Bellingham Is Closing Elementary Schools. Is this the time to open a new private high school?

Bellingham Public Schools is closing two elementary schools this fall because it doesn't have enough students to fill them. At the same time, the Archdiocese of Seattle is asking the City to let it open a new regional Catholic high school one block from an elementary school already coping with the same enrollment slide. This piece lays out what the district's own numbers say, what the five-county region's numbers say, and what the Archdiocese's own market study says — and asks whether a new high school makes sense against that backdrop.

1. What Bellingham Public Schools Is Reporting

• Bellingham Public Schools (BPS) enrollment is down about 600 students since the 2019–20 school year.

• The district is projecting a loss of roughly 1,000 students district-wide between 2018 and 2028, concentrated at the elementary level.

• In May 2026, a district-convened Facilities Planning Task Force recommended closing Carl Cozier Elementary and Columbia Elementary, citing enrollment decline as "the most important factor" in the decision.

• BPS is separately cutting roughly 60 certified staff positions to close a $7.5 million budget shortfall; the district attributes 22 of those cuts directly to lower enrollment.

• The district and outside reporting attribute the decline primarily to falling local birth rates, not to families leaving the district for private or charter alternatives.

• Sources: Cascadia Daily News, "With enrollment declining, Bellingham Public Schools considers elementary closures," Feb. 22, 2026; Cascadia Daily News, "Bellingham task force recommends closure of two elementary schools," May 28, 2026; Cascadia Daily News, "No elementary schools will close before 2027, Bellingham superintendent says," Apr. 1, 2026; My Bellingham Now, "Bellingham Public Schools to cut roughly 60 positions...," Apr. 2026; Bellingham School District, Facilities Planning Task Force (2026).

2. The Decline Is Regional, Not Just Bellingham

• In spring 2026, school boards across both Whatcom and Skagit counties approved reduction-in-force resolutions ahead of the state's May 15 layoff-notice deadline, citing enrollment decline, rising costs, and state funding gaps.

• Mount Vernon School District (Skagit County) approved cuts of 13 secondary and 7 elementary certificated positions, plus an administrator and 15 classified staff.

• Beyond Bellingham and Mount Vernon, districts reporting enrollment declines in the same period include Blaine, Mount Baker, Anacortes, and La Conner — all within or adjacent to the NDCHS five-county catchment area.

• Whatcom County's birth rate is now 8.48 births per 1,000 people, down from roughly 11 per 1,000 twenty years ago — the demographic driver district officials point to.

• Statewide, K-12 public enrollment fell by just over 9,000 students from 2024–25 to 2025–26; Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal attributes most of the decline to lower birth rates, noting the state has roughly 10,000 fewer first-graders than a decade ago.

• Nationally, NCES projects K-12 enrollment falling from about 51 million (2019) to about 47 million by 2031.

• Sources: Cascadia Daily News, "Many school boards are approving potential layoffs; here's a roundup," Apr. 30, 2026; Cascadia Daily News, "Early learning opportunities in Whatcom, Skagit schools 'fractured' by state cuts," Apr. 2026; Cascadia Daily News, "With enrollment declining, Bellingham Public Schools considers elementary closures," Feb. 22, 2026 (Whatcom birth-rate figure); The Daily Chronicle / Seattle Times, "Public school enrollment falls across Washington state," Jan. 10, 2026; Washington Research Council, on OFM/Caseload Forecast Council data (OFM has forecast a shrinking 5–17 population statewide from the mid-2020s into the mid-2030s).

3. What the Archdiocese's Own Feasibility Survey Shows

The Archdiocese's June 2024 Northern Deanery survey data report — the same document referenced in our prior newsletter — includes county population projections for the five-county catchment (Whatcom, Skagit, Snohomish, Island, San Juan), sourced to Environics Analytics/Claritas and the Washington Office of Financial Management (OFM), dated 2023. Two things are worth separating out:

• The survey's growth figures are for total county population and broad age bands (10–19) — general demographic projections, not school-district enrollment forecasts. Even within that data, growth is uneven: OFM's 2020–2022 figures cited in the survey show Whatcom County's 10–14 age cohort declining 1.3% and San Juan's declining 5.5% in that same window, while Snohomish County accounts for most of the five-county region's projected long-term growth (roughly 34% growth in the 10–19 population by 2050, versus much smaller gains elsewhere).

• Those projections predate — and are now contradicted by — the enrollment declines, layoffs, and school closures actually reported across Whatcom and Skagit counties in the 2025–26 school year, described in Sections 1 and 2 above.

• In short: the Archdiocese's site-selection case rests on county-level population estimates that are two to four years old. The public school districts operating in those same counties, reporting real-time enrollment counts rather than modeled projections, are moving in the opposite direction.

• Source: Archdiocese of Seattle, Northern Deanery New Catholic High School Study — Survey Data Report, June 2024 (PDF).

4. The Case Against Adding a High School in Bellingham

• The decline is structural, not local. District officials and state data attribute falling enrollment to birth rates, a trend affecting Whatcom, Skagit, and the rest of the five-county catchment alike. A new school opens into a shrinking regional pool of school-age children, not a growing one.

• The Archdiocese's own market study didn't identify Bellingham as the site of greatest demand. As covered in our prior newsletter, 57% of survey respondents preferred a Burlington site, and Burlington's projected 9th-grade enrollment (31) slightly outpaced Bellingham's (28). The recommendation to build in Bellingham rested on county income levels relative to tuition cost — not on demonstrated demand or demographic need.

• The growth case is built on dated, county-wide numbers. The population projections cited to justify the Bellingham site are 2020–2023-vintage county estimates that have already been overtaken by two years of real enrollment declines, RIFs, and school closures reported by the public districts serving the same five counties.

• Two declining-enrollment institutions competing for the same shrinking pool of families serves neither well. Adding a new, tuition-funded high school to a neighborhood where the public system is actively consolidating does not address a capacity gap — there isn't one — and adds a second institution planning around a demographic trend already working against it.

 Join our mailing list and share this with your neighbors — the more people who understand what the district's own numbers show, the stronger our voice at the next hearing.