Riverview Gardens School Superintendent Tanya Patton brought her recommendation to the Board of Education to close Danforth Elementary School in the 2026-27 school year.
Patton said that if the school is closed, the district will have to redraw the school boundary lines to better distribute students to the remaining schools in the district. The school board will vote to either approve or deny the recommendation during the next meeting on June 24.
About 275 students attended Danforth during the 2024-25 school year.
“It is never a happy time to close a school because there are roots in that school,” Patton said. “Some of our children’s parents attended that school. So when you consider closing the school, there is an emotional component to it, and that's why we took the time.”
A demographic study conducted by architecture firm Cordogan, Clark & Associates during the 2023-24 school year found the district is projected to lose 800 to 1,000 students over the next decade.
The decline in enrollment is a result of decreased childbirth rates and families choosing to move out of the district.
Patton said Danforth requires over $3 million in building repairs to help bring the school up to compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
She said students with any mobility-related disabilities who are meant to attend Danforth are currently bused to other schools in the district that have the facilities to meet their needs.
For instance, Danforth has five floors and no elevator.
Patton’s decision comes after the school district spent the past six months presenting the findings from the demographic study to the community. It sent surveys to families, staff and community members.
Patton had originally planned to present her recommendation to the school board in May but decided to delay until June to gather additional community feedback during end-of-year events and graduation ceremonies.
Like its neighboring school districts in north St. Louis County, Riverview Gardens is navigating a budget shortfall after pandemic-era relief dollars dried up last year. The district is also spending down the remainder of its money from Proposition S, which provided additional local funding to fortify some school buildings and facilities.
Cordogan, Clark & Associates, which has also conducted demographic research and building utilization studies for St. Louis Public Schools, found that many of the elementary schools have the space to accommodate additional students.
If the school board votes to approve the measure, Patton said she will convene a committee to help engage the community and put together a plan. She emphasized that students’ needs will be a top priority.
“If the board approves [the recommendation], we will start communicating immediately and try to get the task force together to help work on it and build the plan,” Patton said. “Everything sounds good until you have to organize it and build the plan. It's quite the undertaking.”
The district does not have a plan to sell the building once it becomes vacant. Patton said she’d like to see local universities create a satellite branch so parents and young adults in the community can enroll in post-secondary or associate degree programs.
“The goal is to not have a vacant building just sitting there. The goal is to invest back into the community,” Patton said.
