Norfolk Public Schools has entered the second phase of its districtwide redistricting plan, and families will get a formal chance to weigh in at a public hearing on Wednesday, October 14. The hearing follows a 4 p.m. Norfolk School Board business meeting at the district's administration building and is meant to give parents and community members a chance to learn about the proposed school consolidations and redistricting before any changes move forward.
The hearing comes after phase one of the plan already resulted in the closure of three elementary schools ahead of the current school year, according to 13News Now. Phase two, as outlined by the station, includes proposed changes affecting five schools in 2027 — a scope that lines up with what Norfolk Public Schools itself laid out in a district announcement that scheduled four community redistricting meetings for May 13 and 14, 2026, telling families, “all families and community members are invited to join us for four important Community Redistricting Meetings.”
Those meetings, the district said, were designed to include a presentation followed by open discussion and time for stakeholder questions about the planned closures. According to the district's post, Tarrallton Elementary, Granby Elementary, Lindenwood Elementary and P.B. Young Elementary are scheduled to close in June 2027, while Ghent K-8 is listed as scheduled to relocate to the Academy of International Studies at Rosemont that same month.
Where Displaced Students Would Go
Under the proposal, Tarrallton Elementary's roughly 261 students would be reassigned to Little Creek Elementary, per reporting from The Virginian-Pilot. Granby Elementary's 442 students would be divided among Camp Allen Elementary, Monroe Elementary and Suburban Park Elementary, the newspaper reported.
Lindenwood Elementary's 236 students would be split between Monroe Elementary and Willard Elementary, while P.B. Young Elementary's 227 students would be distributed across Jacox Elementary, Monroe Elementary and Taylor Elementary, the outlet's account states. School leaders told the paper that some details could still change before the plan goes to the school board for final approval — something the board has already done once, unanimously approving phase one in March 2026, according to the same report.
The status of Ghent K-8 has not been described consistently across district materials. Norfolk Public Schools' community meeting announcement listed Ghent K-8 as scheduled to relocate to the Academy of International Studies at Rosemont, while The Virginian-Pilot's reporting described all five schools, including Ghent K-8, as set to close in June 2027. A separate planning page on the district's website states that “Ghent is no longer on the closure list at this time,” though it notes the decision could be revisited during rezoning.
Parents Voice Concerns as Hearing Approaches
Some parents have expressed concerns about the proposed changes and how they could affect students and families, 13News Now reported. Superintendent Jeff Rose, who leads Norfolk Public Schools, has welcomed community feedback on the plan, according to the station's report. Wednesday's hearing is intended to give families another opportunity to learn about the proposals and voice their opinions directly to the board.
A Decade of Shrinking Enrollment
The push to consolidate schools traces back to enrollment and facility pressures the district has flagged for years. Norfolk Public Schools has capacity for nearly 37,000 students but enrolls fewer than 27,000, the district's long-range planning page states, and enrollment has declined by an average of more than 400 students annually over the past decade. Superintendent Rose has said the district's enrollment has fallen by about 10,000 students over the past two decades, The Virginian-Pilot reported.
The district's planning materials also point to aging infrastructure as a driver: more than half of Norfolk Public Schools' buildings are over 50 years old, and a 2019 facility condition assessment identified nearly $500 million in facility needs districtwide. Those figures sit inside a broader Consolidation and Equity Transition Plan covering 2025 through 2034, which the Norfolk School Board approved in October 2025 and which WTKR reported is now posted publicly under that name.
Per the district's own timeline, rezoning is expected to occur between the 2027 and 2031 school years, with closures and consolidations continuing from 2027 through 2034 at a rate of two or more per year, contingent on the Jacox rebuild and a renovation of Lake Taylor High School. WTKR's reporting notes the plan calls for ongoing public engagement through transition committees, listening sessions, public hearings and annual reviews as the process unfolds — a framework Wednesday's hearing at the administration building is set to put into practice.
