Denver families brace for school closures as DPS asks for $975 million

Tanya Lane thinks Palmer Elementary is the gold standard for neighborhood public schools. 

While the COVID-19 pandemic kept children worldwide out of classrooms, Tanya Lane found her son’s school to be a bright spot during a dark period in life. Her family was able to make valuable connections with their neighbors through socially distanced playdates and video chats, where they could exchange tips about parenting during a global pandemic. 

“It feels so lovely in this day and age to have a community and a sense of community that you can count on and simplify things,” Lane said.

But that sense of community has been under threat since 2022, when Palmer was identified as one of ten schools recommended for closure by Denver Public Schools. Palmer escaped the first round of closures, but it may be on the chopping block again.

The school board plans to release its list of the next recommended closures next Thursday, reigniting past anxieties for Lane and hundreds of other parents, who fear that the next wave will disproportionately affect Black and Latino communities at schools like Palmer.

“Our school has a larger population of black and brown students versus some of the other schools in the neighboring community around our school. That was one of the most important things for me about bringing my kid to Palmer,” said Lane, a Black mom to a biracial son. “I needed my kid’s school community to mirror their home community.”

The latest round of the closure debate comes at a critical time for DPS. The list of recommended closures will arrive two days after Denver voters decide whether to authorize nearly $1 billion of tax-funded debt, plus interest, for the district through Ballot Measure 4A. The dichotomy means that many parents are opening their ballots while dreading impending school closures. 

“If you are asking to open new schools when you are closing schools, it makes zero sense to me,” Lane said. 

Why is DPS closing more schools?

Despite efforts from DPS to right the ship, district leaders said financial difficulties are forcing action. School leaders aren’t taking these decisions lightly, said Carrie Olson, the chair of the Denver Board of Education.

“It weighs heavily on me that this is where we are and I know how painful this is going to be for the community,” said OIson, who previously taught at a school that was closed. 

• Read more about Ballot Measure 4A in the Denverite Voter Guide

Enrollment trends are the main factor driving the district’s financial stress. While enrollment district-wide was up this year, due in part to the arrival of immigrant students, some schools are operating well below capacity. Data from the district shows that elementary schools are only 69 percent full on average. 

And enrollment disparities are expected to worsen in the coming years, with declining birth rates and more families leaving Denver due to rising costs of living, according to Olson.  

Some parents have argued DPS could instead rebalance enrollment through a redrawing of district boundaries, allowing families to apply to attend other public schools within their district.

Olson has heard this argument, but the board said redrawing the map won’t solve fundamental problems. The board chair said it would be too difficult to transport students between neighborhoods in the necessary numbers to make rebalancing work.

The district is using enrollment data and patterns to identify the schools they will eventually recommend for closure, but has not disclosed specific details of its methodology, leaving families to speculate whether their schools will be closed next. 

Chalkbeat reports that the board will consider the following general factors:

• How many local students are “choicing out” of their neighborhood school to attend other schools. 
• How many students who live in other areas “choice in” to each school. Schools closed in 2023 were historically not “choice in” schools. 
• Programs available at each school, like English-as-second-language programs
• The quality of infrastructure, like whether it has air conditioning or enough space for students
• Academic performance 

The school board closed three schools in the previous round. At the time, school leaders decided not to close more schools because the district hadn’t done a good job of talking to parents about the changes, Olson said.

“We felt that families had not received, and communities and school leaders and teachers had not received enough information to be able to understand the need for closing schools,” Olson said.

But this year, the school board seems ready to make bigger changes.

“I can’t speak for the full board, but I myself do feel like we’ve done a much better job of getting the information out than we did two years ago,” Olson said.

DPS said the list for school closure recommendations will be published on Nov. 7. A report released by DPS in June found that Hispanic students in Denver are most likely to be impacted by school closures. 

DPS will release its closure recommendations just after voters weigh in on the largest bond in district history

Some families said that the pending closures are clouding their opinion of Measure 4A, which would approve a $975 million bond for Denver Public Schools to use on much-needed renovations across the district, including air conditioning, athletic field upgrades and school safety. The bond would be paid for by keeping local property tax rates at current levels, rather than allowing them to be reduced. Interest payments would add another $1 billion to the long-term costs.

