DPS recommends 3 schools for closure due to 'critically low enrollment'
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Loading... - Pauline Roussel
- 09 Mar 2023
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The DPS Board of Education will formally vote on whether to close the three schools at a meeting Thursday.
The Denver Public Schools Board of Education is expected to vote Thursday on the recommended closures of three schools due to "critically low enrollment."
The schools recommended for closure are Denver Discovery, Fairview Elementary, and the Mathematics and Science Leadership Academy (MSLA).
The plan calls for closing the three schools by the end of the 2022-23 school year. Students at MSLA would be unified with Valverde, and Fairview Elementary students would be unified with Cheltenham for the 2023-24 school year. Denver Discovery students and families would be given priority enrollment to secure a preferred school within the district.
"I think overwhelmed, exhausted is a good way of putting it because you know our educators have been dealing with this last year in depth but also the last few years," said Rob Gould, president of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association (DCTA). "It's difficult when we have disruption. It's that way for our educators, but more importantly, it's how our students are feeling about this."
A presentation to be given at a special board meeting Thursday details the projected total enrollment at the three schools falling short of expectations.
Staff at all of three schools are guaranteed other positions because of an agreement DCTA made with DPS ahead of any consolidation.
"It's about the continuity for the students and making sure students have access to those excellent educators that they've had in these schools," Gould said.
Community members, parents and teachers have been vocal against the possibility of closing the schools at DPS meetings.
"Fairview is where I learned to teach. The community embraced me. That’s why I come back – the community," said Ashley Juhala, a special education teacher at the school. "Sun Valley residents are incredibly resilient. It's unlike anywhere else."
She said teaching this year, while the future of the school has been debated at school board meetings for months, has been difficult.
"It's been repeatedly traumatizing, we had this conversation last year. And it was traumatic. We had this conversation in the fall and it was traumatic," she said. "And it's kind of like, trying to get through a school year and being repeatedly told, you're dying. It's like the opposite of speaking life into a community."
The problem of declining enrollment isn't new. But the Fairview community argues their situation is different. Read More…
