HQ building on Riverview
• Half of Downtown Benton Harbor
• 9,000 feet along Lake Michigan
• Benton Harbor High School 46 classrooms 219,000 sq ft
• Fairplain JR high 21 classrooms 51,000 sq. ft.
• Fairplain West (closed since 2014) 26,000 sq. ft
• Baric village, Briarwood, Harbor City Flats, and River Terrace

Eau Claire: Eau Claire would expand north to East Britain and West to S M139 up to Pipestone, then along Pipestone to East Britain.  This added triangle would allow MLK Elementary to become part of Eau Claire. We would also have a small bump out just off of Starlight Dr. to Union to encompass Fairplain East.

Eau Claire would get

• Most of Benton Twp Shopping district
• MLK Elementary: 23 classrooms 52,000 sq ft
• Fairplain East: 17 classrooms 28,000 sq. ft
• Sorter School 27,000 sq. ft. (not used in 10+ years, questionable value)
• Ravines mobile home park, Berrien homes, Countryview, Meadow Streams Mobile home park

Logistics For The New School Districts:

With this consolidation there would be significant cost savings. Each district already has its administrative and maintenance staff in place. Largely the new costs would be hiring the teachers for the new students. Each student would receive the current $10,050 per pupil funding. Each of these three districts would receive roughly $2.5 million of property tax funding that would have been going to BHAS. For an increase of 300 students this would be another $8,300 per student.

Title I funds may also be distributed more heavily to these districts. Benton Harbor generally receives between $5 million and $7 million in Title I funds based on the percentage of low income students in the district.  Given current percentages of low income students and current student numbers it is likely both Eau Claire and Coloma will receive Title I funds, but unlikely for St. Joseph. Even though Benton Harbor as a whole operated at a massive deficit, by cutting it into 3 pieces and rebuilding from scratch the absorbing districts will likely all improve financially.

For each school gaining 300 students would likely effectively be added 1 full class to each grade level (300 students / 13 grades = 23 per grade.) While some schools have some capacity in these districts it is likely that each district would use at least 1 of the serviceable buildings that they receive from the split up of BHAS.

909 students from the BHAS district already attend these three schools through School of Choice. The large challenge would be in subsequent years when parents sending their kids to Charter schools or other school of choice schools begin sending them to their new district. This would result in numbers increasing substantially.

The theoretical maximum if all parents removed their kids from school of choice, charter schools, and home schooling would be an additional 972 students to each of these districts. This wouldn’t happen. While there would likely be some gain, it would be a gradual increase overtime, as most parents will not move their kids from schools that are not failing them.

Coloma: Coloma has an Elementary school, Upper Elementary, Jr. High, and High School. With the current buildings the school district has they had a maximum of 1,617 students in 2014 after Washington Elementary closed down.  Currently they have 1,182 students, which reasons they could gain another 435 students in the current footprint.

Coloma may have the capacity to operate without utilizing the schools it gains from BHAS. If it does, Hull would be the most likely school to occupy. It is the closest school to Coloma and has easy access to Coloma from the business loop. At 20 students per classroom Hull can hold an additional 620 students beyond the current capacity that Coloma’s pre-existing buildings can hold. That’s a total of 1,055 additional student capacity without using the Discovery Enrichment Center.

In this model Coloma should be able to readily absorb the additional 300 to 400 students that would initially come from this and students transferring in from school of choice/charter schools over the next several years.

St. Joseph: St. Joseph Currently has 2,905 students and has kept fairly steady enrollment numbers over the last decade. As the number of students in their district has declined, St. Joseph has filled those spots with more school of choice slots. Most likely they would need to utilize the buildings from BHAS in order to adjust to having 300+ more students.  They could conceivably use just 1 of the 3 buildings.

Fairplain West and Fairplain Jr. High are closer to the other St. Joseph Schools buildings and would likely make the most sense to keep, although Fairplain West has been shut down for several years.

Due to St. Joseph already having a larger school district, it may be easier and more appropriate for St. Joseph to absorb a few more high population centers that I currently have mapped for Coloma and Eau Claire.

The map I have drawn could be adjusted to have a bump out for St Joseph schools to start at Pipestone and E. Empire and go East to I-94, then follow I-94 to Napier and run West back to Pipestone. This would bring the large population centers of The Ravines mobile home park and Berrien Homes into the SJ district from the Eau Claire District.

St. Joseph would have the easiest time with Bussing, as the expansion would cover the smallest geographic area.

