Declining enrollment could face a reckoning on Thursday, when Denver Public Schools Superintendent Alex Marrero publicly discloses his school closure list.
It’s unclear just how many schools could be on the chopping block, as district officials have been tight-lipped about the process.
Given a projected loss of tens of millions annually and the roughly $5 million per campus cost — on average — the list could contain a handful of schools or more than 14, according to a Denver Gazette analysis of district data.
“I never thought that I would be on a board that was going to close schools,” Board President Carrie Olson said.
When Olson was sworn in seven years ago, declining enrollment had not yet bubbled up into a full-blown crisis.
“This is a really personal to all of us and I think that’s something that gets lost in all of this,” Olson said.
In Colorado, enrollment is tied to funding.
And enrollment in Denver has been declining since 2019.
“There are places in DPS’ school portfolio where we have too many schools for the number of kids that we have,” Andrew Huber, the district’s executive director for Enrollment and Campus Planning said during a board meeting last week. “And, what’s best for kids in each of these areas is extremely contextual.”