The Boulder Valley School District will close four elementary schools, restructure grade levels at two K-8 schools and relocate two elementary focus schools in response to continued enrollment declines.
The school board voted 5-2 Tuesday to approve the district’s , which was announced about a month ago. Parents who rallied at Arapahoe Avenue and 65th Street outside the Education Center ahead of the meeting. Parents also gathered more than 5,500 petition signatures urging a “no” vote.
“The seven of us knew that we could not continue to provide the educational services our students deserve if we chose an easy route and did nothing … If we vote to not close schools today, not only are we saddling a future board with this difficult work, we are actively creating a segregated school district,” school board President Nicole Rajpal said.
With the board’s vote, the district will close Boulder’s Douglass Elementary, Mesa Elementary and Flatirons Elementary and Broomfield’s Birch Elementary. Eldorado PK-8 in Superior will become an elementary school only, while Monarch PK-8 in Louisville will become a middle school only.
High Peaks and Community Montessori — two south Boulder elementary focus, or magnet, schools — will be relocated. High Peaks will move to the Douglass building. Community Montessori will move to the former High Peaks space on the Aurora 7 campus, co-locating with the Boulder Community School of Integrated Studies. The Community Montessori building will close.
The changes go into effect in fall 2027.
District leaders say closures are needed because declining enrollment is impacting the student learning experience at increasingly small schools, which have part-time, traveling support staff, limited after-school opportunities, and little flexibility to maintain consistent class sizes from year to year. The goal, they said, is to decrease unused school capacity by closing under-enrolled schools, consolidating resources in the remaining schools.
This school year, according to the district, 29 schools have teachers who travel to more than one school to teach classes such as art and music. After closures, the district estimates that number will drop to 14 schools.
Altogether, including relocations and schools where students would be reassigned, 16 of the districtap 56 schools will be impacted by the proposal. The closures are expected to reduce the districtap excess elementary school capacity from 37% to 32%, as well as to save up to $4 million a year. The district has promised to invest the savings in smaller class sizes and additional school support staff.
The “no” votes came from the board’s two newest members, Ana Temu Otting and Deann Bucher, who were elected in November and weren’t part of the original October decision to direct the district to move faster on declining enrollment solutions and take a regional approach.
Both also proposed unsuccessful amendments to the proposal.
Temu Otting proposed removing Broomfield schools to allow more time to see how the educational landscape may change there. She said Adams 12 is proposing closing a nearby Broomfield elementary school, which could impact enrollment on the Boulder Valley side. She added she’s seeing more families move to the area.
“(The new families) do give me reason to question whether waiting will give a clearer picture of where Broomfield is headed,” she said.
Bucher proposed removing Douglass Elementary and the relocation of High Peaks from the proposal, saying Douglass should be redesignated as a rural school. Closing Douglass would remove “the only community center in the area for the last 75 years,” she said.
Bucher also proposed an amendment that the district should make all efforts to allow the children of teachers who must move schools to enroll in the teachers’ new schools. Superintendent Rob Anderson instead proposed developing a memorandum of understanding with the Boulder Valley Education Association to support those teachers, and Bucher agreed to withdraw that amendment.
An amendment by school board member Alex Medler to give an enrollment preference to Community Montessori and High Peaks families so they have a guaranteed spot to return to their neighborhood schools also failed. Other board members said they were willing to discuss a districtwide preference, but didn’t want to add a preference for a single school as part of school closures.
Parents have , decision-making and proposed outcomes, with many parents asking the district to pause before making an “irreversible” decision. Concerns raised by families include that the schools projected to remain under-enrolled after closures won’t receive promised resources, as well as that some students may face additional school closures in future years. The ability of the consolidated schools to meet the needs of special education students is another worry.
Public comment at Tuesday’s meeting, as is the board’s practice, was limited to an hour. About 30 parents and students spoke to a packed school board room, urging the board to restore trust by listening to parent concerns and voting “no” on the current plan.
“Schools are safe havens,” said Kelly Keeler, a teacher and parent at Monarch PK-8. “They are the heart of our community. Please don’t take our schools away.”
At a rally before the meeting, parents and children — most from Douglass Elementary sporting teal blue shirts and Dolphin mascot paraphernalia — waved signs and chanted “vote no” and “save our schools.”
Douglass third grader Clara Dobrinski said she loves her school because “Douglass treats me like we’re all equal.”
“They want to send us to different schools, and I don’t want to be separated from my friends,” she said. “They’re giving my school to other kids. They should vote no.”
