DENVER — Just a year after closing three schools, Denver Public Schools is now looking at another round of consolidations and closures.
The list of closures won't be released by DPS Superintendent Dr. Alex Marrero until November. But DPS will be holding a series of community meetings about the process starting Tuesday.
DPS External Communications Director Scott Pribble said the district is changing how they're going about it this time around.
"I would say that the last time that we went through this process, we ran into some bumps, so we wanted to make sure it was better this time," Pribble said.
DPS said steady drops in enrollment have made these consolidations needed.
"It really is a big part of it," Pribble said. "The declining enrollment that we're seeing, it's not something that's happened the last year or two. It's been going on for about a decade now. And you can take a look at the birth rates that have been declining for the last several years."
More than 4,700 new-to-country students joined DPS throughout the last school year. Pribble said those numbers are helping, but they're not enough to turn this trend around.
"It's still not going to be a long-term solution. We're talking about a school district that used to be in the mid to upper 90,000 kids and now we're in the mid to upper 80,000 kids and we're continuing to see that trend and it's expected to go for several years," Pribble said.
While DPS has not said how many schools will need to close or where they'll be, the district said they'll weigh a number of different factors into their decision.
According to the district's plan, they'll look at areas where there's a cluster of schools with low building utilization. The district will also have to consider factors like the number of kids on free and reduced lunch, how much it would increase the distance to and from school for families, and if closing a school would further segregate students by race, language or economic class. One thing DPS cannot include in their decision is a school's test scores.
Pribble said he knows putting this list together won't be easy.
"And it's not something that they want to do, but it's something we need to do for the interest of the district and for the interest of all of our students," Pribble said.
The schools hosting the community meetings starting this week are not on the chopping block. The hourlong meetings will be held:
- Sept. 24 at 6 p.m. at South High School (Southeast)
- Sept. 25 at 6 p.m. at Manual High School (Central)
- Oct. 3 at 6 p.m. at Lincoln High School (Southwest)
- Oct. 7 at 6 p.m. at CEC Early College (Northwest)
- Oct. 14 at 6 p.m. virtually on Zoom (Virtual)
- Oct. 15 at 6 p.m. at Montbello High School (Far Northeast)
"These are not meetings where they're receiving feedback on why you think your school shouldn't close. We haven't announced what schools are going to close. So this is really more of an information sharing and how we're going to continue to move forward," Pribble said.
Once Marrero's list comes out, which schools are on it won't change, Pribble said.
“I think it’s important that we don’t put people through a roller coaster of emotions. We know that this is difficult," Pribble said. "And one of the things that happened before was we came out with a list and then that list trimmed down and then that final list was even trimmed down from there. And I think people went on quite a roller coaster ride of emotions of 'my school is going to close, my school is not going to close.' And that's why we're putting so much due diligence into the work ahead of time."
While these next few months will be tough, Pribble said ultimately this is the right decision for the district and its students.
"And I think while this is a difficult decision, we hope that everybody understands why we're making the choices that we are," Pribble said.
The list of schools to be consolidated and closed will be released Nov. 7. Just two weeks later, the board is expected to vote on that plan.