This story has been updated to reflect the Amphi superintendent's latest proposal for Copper Creek Elementary School.
Upon learning about the proposed closure of Copper Creek Elementary School, mom Halley Lowry started a petition urging the Amphitheater Governing Board to consider alternatives.
The petition gained over 940 signatures within one week — nearly four times the school’s enrollment.
Lowry said if the school closes next year, it will be no easy feat to move on.
“This community really is centered around that school,” she said.
The Amphi district says Pima County’s declining birth rate and private school vouchers are some of the principal reasons for enrollment declines in the district. Many reports show these two issues — in addition to a rise in charter schools — have threatened traditional public school enrollment nationwide, and Pima County public school districts especially in the last five years.
Copper Creek Elementary is one of four Amphitheater elementary schools that may close next school year due to low enrollment numbers.
Lowry said she feels like the district’s move to close the school is happening too fast. “That’s why I want the petition. I wanted to pause. I want them to slow down,” she said.
She’s a mother of three and her 5-year-old son is in kindergarten at Copper Creek. She moved to the neighborhood in 2020 to be within walking distance to the A-rated school.
The school closure proposal came as a surprise for her and other Amphi parents, who were first notified of the coming changes in October.
The Amphitheater School District recently held three meetings to discuss the consolidation of the schools.
Communications Director Michelle Valenzuela told AZPM that families and staff had lots of questions about the consolidations, such as why certain schools were chosen to close and what would happen to the buildings. The answers remain uncertain.
Although the four Amphi schools are not guaranteed to close next year, district superintendent Todd Jaeger recommended Copper Creek, Donaldson, Nash and Holaway elementary schools for consolidation into six other Amphi schools. Enrollment at all four of the schools on the chopping block is currently less than 50% capacity.
Why are the closures necessary?
District administration has pointed to the birthrate in Pima County, which dropped by about 22% from 2012-2022, according to data from the Arizona Department of Health Services.
Public school enrollment declines have also coincided with a rise in private school enrollment, which is about 33% higher than pre-pandemic levels. The Common Sense Institute of Arizona says this trend has further fueled the growth of the state-issued school voucher system.
Approximately 97,000 students are currently enrolled in the voucher program which was estimated to cost the state almost $940 million this fiscal year.
In presentations delivered during the three community listening sessions, Superintendent Jaeger said that keeping the four schools open would lead to financial insolvency, wage and benefit freezes, class size increases and more.
“We’re funded per student from the state,” Valenzuela said, “and when you have fewer students, then your overall maintenance and operations budget keeps getting smaller.”
Copper Creek’s annual operational costs, for one, are over $550,000. One possibility of then closing the school is to free up budget space for increasing staff pay and program expansion, according to Jaeger’s presentations.
“We have to shrink to grow. Now,” reads one Powerpoint slide.
Jaeger will give his official recommendation on Dec. 9 to the Amphi Governing Board, which is scheduled to vote on the motion on Jan. 13.
Parents react
On Nov. 27, parent Virginia Morris published an opinion in the Arizona Daily Star, suggesting there are other reasons behind the Copper Creek closure.
“If it’s true that all Copper Creek teachers and staff will remain employed by the District (fingers crossed), and if it’s true that the District will continue to keep the Copper Creek building operational, how much money is the District really saving by kicking all of the Copper Creek students off their home campus?” she wrote.
Lowry is also conflicted because, for one, she’s unsure of where to place her son if Copper Creek does close. Second, Lowry said that while she thinks it’s terrible for any school to close, she wonders why Copper Creek was recommended to close, considering its distance from other elementary schools in the district.
“If you pull up the Amphi district map, there’s a lot of schools within close proximity to one another … You have a lot more schools that are well within a couple of miles from each other,” Lowry said.
The future of public schools
Pima County Superintendent Dustin Williams says in his nine years on the job, this is the first time he has seen school closures “of this magnitude” in the county. Given the enrollment shortfalls in the Amphi district, Williams said there seems to be no other option.
“I’m really pleased with the professionalism of the district and how the superintendent is handling it, but my heart goes out to the families because this is really, really hard,” he said.
Williams echoed the falling birthrates and the voucher program as issues facing public school enrollment.
“I would like to see a lot more transparency with any type of institution that is taking public dollars because we, as educators, want to look at best practices,” he said.
Many are asking for more transparency from the Empowerment Scholarships Account program, run by the Arizona Department of Education. It uses taxpayer dollars to provide vouchers for private and homeschooled students. Applicants are required to submit the student’s birth certificate and the applicant’s proof of residence.
The typical award is between $7,000 to $8,000, but a letter from Attorney General Kris Mayes to the Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne said program administrators admitted to auto-approving voucher requests under $2,000.
“This policy has led to ESA [Empowerment Scholarship Account] holders purchasing prohibited items such as diamond rings, lingerie, above-ground pools, and big screen TVs with taxpayer funds. I cannot stand by while public monies are misspent,” Mayes wrote in the letter.
Organizations like Arizona Education Forward and parents like Halley Lowry are demanding accountability.
The program’s website says it “may be the most accountable program in the State,” citing that it reports to seven government agencies including the governor’s office, attorney general’s office and auditor general’s office.
Cases involving what are known as “ghost students,” however, have occurred since 2022, pointing to the permeability of the voucher system. Last year, five people were indicted on defrauding charges of over $600,000. There were 17 alleged children involved in the plot, but seven of them did not exist.
While the issue ultimately affects Arizonans, it crosses state borders. Two people living in Colorado pleaded guilty in August to felony charges alleging their $110,000 scheme to defraud the Arizona voucher system.
“That lack of oversight is now a contributing factor — and a very serious one — in the enrollment declines affecting our public schools. Our neighborhood schools shouldn't suffer because of that,” Lowry said.
As of the end of 2024, students in the Amphitheater boundary who were formerly in public school and are now in private schooling receive $1.7 million per year that at one time went to public education, according to the Amphitheater Future Ready site.
“This is a new pendulum swing in education, and I don’t see this trend changing,” Williams said.
He wonders, with the way enrollment in some TUSD schools is going, if closures in the county’s largest district are inevitable too.
Jaeger’s proposal
+ Students and teachers from Copper Creek are set to move to Wilson and Harelson elementary schools + Donaldson will move into Mesa Verde Elementary School + Nash will be consolidated into Keeling and Walker elementary schools + Students and staff from Holaway will go to Rio Vista Elementary
A Dec. 2 email sent from Jaeger notifies the Amphitheater community that Copper Creek will be recommended for consolidation into Wilson, which is a K-8, rather than Painted Sky which he had initially planned for.
“Very small sections of the current attendance boundaries of Donaldson and Rio Vista will also be adjusted slightly to enroll students within those areas at Walker,” Jaeger wrote in his announcement.
