Denver Public Schools officials plan to evaluate its property with an eye toward possibly selling or renting the buildings it no longer needs.
Board members asked Superintendent Michael Bennet and his staff in a day-long retreat to evaluate the value of the property, including three empty buildings the district owns.
The information could help inform decisions down the road about how to solve the district’s budget shortfall of several million dollars.
“Do we wait for demographics to change or do we look at doing something with those school buildings now,” said board member Bruce Hoyt. “For a district of our size, we have too many schools, we have too many buildings.”
DPS has more excess space than other metro-area districts, mostly because enrollment has dropped and shifted dramatically north and east in the past 10 years. DPS administrators have built schools in that burgeoning growth area but have not closed or consolidated buildings in neighborhoods that have fewer kids.
Enrollment has fallen by about 8,000 students since 2002, and 16 of the district’s 151 schools are operating at half or less-than-half full, according to last year’s enrollment numbers.
This has hurt the district as administrators grapple with painful budget shortfalls. Each student is worth about $6,600 in funding to the district.
Despite this, board members and Bennet have yet to openly discuss the issue of closing schools despite sending out warnings in April that it was coming.
Board members say that school closures are hard for parents to stomach, and they want to give reasons for closing a school beyond just dollar savings.
It would save the district about $350,000 a year to mothball an elementary school, and $700,000 a year for a secondary school.
“If we close schools only for the budgetary reason, that doesn’t communicate to the community that it will be better for students,” said board member Kevin Patterson.
Hoyt said a sophisticated analysis of real estate values – as well as demographic details about neighborhoods and anticipated growth – would give board members information that would help with the tough decisions.
Board member Michelle Moss agreed.
“There is no question whether the discussions will come, it’s how they will come, and what they will look like,” she said. “We want to look at combining some schools, creating K-8 options, or (grades) 6-12 options. We want to talk about the kinds of schools we want first.”
Bennet, who had a job evaluation Monday with board members in a closed session, said that “in coming months,” he hopes to put together demographic and building-use data.
“What it all comes down to, the real estate question, the utilization question is … how we are serving 21st-century kids in this 21st-century city,” Bennet said.
Staff writer Allison Sherry can be reached at 303-954-1377 or asherry@denverpost.com.
