Enrollment in Denver Public Schools is up for the second year, but school closures still planned

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Enrollment in Denver Public Schools is up for the second year in a row, reversing a years-long trend of declining student counts in Colorado’s largest school district. But Superintendent Alex Marrero said the boost isn’t enough to stop plans to close some schools with low enrollment.

A preliminary count showed 85,313 students were enrolled in kindergarten through 12th grade on Sept. 30, up 2% from 83,410 students in 2023 and up nearly 3% over 82,997 students in 2022. District staff presented the preliminary enrollment data to a school board committee Monday, cautioning that the official student count from Oct. 1 won’t be finalized until December.

Like last year , the enrollment boost is due to immigrant students, many from Venezuela and other South American countries , who have arrived — and stayed — in Denver, staff said.

Of the 4,763 migrant students who enrolled in DPS at any point last school year, 68% were still enrolled as of Sept. 30, according to a district presentation. Of the 3,941 migrant students who ended last school year with DPS, 80% were still enrolled as of Sept. 30.

That’s higher than the 75% retention rate the district was predicting based on previous years’ trends, said Katie Hechavarria, DPS executive director of finance.

Still, Marrero and school board members have signaled that they will move to close some schools with low enrollment at the end of the school year. Even though overall district enrollment is up for the last two years, it’s still lower than it was before the pandemic, when DPS had 86,949 students in kindergarten through 12th grade.

“Although we had a spike last year because of our new-to-country (students) and we have a little bit more than we projected, it’s not to the tune of the 5,000 to 8,000 students we lost,” Marrero said in an interview Monday.

Marrero will make recommendations for which schools to close, and the school board will have the final say. Marrero has said he will present his recommendations on Nov. 7 . The board is scheduled to vote two weeks later on Nov. 21.

Part of the need for school closures, officials have said, is that enrollment is uneven across the district. Some regions are experiencing growth while others are seeing declines.

That’s true at the school level, too. The preliminary data shows that some schools, including East High, South High, and Montbello Middle, enrolled more students than expected this fall and will receive extra per-pupil funding through a process DPS calls “fall adjustment.”

Other schools enrolled fewer students and will have to give back some per-pupil dollars. They include Responsive Arts and STEAM Academy, or RASA, a brand new elementary school in far northeast Denver that enrolled just 109 students, much fewer than the 225 the district expected.

RASA was supposed to open with kindergarten, first, and second grades this fall. But due to lower than expected enrollment, Hechavarria said the school instead opened with just kindergarten and first grade, with plans to add additional grades in future years.

DPS’ K-12 pupil count determines how much funding the district receives from the state. The district has estimated it will receive about $11,720 per student this school year.

Preschool is funded differently, but enrollment in DPS preschool is also up from last year, according to the preliminary data. As of Sept. 30, DPS counted 5,125 preschoolers — more than in any year since 2019 — and still had “ample capacity” for more young students to enroll.

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org .