How Denver will decide which schools to close

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How many seats are filled and whether the area is experiencing declining enrollment are the first two criteria Denver Public Schools staff will consider when deciding which schools to recommend for closure.

That’s according to a methodology released Monday evening, a week and a half before Superintendent Alex Marrero is expected to make his school closure recommendations on Nov. 7. will vote on these recommendations two weeks lateron November 21.

District officials have not indicated how many schools will be closed or consolidated. The board ordered Marrero to close schools to address declining enrollment. Although The number of DPS registrations increased by 2% this year Because of the influx of migrant students, officials say the increase is not enough to offset years of downward trends. DPS has approximately 90,000 students this year.

In an interview, officials declined to reveal details about the methodology, fearing that communities would try to guess which schools will be recommended for closure before the list is released. Andrew Huber, the district’s executive director of enrollment and campus planning, did not say how low a school building’s occupancy rate would have to be to meet the closure criteria, though he said a healthy percentage would be between 85% and 100% of seats . .

“The criteria we are setting to move schools forward (for a closure recommendation) is well below that level,” Huber said. “We plan to be proactively transparent with the data underlying every step of this methodology as we put forward the recommendations, so people can follow our logic and thinking.”

Once the district identifies schools with more seats than students in regions with declining enrollment, it will group those schools into clusters, officials said. The clusters will consist of schools close to each other and not separated by ‘dangerous roads’ that are difficult for students to cross on their way to and from school.

Within these clusters, the district will look at several more factors to determine which schools to recommend for closure, officials said. The factors include:

• The registration at each of the schools.
• How many students who live within the boundaries of each school choose to attend other schools through the district’s annual school choice process.
• How many students living in other borders “choose” each school.
• What programs are available at each school, including for students learning English and for students with disabilities?
• The quality of each school building, including whether it has air conditioning and enough space to accommodate more students.
• The academic performance of each school.

The methodology is an effort to take a more holistic approach to school closure recommendations instead of basing the recommendations largely on whether a school has low enrollment, said Laney Shaler, senior advisor to the district’s schools office.

“This methodology allows us to … bring in additional data points, building on the lessons we’ve learned over the last few years, to really build a data-driven set of recommendations,” she said.

Denver has approached school closures differently in the past

DPS has used different methodologies to close schools in the past – and for different reasons.

In 2015, the school board adopted the School Performance Pact. It was not caused by declining enrollment, but by a desire to increase student test scores. The policy called on DPS to close schools with a history of low ratings, low scores on the most recent state tests and low marks from a committee that visited the school to see if it was on the right track.

The school board used that policy to close one schoolGilpin Montessori, and two others are ‘restarting’ with new programming. But the process was rockyand after significant community opposition, the board withdrew from the policy in 2018.

The declining number of students was a reason for the school board to be called in 2021 adopt a new resolution directing the Superintendent to take action with parents, educators and neighbors to develop options to reduce the number of under-enrolled schools in the district.

A committee recommended several criteria based primarily on enrollment, including the fact that schools with 215 students or fewer should be considered for closure.

In the fall of 2022, Marrero recommended 10 schools that met those criteria for closure. But the school board rejected his recommendationeven after Marrero narrowed the list from ten schools to two. The board complained about a rushed process and withdrew the resolution directing the superintendent to address declining enrollment.

In the spring of 2023, Marrero returned to the board with another recommendation to close those same two under-enrolled schools, plus one more. The board quickly agreed. Fairview Elementary, Math and Science Leadership Academy and Denver Discovery School closed just a few months later at the end of the 2022-2023 school year.

In the 2023-2024 school year, DPS has enrolled thousands of new immigrant students from Venezuela and other South American countries, boosting enrollment in the district.

While that momentum has continued this school year, the district expects enrollment to ultimately decline 8% by 2028. Four months ago, in June, the board has adopted a new school closure policy called Executive Limitation 18. That’s the policy Marrero will rely on in making his recommendations for school closures on November 7.

EL 18, as is known, considers the decisions regarding the closure of schools as financial. Colorado schools are funded on a per-student basis, and schools with fewer students have less money to pay for things like mental health services, art and music teachers, and extracurricular programs.

Over the past month, the district has held a series of six regional meetings to argue why school closures are necessary. Still, this year’s process has been criticized by parents, advocacy groups and former school board members as rushed and lacking transparency — the same complaints that have dogged Denver’s school closure decisions for years.

Melanie Asmar is the Bureau Chief of Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at [email protected] .