Washougal School District is starting a 90-day public review process to decide whether to close Hathaway Elementary School, its oldest operating campus, citing a pattern of low enrollment and mounting budget pressure. If approved, most Hathaway students would move to nearby Gause Elementary, and the district says the closure would save more than $1 million per year that could go toward smaller class sizes and new student programs.
The review comes as Washougal weighs consolidating its elementary footprint, according to KOIN. Under the proposal, three elementary schools would remain, according to the Washougal School District. Hathaway sits in downtown Washougal, close enough to Gause Elementary that district leaders have pointed to both its aging infrastructure and its physical proximity to Gause as central reasons it was singled out for consolidation, according to the Washougal School District. District evaluations found that modernizing the aging Hathaway site would require disproportionate future capital investment.
How the Closure Process Would Unfold
A district Resource Optimization Workgroup recommended consolidating Hathaway after multiple tours of Washougal's schools and examining enrollment and facility-use data, per the station's report. Should the closure move forward, most current Hathaway students would be reassigned to Gause Elementary starting in the 2027-28 or 2028-29 school year, following a district-wide boundary review, per the same district FAQ. Specialized services such as Title I, bilingual education, and special education would be relocated to receiving elementary campuses.
The district's proposed closure process includes a 90-day public review period. During that period, community members can attend a school board meeting at Hathaway Elementary on October 29 and another at Gause Elementary on November 12, with district officials expected to make a final decision on January 26 during a board meeting, per KOIN's reporting. Parents and students can also review the details in the district's published school consolidation study.
District Says It Isn't Giving Up on the Site
Even under the consolidation plan, Washougal intends to keep the Hathaway property for future use, anticipating a larger, modernized elementary school on the campus down the road — though any major renovation project would require voter approval, per the same district report.
Enrollment Declines Are Squeezing the Budget
District enrollment is projected to decline about 4% in 2025-26, and the district FAQ projects declines of about 2% to 3% per year over the next three years, with enrollment not expected to rebound through 2035. That trend is largely driven by regional birth-rate declines, which mean incoming kindergarten classes are significantly smaller than the graduating high school classes they eventually replace. Because Washington ties basic education funding directly to enrollment, serving fewer students means less state funding for the district, even as inflation drives up the cost of materials, supplies, and operations, along with rising employee benefit and salary costs.
Under the proposal, Washougal would operate three elementary schools. District officials say consolidating operations to fewer campuses would also reduce administrative overhead and other staffing costs, providing a path toward stable, predictable spending without repeated annual budget reductions. The district has framed this as a way to prioritize expenditures closest to the classroom rather than continuing to make yearly cuts.
Part of a Broader Pattern of Cuts
This isn't Washougal's first round of belt-tightening. The district eliminated nearly 10% of its workforce to cut $4 million before the 2024-25 school year, then trimmed an additional $1.3 million to $1.5 million in operational spending for 2025-26 due to declining enrollment, according to the Camas-Washougal Post-Record.
Notably, the deficits aren't a result of local voters turning down funding. In February 2026, Washougal voters approved two replacement measures — an Educational Programs & Operations levy at 58.46% and a Capital levy at 58.12% — securing local property tax revenue through 2029. The shortfall instead traces back to how Washington's per-pupil funding formula is structured around enrollment counts, leaving local levies to bridge gaps that basic state allocations don't cover.
A Regional Trend Across Clark County
Washougal's announcement landed the same week that neighboring Evergreen Public Schools revealed it's weighing the closure of up to six elementary schools amid its own multi-million-dollar budget deficit and declining enrollment, according to Oregon Public Broadcasting. Taken together, the two districts' overlapping reviews suggest that shrinking enrollment and structural funding pressure are pushing multiple Southwest Washington school systems toward similar hard choices at the same time.