Eau Claire: Eau Claire currently has 629 students. In 2016-17 Eau Claire had 845 students. If this were the max capacity the district could gain around 215 more students without additional buildings. The most logical building to utilize would be the MLK elementary building.  This is currently in use and its 23 classrooms could house 460 students.

Effects on Other Schools:

River School and Hagar:

Both River School in Sodus and Hagar School in Riverside are K-8 schools with very small districts encompassing dozens of homes. Both schools are reliant on school of choice slots from Benton Harbor.  If Benton Harbor folds and this redistricting occurs, will parents still send their children to these 2 schools if by default they can attend St. Joseph, Coloma, or Eau Claire?

Hagar Township: Currently 54 of Hagar Townships students are school of choice, with 45 from Benton Harbor, 7 from Coloma, and 2 from Watervliet. Hagar Township only has 73 total students.  74% of its students are school of choice with 62% of its students being from Benton Harbor. Although Hagar currently operates with a $90,000 surplus, it only takes the loss of 10 kids to put this district in the red.

Sodus Township: Sodus Township for 2024-25 has 62 non resident students enrolled with 47 coming from Benton Harbor, 13 from Eau Claire, and 1 each from Coloma and Niles. Sodus has a total of 70 students, so 88% of its students are school of choice, with 67% being from Benton Harbor. Sodus is already running a deficit of $63,000. Although Sodus has built up a $500,000+ fund balance any significant drop in enrollment would likely spell the end of the district.

It is possible that both River School and Hagar would shut down and then get absorbed into the adjacent school districts within a few years.  Hagar would become part of Coloma and Sodus would become part of Eau Claire.

Charter Schools:

Eventually the Charter schools in the area will see decreased enrollment as well. The Charter schools initially existed solely because BHAS has been struggling for many years.  Countryside has some differentiation based on the FARE programming and it being a PreK-12 school with the GSRP program for 4 year olds. Countryside has an additional risk due to having recently spent $9 million on the construction of a new school building. If enrollment were to fall the financing of this could be difficult. The school is on a 20 year loan that reaches maturity in 2044.

Benton Charter and Mildred C Wells may have more of a difficulty keeping students as they are both schools that only go through 8th grade. Perhaps this will actually work out better for the students in those charter schools because now when they graduate 8th grade they will not be forced into a Benton Harbor, they will be attending Coloma, Eau Claire, or St. Joseph. Benton Charter just had a 20% drop in total enrollment for the 2025-26 year, so their future is already in question. It is entirely possible Benton Charter will close before Benton Harbor Area Schools.

All three of these Charter schools should certainly spend the next 4 years strengthening their balance sheets and working to ensure their school has enough positives to keep the students in the Charter school instead of going to their new district schools. It’s also possible that 1 or more charter school may choose to close down by declaring the mission to have been achieved. The original mission was to provide a choice for parents stuck in what they considered a failing school district. Now that those children will be moved to non failing districts these schools could decide the mission is accomplished and close down voluntarily.

I think there is a strong chance that the Charter schools as well as River school and Hagar school would be largely unaffected the first few years. Most parents would likely want to see what happens with the transition and also would be unlikely to pull their kids from the Charter schools if they are happy with the school already.  The key area to watch would be Pre-K and Kindergarten school selections made by new families entering school age after the consolidation occurs. There likely will be time to act.

What About The Staff on Benton Harbor Area Schools:

No one likes to see people lose their jobs, especially teachers, and especially people who are already in an economically difficult location.  With the roughly 5 year runway to a potential shutdown I would highly recommend that current employees of BHAS develop an exit plan.  For many of these teachers employment by the new districts would be likely.

The majority of the employees at BHAS are not teachers and parapros, they are non instructional staff.  These employees are likely more at risk than teachers in the near term. Just like with any business, when the money runs out and the business shuts down people lose their jobs. At least in this situation there is a warning.  BHAS as of the 2023-24 school year had:

• 20 Administrators
• 114 Teachers
• 28 Parapros
• 188 non instructional staff

I’m hopeful that this will not be the case. I am hopeful that the district will be able to turn itself around, balance the budget and provide a quality education to the children of this area.  The 2025-26 enrollment numbers look promising. Although there was still a drop of 25 total students, the school did see enrollment increases in several elementary grades.

What do you think a shutdown of the Benton Harbor Area Schools would look like? Does my map of the split between 3 districts seem reasonable?