Tulsa Public Schools may be moving one of its immersion schools.
The district’s board of education has a special meeting scheduled for 5:30 p.m. Thursday. Among the agenda items is the possible relocation of Zarrow International School north to the Hoover campus at 23rd Street and Darlington Avenue starting with the 2027-2028 school year.
On Oct. 19, TPS’ board of education voted 6-1 to close Hoover and 16 other schools at the end of the current school year as part of the district’s efforts to address a $12 million shortfall.
Zarrow moved into its current location at 36th Street and Hudson Avenue in 2011 as part of Project Schoolhouse, a district-wide efficiency initiative that saw 14 sites closed and eight more repurposed. With room for 516 students, the Spanish language immersion school is currently at 97% capacity.
As reported by the Tulsa World, TPS officials acknowledged at an Oct. 5 school board meeting that Zarrow had a wait list of almost 200 students going into the current school year.
By comparison, according to documents shared at the board's Oct. 19 meeting, Hoover has a building capacity of 638 people. Of the 14 elementary schools closing at the end of the current school year, four have a larger building capacity than Hoover: Bell, Kerr, Mitchell and Sequoyah.
During the closure and consolidation discussions, district officials repeated multiple times their desire to expand programs with a waiting list, including immersion and dual language offerings.
To that end, TPS will be moving its smallest magnet elementary school, Felicitas Mendez International School from Ralph J. Bunche into one of the other sites that is closing at the end of the year. The move to Anderson will allow the dual language program to add more than 250 seats.
TPS schedules special meeting to potentially move immersion school
