DENVER — This month, more than 87,000 students headed back to class with Denver Public Schools. That's 3,000 kids more than they had last fall.
After a tumultuous year with thousands of migrant students joining the district throughout the school year, DPS knew budgeting for this year would be tricky.
"You know, it's a challenge, but I hope we're up for it," said Chuck Carpenter, chief financial officer with Denver Public Schools.
The start of any school year can be tricky for any district. Are there enough teachers? Enough desks?
For DPS, Carpenter said planning for this year has been challenging because of how strange the last school year was.
"Last year, a lot of people will say things like 'unprecedented' and it's an overstatement. But it really wasn't," Carpenter said. "We never had a situation where we had way more kids in January coming into the district than we'd had in October."
As migrant families made their way to Colorado, more than 4,700 new-to-country students enrolled with DPS throughout the last year.
About 3,000 of those kids came after the state's October count that determines the amount of funding schools receive per student. Andrew Huber, executive director of enrollment and campus planning with DPS, said that's nowhere near normal.
"Very, very unusual to the point where that's probably the first time that DPS has accepted that number of kids past count day," Huber said.
And with it, hitting DPS' bottom line.
"We estimated that it would have been $20 million more dollars in our budget had all of those students been there at October count," Carpenter said. "That would have been great to have."
The state approved funds to help districts around the state dealing with an influx of migrant students coming after that initial count day. Through that, DPS received $5 million. The money is helping the district even now as DPS continues to shift additional staff, teachers and resources toward the schools that are dealing with large influxes of students.
"We have over 200 schools within Denver Public Schools. There are 15 we're monitoring really closely and only 20 classrooms. So if you're in one of those 20 classrooms, it's a big deal. That's not the entire system and we're trying to focus our energy in those places that we know need it the most," Carpenter said.
With students back in class for this school year, DPS said they're in close contact with the city in case additional migrant families arrive. If that happens, they have the resources and the staff ready to help more students succeed if more students enroll.
"I mean, we certainly are more prepared than last year," Carpenter said. "I hope we do a good job for the students and the families. We certainly have a good playbook to run and hopefully, we can respond."
Of the 4,700 new-to-country students that joined DPS during the last school year, Huber said right now, roughly 78% of those kids are back for the current school year.
While enrollment numbers are expected to shift over the next few weeks, DPS said with fewer new families arriving to Denver, they're expecting a more traditional year for enrollment and schools.