FORT COLLINS, Colo. —
Plans to consolidate a number of schools within the Poudre School District are being put on hold after a board meeting last night drew in hundreds of concerned community members.
Students, family members and district alumni have demanded answers from the district on the consolidation plans, calling for more time so they can weigh in.
Now, Poudre Schools is pushing back, and said big changes are needed to keep the district stable moving forward.
The layout of district will stay as is, at least for now. The district said Tuesday it will pause plans to close and merge some schools following pushback from the community.
“I think it was very important that it was delayed so that we can come forward with all of these communities and move forward," said Joe Gawronski, who recently retired from his longtime position as principal at Polaris Expeditionary Learning within the school district.
Gawronski said the speed the district was trying to push through these plans was concerning. And when it comes to the plans themselves, Gawronski said the plans simply didn't make sense for students. Poudre's initial consolidation model included plans to break up Polaris and send students to Olander Elementary and Blevins Middle School.
“I think it would be very disruptive to our program and I also think that it’s important to think how disruptive it would be to a school like Blevins," Gawronski said. “I’m not so sure the Blevins community would want to get rid of finals in order to do presentations learning or get rid of some of the assessments required by the district in order to work on portfolios."
The district said they intended to expand the Polaris model but Gawronski said it would be very tricky.
“All of those structures that we have, if you moved it into a comprehensive school and that community and our community tried to do both, I think both programs would get somewhat watered down,” he said.
Plans for the consolidation were put out by Poudre Oct. 5 and a vote was expected to take place just days later during Tuesday night's board meeting.
“Originally, the intent was for the board of education to take a vote on the changes that were communicated out on Oct. 5. And then, our superintendent Brian Kingsley in a presentation both to the board and community last night made a recommendation to slow down,” said Madeline Noblett, chief communications officer with the district.
Noblett said with that vote and consolidation model on hold, plans to merge and close schools within Poudre wouldn't take place until the 2025-2026 school year. But Noblett said the need to make these changes is still very needed.
“And really, what we are challenging members of our community to do is recognize the very real problem we face as a district," Noblett said. “We had not done a good job of helping to forecast that these challenges were coming. So, we’re really in a moment in time where we want people to understand the problem we face as a district and ask for their help and their partnership and their smart thinking."
The need to consolidate, Noblett said, comes from declining enrollment Poudre has been seeing since 2016. And those numbers are likely to continue to drop.
“Demographers are saying that Poudre School District may see declines of enrollment of about 10% in the next several years. And for us, with a budget of about $400 million annually, would equate to budget cuts of about $40 million. That is really significant in a system where the majority of our budget goes toward our people, goes toward our staff,” Noblett said.
But Gawronski said there's more Poudre can do to help beyond closing schools.
“If there are concerns due to declining enrollment, here’s one idea – Polaris hasn’t used a textbook in 16 years. We give every kid a laptop, especially at the secondary level. If they say the age of information is doubling every 18 months, how relevant is that textbook? We can save millions of dollars across the district by thinking – why do we need textbooks anymore?” Gawronski said. “Secondly, we can cap our school’s enrollments depending on what the overall enrollment is at the district level.”
But Noblett stressed that unless enrollment improves, the district will need to make tough decisions very soon.
The district said it will create a steering committee to help get community members involved with any consolidation plans. Noblett said they'll be holding listening sessions in the community over the next few months to make sure students and families have a chance to weigh in on the best way to navigate these upcoming challenges.
“The challenges that lie ahead are very real and they will be hard but we think we can get through those together,” Noblett said.
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