The union's plan would preserve every one of the 17 schools and direct funding toward building upgrades at those sites and others across the district, framing the proposal as an alternative to the board's closure decision.

The closures have drawn sustained opposition from students, staff, community members and elected officials, who have rallied at affected schools — among them Harding Middle School — to press the district to reconsider.

The union's release lands as the district weighs how to manage its facilities and as families in the affected neighborhoods face the prospect of losing their neighborhood schools. The plan's price tag of $25 million represents the union's estimate of what it would take to keep the buildings open and in usable condition rather than shutter them.

Details of how the funding would be allocated across the 17 schools and which additional buildings would receive upgrades were not immediately spelled out in the union's announcement.

The school board has already voted to close the 17 schools, and the 10 closures set for the end of next school year would affect students and staff across the city. The union's proposal now puts pressure on district leadership to either accept the alternative or explain why the closures should proceed.

For communities surrounding the affected schools, the stakes are concrete: losing a neighborhood school can mean longer commutes for students, disruption for families and the loss of a community anchor. The union's plan seeks to avoid that outcome by pairing preservation with investment in the buildings themselves.

It was not immediately clear whether district officials had responded to the proposal or whether it would be taken up by the board.