Faced with declining enrollment over the past decade, Denver Public Schools has identified the 15 elementary and middle schools most affected by student declines in a report highlighting the need to shrink costs and maximize resources.
While school officials characterized the list as “snapshot” and not a foregone conclusion, 10 of the schools were targeted in the fall, and three with the worst enrollment numbers could face a recommendation for closure as early as the next regular board meeting.
The Board of Education heard the presentation on Thursday during its regular meeting.
The district defined campuses with a “concerning enrollment” as those with fewer than 215 students and those with “critically low enrollment” as having fewer than 120 students. The schools considered to have critically low enrollment are Denver Discovery, Mathematics and Science Leadership Academy and Fairview Elementary.
Seven of the 15 schools identified as a poor enrollment performer require instruction in English and Spanish.
The district has not officially yet identified any schools for closure.
The issue is fraught with pitfalls for the Board of Education and Superintendent Alex Marrero, who walked back a plan last fall to shutter 10 schools after receiving fierce opposition.
All 10 schools targeted for closure in November are on the list of campuses with concerning enrollment.
“This is just a snapshot of where we are,” Marrero told the board, adding he’d had to assure worried callers that this was not the closure list.
Board members reacted as swiftly as the public.
Vice President Auon'tai M. Anderson lamented that the inaction of previous boards had placed the district in this difficult situation for which they’ve been blamed by an angry public.
“I think we have to have some tough decisions,” Anderson said.
Addressing the decline in enrollment
Marrero was expected to present his recommendations to the school board in March.
But after receiving what board members described as an upsetting update, they pressed the superintendent to act sooner on the three schools with critically low enrollment.
The projected incoming students at all three schools actually have come in at 50% to more than 80% under what was anticipated. Parents are actively making school choice selections for next year.
Board members wondered out loud whether the list of closures in the fall they rejected may have negatively influenced the poorer than expected enrollment numbers at Denver Discovery, Mathematics and Science Leadership Academy and Fairview Elementary.
“We shouldn’t create more harm,” Board Member Carrie A. Olson said.
Olson added, “The other schools on the list will be watching to see how we handle these three.”
Part of navigating the school closure process should include support by giving school priority to affected families and assurances to teachers, board members said.
School officials have known for at least a decade that enrollment was falling.
Elementary and middle school enrollment has shrunk by 8,097 enrollees since 2014.
The district expects its K-12 enrollment to continue to slip, anticipating another 3,000-student decline over the next five years; 1,000 in the next school year alone.
Tactics offered in the district’s new report to address declining enrollment included “phasing out” transition grades by not enrolling new kindergarten and 6th graders in selected schools, moving to a “co-location” strategy of doubling up schools on the same campus and revising school boundaries, among others.
The board has tasked Marrero with informing and involving the community in the process, something parents challenged during a public hearing on Tuesday, with many accusing district leaders of operating in the dark.
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