Ewing Young Parents Voice Concerns as School Closes in All Advancing Models

NEWBERG, Ore. — Before Newberg-Dundee voters were asked to approve a school levy, one campus had already been named as a top closure candidate: Ewing Young Elementary School.

The school stayed on the list when the levy failed in May, and it now closes in all four advanced restructuring models before the Newberg-Dundee School Board. Parents of students at the rural school say a closure would lengthen commutes, remove a community gathering place, and push some families out of the district.

The board will meet in a work session Oct. 27 to finalize which models get a closer look, and it is scheduled to consider a motion Nov. 17 to choose one, according to Superintendent Dave Parker.

Parker was asked in an Oct. 15 interview whether closing Ewing Young is all but certain.

“All of the options are still in play here,” Parker said. “It would be incorrect to say that any of these models are certain at this point.”

Ewing Young, which serves the largely rural northwest Newberg and Chehalem Mountain area, closes in Models C, D, G, and H, which a district restructuring committee narrowed from eight on Oct. 1. Each model also closes a second school: Antonia Crater Elementary School in Model C, Joan Austin Elementary School in Models D and H, and Mountain View Middle School in Model G.

The board is not limited to those four. It may choose any model or any combination of elements from the models, or it may direct staff to develop a further option, according to the district’s Oct. 13 board packet.

The district says it is acting because of enrollment and staffing. The packet says 17 of 36 elementary grade levels are staffed with fewer than two teachers, and the district said it is not proposing to close any building because of its condition. The district estimates the models would save a net $1.08 million a year in Model C to $1.40 million a year in Model H. Parker said the district is targeting at least $1 million, which would help add back about four school days to restore the district’s full academic calendar.

“We’ve dropped every year,” Parker said. “We have larger high school graduating classes. We have smaller kindergartens.”

On Feb. 10, the board voted 7-0 to refer a five-year levy to the May 19 ballot to address the district’s financial challenges.

The district listed maintaining neighborhood schools as the first of three goals for the measure.

“Neighborhood schools are community anchors,” Parker wrote in a message to families. “They keep young students close to home, reduce long bus rides, and preserve relationships that make schools strong.”

Voters rejected the measure 57.6% to 42.4%. The board adopted a budget with $5.7 million in cuts and the elimination of about 35 positions. Parker said after the vote that the boundary committee would be reseated, with potential outcomes including the closure of Ewing Young and a reconfiguration of Edwards Elementary School, and that no closures would take place before the 2027-28 school year.

Distance and Community

Ewing Young had 129 students in the district’s Sept. 10 count, the fewest of its six elementary schools, which range up to 409 at Edwards Elementary, according to district figures in the restructuring models. However, its building has a capacity of 200, which puts it at about 65% full, the highest share among the six, according to the district. Joan Austin is lowest at about 42%, followed by Antonia Crater at about 49%.

It is not only the schools’ enrollment but also their proximity. Excluding Ewing Young and Dundee Elementary School, no two Newberg elementary schools are more than 3 miles apart — Mabel Rush Elementary and Antonia Crater are 2.8 miles from each other. Joan Austin and Antonia Crater are 1.2 miles from each other, and Mabel Rush is 2.3 miles from Joan Austin. Edwards Elementary is 2.6 miles from Antonia Crater. The closest elementary school to Ewing Young is 4.2 miles away, with Antonia Crater.

Sarah Waight Hayes’ twin daughters just started kindergarten at Ewing Young. Her family moved to a more rural address about a year ago, staying within district boundaries so the girls could attend Newberg schools.

“Ewing Young is a great school,” Hayes said. “It’s literally our number one elementary school, top 5% in Oregon … That is what we wanted for our kids.”

According to Public School Review, citing data from the Oregon Department of Education, Ewing Young Elementary ranks in the top 5% for math proficiency, reading and language arts proficiency, science proficiency, and overall ranking for the 2026-27 school year.

