Recommended school closure criteria presented
While school closure should be a last resort, the Denver school district should consider closing or consolidating schools with the fewest students, according to committee recommendations presented to the school board Thursday.
Elementary and middle schools with “critically low enrollment,” meaning fewer than 215 students next school year, as well as schools with fewer than 275 students that expect to lose 8% to 10% of their students in the next few years, should be considered for consolidation, the recommendations said. The thresholds wouldn’t apply to high schools.
Not all schools identified for consideration would actually close. The district should work closely with the community and apply a series of “equity guardrails,” considering how far students would have to travel to school and which schools have specialized programming, especially for students learning English and those with disabilities, the recommendations said.
Committee members said they intentionally did not look at which schools would be affected by the enrollment threshold, and they could not tell board members how many schools would be affected.
“There are no schools being considered,” Superintendent Alex Marrero said. “There is not a list.”
The earliest schools would be identified is next school year, based on that year’s data, and barring exceptional circumstances, no schools would close until the end of the 2023-24 school year.
State enrollment data shows 27 Denver elementary and middle schools with fewer than 275 students this school year. Of those, 19 serve student populations that are more than 90% students of color or more than 90% from low-income households, or both. Just three of the schools are majority white.
The school board doesn’t need to approve the policy, a district spokesman said, but it would have to approve any future school closures. At Thursday’s meeting, members asked insistent questions that suggest they are hesitant to go down the path laid out by the committee.
Vice President Tay Anderson said he doesn’t want to close schools where students of color are making academic gains. The committee did not recommend looking at academics or at whether schools have been able to maintain programming despite budget constraints.
Board member Carrie Olson, a former bilingual educator, said she’s concerned about closing schools that offer the type of bilingual programming required under a federal consent decree that governs the districts. Even if similar programming is available a few miles away, she said, some families may remove their children from bilingual programming rather than add a drive or a long walk to their already complicated lives.
Board member Michelle
Quattlebaum asked if district enrollment could be stabilizing and noted that Denver opened many new schools during a period when — it turned out — elementary enrollment had already peaked.
Marrero said he would seek community feedback on the criteria and schedule more board discussions before finalizing any plan.
Denver is not alone in struggling with how to respond to declining enrollment, and the decisions are often wrenching. Aurora Public Schools engaged in a five-year planning process that used complex regional criteria to identify schools for closure, but school board members still hesitated when parents fought to save their schools. They first voted to keep two elementary schools open then reversed themselves two months later.
Jeffco Public Schools closed two schools in two years with little notice before starting a planning process in earnest this spring.
Because Denver schools are funded based on how many students they have, small schools struggle to offer complete educational experiences. Students may go without electives or even vital services, and teachers are stretched thin covering multiple grades. But many families appreciate feeling part of a community where every adult knows their child.
Denver used $6.7 million in federal relief money this year to shore up the budgets of small schools and expects to spend another $9.8 million next year.