The Mesa Unified School District governing board told school leaders Oct. 2 to look at removing unused and older portable classrooms from elementary schools to help deal with pockets of declining enrollment in the district.
The five-member board also asked Superintendent Mike Cowan and his team to consider creating “boutique” schools-within-schools to offer communities programs they may want without pulling those students from their neighborhood schools.
The district has lost about 9,000 students in the last 10 years and has taken several steps to address that enrollment decline, from moving ninth graders to the high schools to closing three junior highs.
