On November 7, the Denver Public Schools (DPS) Superintendent will announce a list of schools to be closed for the 2025-26 school year. During the next nine days, the school board and the Superintendent will meet with affected school communities to provide “counseling and care” as they explain how the closures will affect them. On November 21, the school board will vote on the Superintendent’s recommendations to close the named schools.
Since school choice covers many options, it can be confusing, and it is often the “subject of fierce debate in various state legislatures across the United States.”
Before the June 13 board meeting, board members had been committed to specifically not including any reference to standardized testing and state performance frameworks results as criteria for school closure decisions.
The candidate, backed by Jared Polis, has been boosted by over half a million dollars of dark money.
Advocacy organizations also weigh in on HB24-1363.
In January 2024, the Colorado Department of Education announced that “PK-12 student enrollment reached the state’s lowest mark in a decade.” The declines are across the state, as “forty-three of the 64 counties had an absolute decline in the under-18 population over the last decade,” according to state demographer Elizabeth Garner. “It doesn’t matter where you were — Eastern Plains, San Luis Valley, West Slope, Denver metro.” She predicts the declines will continue through the 2028-29 school year.
