Boulder Valley School District Closes Four Elementary Schools Amid Enrollment Decline The Boulder Valley School District will close four elementary schools, restructure two K-8 schools and relocate two focus schools in response to declining enrollment. The Boulder Valley School District will close four elementary schools, restructure grade levels at two K-8 schools and relocate two elementary focus schools in response to continued enrollment declines. The decision followed a school board vote on Tuesday, with demonstrators rallying outside the Education Center at Arapahoe Avenue and 65th Street in Boulder. Board Vote and Community ReactionDemonstrators held signs, chanted and waved at passing vehicles near the Boulder Valley School District Education Center on Tuesday. People gathered on both sides of 65th Street and Arapahoe Avenue in support of Douglass, Flatirons, Mesa and Birch elementary schools, which will be closed after the vote by the Boulder Valley School Board.Parents also gathered more than 5,500 petition signatures urging a no vote. School board President Nicole Rajpal said the seven board members knew they could not continue to provide the educational services students deserve if they chose an easy route and did nothing. She added that if they voted to not close schools today, they would not only be saddling a future board with this difficult work but also actively creating a segregated school district.Details of School Closures and RestructuringWith the board’s vote, the district will close Boulder’s Douglass Elementary, Mesa Elementary and Flatirons Elementary and Broomfield’s Birch Elementary. Eldorado PK-8 in Superior will become an elementary school only, while Monarch PK-8 in Louisville will become a middle school only.High Peaks and Community Montessori, two south Boulder elementary focus or magnet schools, will be relocated. High Peaks will move to the Douglass building. Community Montessori will move to the former High Peaks space on the Aurora 7 campus, co-locating with the Boulder Community School of Integrated Studies. The Community Montessori building will close.District leaders say closures are needed because declining enrollment is impacting the student learning experience at increasingly small schools, which have part-time, traveling support staff, limited after-school opportunities, and little flexibility to maintain consistent class sizes from year to year. The goal, they said, is to decrease unused school capacity by closing under-enrolled schools and consolidating resources in the remaining schools.Impact on Enrollment and SavingsThis school year, according to the district, 29 schools have teachers who travel to more than one school to teach classes such as art and music. After closures, the district estimates that number will drop to 14 schools. Altogether, including relocations and schools where students would be reassigned, 16 of the district’s 56 schools will be impacted by the proposal.The closures are expected to reduce the district’s excess elementary school capacity from 37% to 32%, as well as to save up to $4 million a year. The district has promised to invest the savings in smaller class sizes and additional school support staff.The no votes came from the board’s two newest members, Ana Temu Otting and Deann Bucher, who were elected in November and were not part of the original October decision to direct the district to move faster on declining enrollment solutions and take a regional approach.Proposed Amendments and Future ConcernsTemu Otting proposed removing Broomfield schools to allow more time to see how the educational landscape may change there. She said Adams 12 is proposing closing a nearby Broomfield elementary school, which could impact enrollment on the Boulder Valley side. She added she is seeing more families move to the area. The new families do give her reason to question whether waiting will give a clearer picture of where Broomfield is headed, she said.Bucher proposed removing Douglass Elementary and the relocation of High Peaks from the proposal, saying Douglass should be redesignated as a rural school. Closing Douglass would remove the only community center in the area for the last 75 years, she said. Bucher also proposed an amendment that the district should make all efforts to allow the children of teachers who must move schools to enroll in the teachers’ new schools. Superintendent Rob Anderson instead proposed developing a memorandum of understanding with the Boulder Valley Education Association to support those teachers, and Bucher agreed to withdraw that amendment. An amendment by school board member Alex Medler to give an enrollment preference to Community Montessori and High Peaks families so they have a guaranteed spot to return to their neighborhood schools also failed. Other board members said they were willing to discuss a districtwide preference, but did not want to add a preference for a single school as part of school closures.Concerns raised by families include that the schools projected to remain under-enrolled after closures will not receive promised resources, as well as that some students may face additional school closures in future years. Many parents asked the district to pause before making an irreversible decision.