DENVER — As thousands of migrant students join Colorado's largest school district, it's stretching resources and staffing thin – and its budget, too.
Additional funding from the state could help districts like Denver Public Schools that are welcoming new students all the time.
Over the past year and a half, a steady stream of migrant families have made their way to Denver. And with their arrival, enrolling their children at Denver schools.
For Adrienne Endres, executive director of multilingual education at DPS, this has been a year like no other she has experienced. "We have never in my experience had an enrollment fluctuation as significant as this and with kiddos that have such significant needs, too," Endres said.
"But this is the first week we've actually seen a net decrease of about 40 to 50 kids," she added. "We still welcomed a lot of new arrivals last week but we're also starting to see quite a bit more attrition as housing is changing, shelter is changing at the city level."
Chuck Carpenter, the district's Chief Financial Officer (CFO), said the district has welcomed 3,700 migrant students since July. He said about 1,000 of those students started after Oct. 1, which is the day districts give a headcount of all their students to receive appropriate funding.
"A thousand kids is two or three whole schools that we did not get funding for," Carpenter told 9NEWS on Friday. "And it's not just in Denver, it's really across the metro area and the whole state."
These newcomer families are often unhoused or in temporary housing as they look for a more permanent place to stay. It can make planning for the district tricky.
"It is complicated when we're not sure when and how students are moving week to week," Endres said.
> Video below: More state funding could help districts welcoming new students
Aurora Public Schools (APS) has also seen a large increase in migrant students.
"We had multiple elementary [schools] that came back after Christmas break with 100 or more kids prior to Christmas break," said Brett Johnson, the CFO for APS. "So you can imagine walking into a school with 100 or more kids that you had, and imagining the programmatic challenges of adding classrooms, posting for new staff to accommodate those classrooms, those are all real-time additional costs that we’re unforeseeing when we develop our budget and when we established our funded pupil count for the year."
Johnson said APS has seen more than 3,000 new-to-country students this school year, with 1,300 of them arriving after Oct. 1.
"This represents a significant impact to schools that was unforeseen and has real costs," Johnson added.
Legislative bodies are hoping to reimburse these costs. A draft bill approved by the Joint Budget Committee would allocate $24 million to districts that have enrolled migrant students since Oct. 1.
The money would be allocated using a tiered system.
- $15,000 for 1-5 new migrant students
- $30,000 for 6-10 new migrant students
- $75,000 for 11-30 new migrant students
- $125,000 for 31-50 new migrant students
- $250,000 for 51-100 new migrant students
- $400,000 for 100-200 new migrant students
- $550,000 for 200-500 new migrant students
- $750,000 for 500 or more new migrant students
All districts would have the potential to receive $4,500 per student depending on certain enrollment numbers.
"Yeah, I think in a situation like this every little bit goes a long way, right? And so I think the potential funding could be a game change for some of our schools and for our overall approach to supporting these kiddos," Endres said.
"That money would reimburse us for [costs] we are already incurring," Johnson added.
A vote moved that draft bill forward last week.
If it passes down the road, it could mean millions in extra help for DPS and APS. That's money, Endres said, that will have a big impact on these children.
"It goes beyond just that we have one more student in the building," Endres said. "It's transportation, it's staffing, it's materials, it's mental health. It's all of the many things that go into having a student have a successful experience in a school."
If that extra funding for newcomers is approved by lawmakers, that money could be distributed to districts as soon as May.
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