Over 1,000 US public schools shuttered last year: How closings could put your home value at risk

More than 1,000 public schools across 700 communities closed last year, according to new data—shuttering a prized neighborhood amenity and potentially putting nearby home values at risk.Just ask Virginia Morris.She and her family moved to their neighborhood in Oro Valley, AZ, because they saw the local school as a “package deal.”Copper Creek Elementary was A-rated, close enough to walk to, and deeply tied to the surrounding community—exactly the kind of feature that has shaped homebuying decisions for decades.But in May 2026, after nearly 40 years in service, Copper Creek closed.“We never expected in a million years this would be taken away from us,” Morris said at a December meeting of the district’s governing board.

“An entire community, and an entire neighborhood, completely gutted.”Economists have long found that high-performing public schools offer a benefit that extends beyond students.In one landmark study, buyers paid 2.5% more for homes assigned to schools where test scores were just 5% higher.But that relationship can work in both directions.

A strong school can make a neighborhood more desirable.Take it away, and homeowners can lose some of the buyer demand—and the price premium—that came with living near it.“Public schools and homes are bundle goods: Where people live will decide where kids go to school,” explains Jiayi Xu, economist at Realtor.com.

“In other words, people are not just buying a living space but also a seat in a school district, whether they have kids or not.”It’s a particularly potent package at the elementary school level.Unlike a high school that may draw students across a large area or a charter school with open enrollment, primary-school attendance zones are generally smaller and more closely resemble the boundaries of individual neighborhoods.Of the 1,025 closed schools identified by Realtor.com in an analysis of National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) data, nearly half were el...