Poppy Diehl, a fourth grader at Douglass, said that “no matter what, Douglass will always be the Dolphins’ home.”
“It’s unfair that they are trying to get 1% of the money and are breaking more than 250 kids’ hearts,” she said, referring to the percentage of the district’s operating budget that the closures would save.
What happens next
If impacted students choose not to enroll in their new assigned school, those who live within Boulder Valley’s boundaries will have first priority during open enrollment to enroll in another non-charter school. Out-of-district students attending a school that is closing must apply through open enrollment to stay in district and also will have first priority. Open enrollment this year is from Nov. 1 through Dec. 18.
The district’s transportation eligibility guidelines will continue to apply. Elementary students who live more than 1.5 miles and middle school students who live more than 2 miles from their assigned neighborhood school are eligible to ride a district bus.
The school district plans to announce preschool locations by Oct. 1, with a goal of maintaining preschool locations in each region. District leaders also have promised to increase at the consolidated schools, to the extent possible based on space. Students currently enrolled in School Aged Care at a closing school will receive returning student status in the spring lottery.
The district has budgeted $5 million in one-time money for transition support, including hiring a liaison to support families and staff members. Families can email family.transitonsupport@bvsd.org or call 720-561-2647. Staff can email staff.transitionsupport@bvsd.org.
Another $7.5 million to $10 million is earmarked for building renovations to accommodate consolidations and relocations. The money will come from a $350 million capital construction bond issue approved by voters in 2022. Schools slated to receive those dollars are Birch (for a potential preschool), Kohl, Monarch PK-8, Superior, Whittier, Bear Creek and Community Montessori. The amounts, on the high end, range from $150,000 at Whittier for special education improvements to $3.5 million to convert Monarch PK-8 to a middle school.
Still up for discussion is what will happen to empty buildings after schools are closed. The district also plans to spend the next year evaluating if changes are needed at its dual-language schools in Boulder and Lafayette. Longer term, district leaders have said the current plan is expected to address declining enrollment for the next five years, then will need to be reevaluated. Middle schools also may need to be considered for closures or consolidations in future years, they said.
Why Boulder Valley is closing schools
Boulder Valley is the latest district in the Denver metro area to close schools, joining the Denver, Jeffco and Douglas school districts. The nearby Adams 12 School District is recommending closing six schools, while the Poudre School District in Fort Collins also is weighing school closures.
For Boulder Valley, the district projects a loss of 1,700 students in the next five years, for a total decline of more than 5,000 students since 2017. Reasons for the drop, officials said, include lower birth rates, an aging population, the high cost of living, low housing inventory and more affordable housing opportunities in surrounding districts.The result is under-enrolled schools, especially at the elementary level.
Not including charter schools, the school district has the capacity to serve 14,543 K-5 students but currently serves just 9,732 K-5 students. That means there are 4,811 open seats, with an elementary utilization rate of 67%. Without school closures, projections show 5,110 open seats, for a 65% elementary utilization rate, in five years.
To save up to $4 million a year, Boulder Valley estimates the closures will allow the district to reduce 4½ principal and assistant principal positions at a savings of about $860,000, plus about eight clerical positions at a savings of about $700,000. A reduction of about 11 food service and custodial positions would save another $861,000.
On the teacher side, the district is estimating a reduction of about seven positions to save about $1 million. A half-time counseling reduction would save about $77,000, while a para-educator reduction of about 6½ positions would save about $350,000.
After the district shuttered three Boulder schools in 2003, the 2004-05 budget showed an annual savings of $846,313 in personnel and operational costs. That amount also accounted for about $50,000 in revenue that was lost when nine students left the district in response to the closures, according to the document.
Where will students go next year?
Here’s what will happen when the eight Boulder Valley schools close, are restructured or are relocated:
• students will have a seat at . Both are Broomfield schools.
• students will be assigned to in Louisville, in Boulder or in Gunbarrel. Douglass is in unincorporated Boulder County on 75th Street.
• students will have a seat at either , for those living north of Boulder Canyon Drive, or , for those living south of Boulder Canyon Drive. All three schools are located in Boulder.
• students will have a seat at . Both schools are located in south Boulder.
• , in Superior, will become an elementary school and no longer teach middle schoolers. Middle school students will have a seat at , in Louisville.
• will become a middle school and no longer teach elementary students. Elementary students will be assigned to , or elementary schools.
• students will move to the Aurora 7 campus in south Boulder, which the elementary school will share with .
• students will move from south Boulder to the building.
