Ohio bill would force Columbus School District to close and sell underused schools

The state Senate has passed a bill that would require Columbus City Schools to either close or sell underused school buildings, with many educators and parents opposing it.

Senate Bill 311, which was introduced by state Sen. Andrew Brenner, R-Delaware, also intends to “promote accountability and integrity in Ohio’s education system,” according to a release.

“There is urgency now. And we will have to make hard decisions,” Columbus City Schools Board President Antoinette Miranda told ABC 6. “We’ve understood that we have too many buildings. We have kicked the can down the road without a doubt.”

The CCS board unanimously voted in December 2025 to demolish Broadleigh Elementary, Buckeye Middle School, Moler Elementary and the McGuffey Road school building that houses Columbus Alternative High School, the news source reported.

To ensure they won’t spend an additional $50 million, the board members also voted to close four school buildings: Duxberry Parks Arts Impact Elementary School, Fairwood Alternative Elementary School, Como Elementary School, and Columbus Gifted Academy, per ABC 6.

The news source added that 16 of the district’s 112 school buildings currently fall below the proposed legal definition of underutilized. Unless the attendance in these schools increases, SB 311 would require the district to either sell the schools or lease the school buildings.

“If we don’t act with some urgency, these are properties that we could lose,” Michael Brown, the district’s chief of communications and engagement, told ABC 6.

Although many supported the bill in their testimony during the Ohio Senate hearings, including representatives from the Ohio Judicial Conference, the Catholic Conference of Ohio, the Ohio Christian Educator Network, St. Edward High School, and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, others criticized it.

Among those who provided testimony as opponents of the bill were the Ohio 8 Coalition, the Ohio Education Association, and the Ohio Federation of Teachers. Parents of children who’ve been attending schools that could be closed or leased also opposed the closures.

“If something would happen, I’m there (snap) like that,” Diamond Tanner, a mother of a child who goes to Johnson Park Middle School, told ABC 6. “School events — I’m always at them.”

She also told the news outlet that she thinks putting children into one large school would result in students having fewer resources than they had in a smaller school.

“If you combine schools and you’re making it where it’s more kids in a school facility, then it’s more kids that are not going to get the education that they actually need,” she said. “Because it’s not gonna be that many teachers that are gonna be able to accommodate that large number of classes.”

Columbus City Schools board member Jennifer Adair said the bill would hurt the district’s ability to make its own decisions regarding school property, adding that lawmakers are “putting these arbitrary rules around” her and other board members.

“One of the things as a board member that’s really important to me is that we do not shove students into buildings that make it so their academic program is not what it should be,” she told the news outlet. “And that’s the history of this district, to be honest. We do that, not intentionally, not to be harmful, but we kind of do that. We have space, we move programs.”

Miranda agreed with Adair, telling The Columbus Dispatch that “it’s really hard to even conceptualize that somebody else can tell us how to run our shop.”

“It will require us to make some really hard decisions very quickly and bring our community in, so they understand the challenge we’re actually facing,” she said.

CCS’s Chief of Strategy and Performance Russell Brown also opposed SB 311, according to The Dispatch.