Hayes said her family’s drive to Ewing Young is 12 minutes one way. If the school were to close, driving to Antonia Crater, her next-closest option, would take roughly twice as long, and a bus ride would be even longer, limiting after-school activities and cutting into family time, she said.

“You’re asking five- to 10-year-old kids to get up by 5:30 a.m. to sit on a bus for 45 minutes to an hour,” Hayes said, “and you think that won’t result in any issues in class? They’re not going to be tired; they’ll be overstimulated and bouncing off the walls because they’ve been sitting on a bus forever.”

No attendance boundaries have been drawn, and the district has said the student counts in the models are assumptions, not placements. Hayes and fellow Ewing Young parent Dustin Miller named Antonia Crater or Dundee Elementary as their nearest alternatives. Kim Bellingar, also a Ewing Young parent, named Antonia Crater, then Joan Austin.

Bellingar, who has a first-grader and a third-grader at Ewing Young and a seventh-grader who attended, said the prospect of closure is not new for her family.

“There have been threats that Ewing Young would be closed since we moved to Newberg almost 20 years ago, so it didn’t feel real until the levy failed,” Bellingar said in an email.

She said families who live far from their neighbors rely on the school as a gathering place.

“It’s where we see neighboring farming families and can catch up, where kids get to make friends (because they have no neighborhoods to run around in),” Bellingar said.

Miller, who has one child at Ewing Young and another at Chehalem Valley Middle School, said in an email the possible closure felt like “the culmination of several years of uncertainty. First there was political, and now financial chaos.”

He said he and his wife, Cheryl, felt “a deep sense of loss for a school that has served the west Chehalem area since 1846.” Miller said the school’s reputation is the reason his family has stayed in the district while friends sent their children elsewhere.

Families Weigh Leaving the District

Part of the reason the district is facing declining enrollment, along with lower birth rates, is students leaving the district, Parker said in earlier Newsberg reporting. Bellingar said her family would leave if Ewing Young closes.

“Unfortunately, if Ewing Young closes, I am unwilling to stay in the Newberg School District, and we will be transferring all of our kids to private school,” Bellingar said.

Miller said his family is touring private and charter schools in case of a closure.

“I fear that while we may ultimately send our children outside the district, many others will as well, far more than the school board realizes,” Miller said.

“That has never been a threat or attempt to strong-arm the district, just a transparent reality we now face,” Miller said.

Hayes said her family is exploring transferring to other area school districts that are closer and reviewing budgets to see whether private school is a financial option should they need it. However, her priority is staying at Ewing Young.

“We want to see the success here. We want our kiddos to stay here,” Hayes said.

An Emotional Decision

During the restructuring meetings, Parker said he saw a consistent throughline: Representatives from each school tended to rate the models that would close their schools the lowest.

“It’s a tremendously emotional process for folks,” Parker said.

For example, Joan Austin representatives gave Model D, which proposes the closure of Joan Austin and Ewing Young elementary schools, an average of 2.60 out of 5. Mountain View representatives gave Model G, which proposes closing Ewing Young Elementary and Mountain View Middle School, an average of 2.12.

In an Aug. 24 Newsberg article, Parker said the restructuring is a math problem — one with personal consequences, but one that ultimately needs to balance the budget to ensure future school success.

“That does not make it any easier or any less emotional for the folks who are going to be impacted by this, and I understand it,” Parker said in the Oct. 15 interview. “I do appreciate people have taken a really positive, constructive work on this, and it’s hard. It’s really hard.”

The board’s first work session is Oct. 27, and plans to hold a second work session in early November. Parker said the board may decide on a restructuring plan during the Nov. 17 school board meeting, but a later decision could push implementation beyond the 2027-28 school year.

“I don’t envy the decisions in front of the school board and superintendent,” Miller said. “We don’t hold any malice towards them either, but this decision represents a painful turning point for the rural community outside of Newberg.”