Judge halts Campbell STEM closure, orders Anchorage School District to revisit decision

By SUZANNE DOWNING

May 5, 2026 – An Anchorage School District plan to close Campbell STEM Elementary School has been temporarily stopped by a Superior Court judge, who ruled the district may not move forward until it holds an additional public hearing and more thoroughly justifies its decision.

The Anchorage School Board voted in February 4-3 to close Campbell STEM (along with Fire Lake and Lake Otis elementaries) at the end of the 2025-26 school year, as a part of a “rightsizing” plan to address a ~$90 million structural budget deficit caused by lower birth rates in Anchorage and declining enrollment district-wide. The birth rate in Anchorage has declined 7% since 2020.

Una Gandbhir, appointed to the Anchorage Superior Court in 2018 by former Gov. Bill Walker, issued the order after a parent group challenged the closure in court.

The lawsuit, filed by the Campbell STEM Education and Preservation Foundation, argues the district failed to provide sufficient public notice before recommending the closure and that the Anchorage School Board acted arbitrarily when it voted to shut down the school.

In her ruling, Gandbhir said the plaintiffs are likely to succeed on their claim that the board’s decision may have been arbitrary. She ordered the district to hold a public hearing by May 15 to revisit the issue.

The order also blocks the district and school board from taking “any further steps toward closure, consolidation, reassignment of students or staff, repurposing of the facility, or administrative transition” involving Campbell STEM Elementary while the case proceeds.

Parents and advocates for the campus have claimed that key financial information was not fully considered before the vote. At a March 17 meeting, board members discussed funding that may have been earmarked for maintenance and repairs at the school, information advocates say had not been clearly presented earlier.

Board members Dave Donley and Pat Higgins attempted to bring the closure decision back for reconsideration, but the motion failed on a 3-3 vote.

Still, the judge said the closure was somehow arbitrary.

The school district maintain that officials evaluated multiple factors before deciding to close the school, including enrollment trends, building utilization, academic programming, and transportation logistics.

However, Gandbhir wrote that the record does not clearly show that all relevant funding sources were considered, calling that omission a potentially significant gap in the board’s decision-making process. The judge has placed herself int he position of a de facto school board member.

Despite granting the temporary halt, Gandbhir also noted that the plaintiffs had not demonstrated that the harm from closing the school would be irreparable.

A hearing in the case is scheduled for May 14, one day before the court-ordered deadline for the district to hold a new public hearing on the proposed closure.