The bond, which appears to have widespread approval from voters and civic organizations, would be used to build a new elementary school in far northeast Denver and expand the Ceylon Campus near the airport, among other causes.  Mandy Hennessey, a parent who co-founded the parents’ group Mamas de DPS, said that left a sour taste in her mouth. 

“Especially [in] the communities that would be impacted by school closures, why would they support a bond if they’re going to possibly get the closure of their neighborhood school?” she said. 

The bond can only pay for DPS infrastructure; it cannot be used for salaries or day-to-day operations, or in this case, to prolong the lifespan of schools operating at a higher-than-average cost. That would require a new mill levy, which is the local tax rate applied to the assessed value of a property. 

Olson said the district isn’t pursuing a higher mill levy at the moment because they’ve prioritized immediate renovations and repairs. Passing a measure like Ballot Measure 4A, which keeps property tax rates the same, is generally easier than convincing voters to raise tax rates. 

Olson urged voters who are on the fence to think about the greater needs of the district. 

“This is all part of a plan to be able to be sure that we are giving the best to our students,” she said. “While it must feel strange, if a family is thinking, ‘My school might be one of the ones that closing,’ maybe the school where they’re going to end up going or that they’ll be consolidated with will be one of the schools that’s receiving air conditioning or a new theater or a new turf or something that will make their children’s educational experience better.”

The district says small class sizes are financially unsustainable

Schools like Palmer may be closed, in part, because they have low enrollment. Ironically, that trend has come with educational benefits: With fewer students, these schools often have smaller classes.

Research finds that while smaller class sizes are expensive, there are benefits, including greater classroom engagement and higher attendance. But, DPS said there are also detriments. The district said it pays significantly more dollars per student at lower-enrollment schools. 

Krisandra Casimier said her second-grade son has improved socially and academically since moving to Palmer this year. Now, she’s worried that Palmer will be once again recommended for closure.  

“My son, he talks more about what he does at school,” she said. “He is a very timid kid, and so having that smaller classroom setting, it’s easier for him to get comfortable in the classroom and not be overlooked in the classroom.”

Striking the right balance between financial responsibility and small classes is something that DPS has struggled with. 

“I think that’s our challenge, right?” Olson said. “Because we do want class sizes that are small enough for teachers to feel like they can be effective, and students can be seen and known for who they are and receive the education that they deserve. [But] at what point are class sizes so small and schools so small that the budget assistance that they receive is unsustainable over time?”

The last round of school closures left deep scars for families

It has been less than two years since the DPS board voted to close Fairview Elementary School, Denver Discovery School and the Math and Science Leadership Academy, citing “critically low enrollment” at each campus. 

Najah Abu Serryeh, a former Fairview parent, now takes her daughter to Cheltenham Elementary School near Sloan’s Lake. It’s about 1.5 miles from the old Fairview campus. She said while her daughter has access to more classes than she had at Fairview, and likes her new teachers, it was still a difficult adjustment, especially for after-school routines.

“The school is not just like a school,” she said. “The kids know each other. We feel safe just to send our kids to the same school, but when they change it and move to another school, we will need more time to get with it.”

The effects go beyond closed schools 

Other families were initially relieved that their schools survived the last round of closures — only to relive the experience this time. It’s kind of like reopening a wound.

Erin Engstrom’s daughter will graduate from Palmer Elementary this year, so she won’t be affected by a potential closure. But she worries that this won’t be the last round of school closures. 

“I would love to just kind of rip the Band-Aid off, and if we are going to close schools, then maybe take a really long-term view and maybe close a bunch of schools,” she said. “I am sick of this kind of death by a thousand cuts scenario.”

Meanwhile, even at schools with high enrollment and full classrooms, the effects of last year’s closures can be felt. Josie Facio, an organizer for southwest Denver advocacy nonprofit Movimiento Poder, said her child’s school has seen higher enrollment due to immigrant students joining, and worries existing students will get less attention from teachers and staff after the next round of closures.

“Students from other schools are going to come to our schools,” Facio told Denverite in Spanish. She said that school closures will only exacerbate problems at overpopulated schools.

Even after the recommended closure list is released, it will take months before any changes take effect. But across the district, parents are bracing for the impact.

Lane, the Palmer parent, has even wondered whether a school closure would mean it’s time to leave Denver altogether.  But, for now, her family is taking it one day at a time. 

“There’s no need to stress or worry about it until [the list] comes out,” she said. “And then, that’s when we make a different decision.”

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