This fall, Denver Public Schools held a series of six regional community meetings as part of an effort to adjust enrollment boundaries and zones called Redrawing Our District Equitably (RODE). At the conclusion of October, DPS was set to provide recommendations to the DPS Board for potential adjustments.
Also in October, schools across the state participate in what’s called “October Count” – a period of time where schools and districts report their enrollment to the state to determine potential funding adjustments. At this month’s board work session (October 8th), Superintendent Dr. Alex Marrero shared dire news with the board. DPS enrollment is 1,784 students fewer than it was this time last year, exceeding projected declines.
Using current target class size caps of 30 students per class in an elementary school, a school with two classrooms per grade level Kindergarten through 5th grade is approximately 360 students. That means from last year to this year alone, we have lost the number of students equivalent to nearly five elementary schools. At the same time, enrollment projections for the next five years continue to show more enrollment declines.
Along with sharing that data, Dr. Marrero recommended pausing boundary adjustments until they happen as part of a school closure process. That recommendation is the right one. We must do more than just redraw the lines around our schools, but instead the harder work of rightsizing schools to ensure that all students have access to a quality public school.
Our team attended each of the RODE community meetings. Here’s what we heard during this process that the DPS Board and Superintendent Dr. Marrero should remember as we prepare for that difficult but necessary process.
1) Families wanted to know how this plan would increase the quality of schools in Denver, not just make it more competitive to get into “good” ones.
While families understood the challenges that declining enrollment poses for the district financially, there were questions and comments at each meeting about the higher purpose or goal of the process. Was this just to try to balance out the number of students at each school? Or was this about trying to ensure every school in DPS was a great school that families wanted to choose?
At several meetings, DPS staff discussed a survey the district has started conducting during the SchoolChoice process. After families submit their application, they are sent a separate survey that asks them to share what their first choice school was and why they selected that school. Quality and reputation were highest on the list.
2) Families wanted to know how these plans would solve our transportation challenges.
It’s no surprise that proximity, another top criteria reported on the DPS SchoolChoice survey, plays a big role in how families select the best school for their children. Families wanted to know how DPS was using this process as an opportunity to make transportation more accessible and efficient.
Transportation equity ensures that families have safe routes to school and greater access to choice.
3) Everyone wanted to know that this process would be fair.
This was a particularly strong sentiment related to enrollment zones. Over time, DPS has created enrollment zones in different parts of the district for different reasons. The FNE MS and HS zones were created to increase achievement, a different purpose than the Central Park Elementary zone created to manage exploding elementary enrollment in a newly developing neighborhood. Then the most recent enrollment zones created in the Northwest, Southwest, and Central/Southeast were part of the last round of school closures.
Fair and clear rules about enrollment zones, for families and for schools, is critical for a district where nearly half of families utilize the SchoolChoice system.
4) Everyone wanted to see maps and respond to recommendations, not just data.
We applaud the district leaders who showed up in these meetings with humility and honesty while sharing tough data and answering even tougher questions. The data shared was transparent and regionally specific, which demonstrates responsiveness to feedback from the last round of community meetings about declining enrollment. However, participants at each meeting expressed an expectation that they would be responding to potential scenarios and maps, not just data.
Now that DPS has more time to engage each region on a longer timeline, we hope that leaders continue to respond to community feedback and come back to the table with real scenarios and trust in community to be part of the solution.
What happens next? On Thursday, October 15th, DPS formally announced their recommendation to the board to “make no changes to school boundaries and enrollment zones this fall.” This recommendation officially completes the review process and affirms that “existing school boundaries and enrollment zones will remain in place for the 2027-28 school year.”
However, the work is too urgent to fall to the background. Reach out to the DPS Board at board@dpsk12.org to share what YOU think DPS should keep in mind as we head into this next school closure process?