The Davis school district might have to close up to three public schools over the next decade for reasons that include declining birth rates, high housing costs, and changing job patterns. Adding more homes for families in Davis could blunt that trend, but Davis voters generally resist population growth. So, people in Davis need to start talking about what they want to do, while there's still time to plan for the change. Matt Best, superintendent of the Davis public school district, discusses the choice this week on Davisville.

“We’ve got to plan for one of two scenarios. One, we see housing on the horizon and we’ve got a plan for a reboundary [of attendance areas] if those students arrive. The second path is, there is no new housing on the horizon, and we’ve got to plan to close two or three schools over the course of the next decade, and how are we going to solve that problem as a community?

“The way we’re looking at this challenge now is, the Board of Education is going to make a decision in the fall of ’26 about what the plan is, given the conditions that we have,” Best says. “Which means that by the ’27-’28 school year, we’re going to have to start to actuate some change if there’s no new development. … We can’t have any surprises. We need time as a community to talk about these challenges. We solve our problems best as a community when they’re out in the daylight.”

(The photo shows North Davis Elementary, one of eight elementary schools in the Davis Joint Unified School District.)