"The Juice Isn't Worth the Squeeze": Why Consultants Say Bibb County Must Revisit School Closures

In 2025, the Bibb County Board of Education considered closing several elementary schools. The community said no. Parents packed meetings. Neighborhood groups mobilized. The board backed down and hired a consultant to study rezoning as a less disruptive alternative.

Ten months and one consulting contract later, that alternative has been declared insufficient by the very experts the board hired to find it.

"I don't think that juice is worth the squeeze," Scott Leopold, director of planning at HPM Leadership, told board members on March 4, 2026. "Let's at least have the conversation: should we revisit consolidation before we change boundaries?"

What the Consultants Found

HPM Leadership, an Alabama-based firm hired in August 2025, was tasked with studying whether redrawing attendance zone boundaries could balance enrollment across the district's elementary schools without closing any of them.

Their answer: not really.

The study found that even after pulling students from well-enrolled schools like MLK Jr. Elementary (642 students), Veterans (673), and Southfield (614), the receiving schools would still hover right around the 450-student threshold. Four schools would remain below the line even after the boundary changes.

Leopold was blunt: "We can temporarily balance the enrollment, but we feel that consolidation may be inevitable just based on what we're seeing in your data and what we're seeing around the region."

The data behind that conclusion is grim. Bibb County Schools currently have a building capacity of 24,460 but an enrollment of just 20,783, a gap of 3,677 empty seats. HPM projects enrollment will drop by another 1,000 students by 2035.

What's at Stake: $1.1 Million Per School

The financial case for consolidation is straightforward. According to district budget documents, the base cost to operate a single elementary school runs about $1.1 million per year:

Add school nutrition positions and the savings climb to nearly $1.3 million per school. In a district facing a structural budget deficit, those numbers are hard to ignore.

A Divided Board

The board's positions on consolidation range from reluctant acceptance to outright resistance.

Barney Hester has been the most direct. "I personally would like to see us look at consolidation again," he said during the March 4 session. "I think we've got to look down the road further. I'm concerned about our numbers."

Kristin Hanlon, the District 3 representative, framed it as fiscal reality: "The budget realities are such that we have to look at this process. Nobody's going to hand us a pile of money."

Outgoing Board President Daryl Morton has been more cautious. While acknowledging that the enrollment situation "is leaving money on the table," he told The Macon Melody that the current rezoning process "would not involve closing any schools." In the March 4 board update video, he was clear: "We're not talking about consolidating or closing any schools."

Myrtice Johnson is skeptical from the community side. She doesn't think families will "take too kindly" to going through the consolidation process again, pointing to the backlash the board faced in 2025.

What Happened in 2025

The district's first consolidation attempt targeted three schools: L.H. Williams, Hartley, and Porter Elementary, three of the lowest-enrolled schools in the district. Community meetings drew passionate opposition centered on three themes:

1. Neighborhood identity -- For many families, the local elementary school is the anchor of their community. Closing it severs a connection that goes beyond education.

1. Transportation burden -- Longer bus rides for young children, plus the added cost of rerouting buses across the district.

1. Capacity concerns -- Parents worried that receiving schools would become overcrowded, reducing the individual attention their children receive.

The board ultimately voted to shelve the plan and commissioned the HPM rezoning study instead.

The Clock Is Ticking

What's changed since 2025? The numbers have gotten worse.

Enrollment dropped another 554 students between March 2025 (21,337) and fall 2025 (20,783). The Georgia Promise Scholarship pulled an estimated 600 students from the district. Health insurance costs per employee have more than doubled since 2022. And the district is now planning to cut 43 instructional positions through attrition.

Every year the board delays consolidation is another year of spending $1.1 million per school on buildings that are less than two-thirds full.

The Question Nobody Wants to Answer

The consolidation debate comes down to a question of values, and the community doesn't agree on the answer.

Is it better to keep nine under-enrolled schools open, preserving neighborhood identity but spreading resources thin? Or is it better to consolidate into fewer, fully-funded schools where every student has access to a librarian, an art teacher, and a counselor?

The consultants have delivered their verdict. The budget numbers speak for themselves. The enrollment trends point in one direction.

Now it's the board's turn, and the community's turn, to decide what comes next.

The next budget work session is April 7, 2026. HPM Leadership will continue community engagement over the coming weeks before finalizing their recommendations.

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