Englewood – Faced with dropping enrollment, the Englewood School Board voted unanimously Tuesday night to close Flood Middle School.
The decision came down to the district being “fiscally responsible,” said board president Karen Miller.
“We can’t be (responsible) when we’re spending $721,000” on a school way below capacity, she said.
Sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders who would have attended Flood for the 2007-08 school year will instead attend Sinclair Middle School – the only other public middle school in Englewood.
Officials said the closure would also allow the district, which has had average performance on state tests, a chance to reinvent its middle school curriculum.
“This is an opportunity … to re-examine middle education,” said Mary Vedra, executive director for learning services. “We’re taking staff through a study to look at what (successful) schools out there are doing.”
A financial advisory committee recommended in August that Flood, located south of Hampden Avenue and east of Broadway, be closed.
Tami Elling, a district parent who sat on the committee, said Tuesday that while the community is emotionally attached to the school, “what really matters is the type of education our kids get.”
“In the end, it’s only a building,” she said.
Because fewer students enroll each year, both Flood and Sinclair are under capacity. Flood has about 300 students, down about 65 students from last year, and is only about 50 percent full, said principal Mandy Braun. Sinclair, which is 50 years old, is only 30 percent full, according to the district.
Concerns linger about what will happen with staff members and whether students will leave the district. McCabe said the district hasn’t decided whether to lay off staff members, although only one principal will remain.
Jodi Litchfield, an Englewood resident whose father and daughter attended Flood, said it breaks her heart to think about closing the school, named for former librarian Mary L. Flood.
But she understands the dilemma. “We have such a drastic decline in enrollment,” she said. “It just doesn’t make sense to keep both of them open.”
Administrators in Englewood have wrangled for years with shrinking enrollment. Since 1996, the district has lost about 22 percent of its population, which officials attribute to families leaving for larger homes in the suburbs.
School districts in Colorado are funded based on the number of students enrolled. In Englewood, the district gets $6,452 in state and local revenue per student to support the district’s $36.8 million budget, said Peg LaPlante, chief financial officer.
She said the loss of students cost the district $1 million in this year’s budget.
This year, the district projected it would have 3,556 students, but it had 3,470 as of Sept. 12, McCabe said.
The board also voted Tuesday to look into selling the building.
Staff writer Karen Rouse can be reached at 303-820-1684 or krouse@denverpost.com.
