Douglas County to close 3 elementary schools next year as enrollment falls

The Douglas County School District will close three elementary schools next year, becoming the latest K-12 system in metro Denver to shutter buildings because of declining enrollment.

The district’s seven-member Board of Education voted unanimously Tuesday evening to approve the closure of three schools: Acres Green Elementary in Littleton and Heritage and Saddle Ranch elementaries in Highlands Ranch.

“We know a lot of families are very upset with the district, and we stand ready to support our families and our students with what ever they need moving forward,” said Superintendent Erin Kane.

Sixth-graders who attend elementary schools that feed into Highlands Ranch, Mountain Vista and ThunderRidge high schools also will move to middle schools, a plan that Kane previously said will help middle schools struggling with low enrollment.

The school closures go into effect on July 1, 2026.

More than 900 K-12 students attend the three schools, which also employ 217 educators, according to the district.

The district has guaranteed that staff members affected by the closures will be able to get another position within the district.

Before their vote, board members expressed how difficult the decision to close schools was for them and support for district workers in crafting their recommendation.

“This is hard,” said board President Christy Williams before the vote. “None of the seven of us want to be in this position.”

A few parents pushed back on the school closures during the meeting’s public comment session, including on what they said was a lack of transparency regarding the process used by district officials to decide which schools to close.

“We have said it over and over again…the transparency of this recommendation process is seriously lacking,” one parent said. “I understand the benefits of this consolidation. I’m not arguing against that. I’m arguing against the process of the pairing schools recommendation.

The Douglas County School District is the state’s third-largest district, enrolling 61,851 students as of October. That’s down 7% or 4,851 pupils from a decade ago, according to data from the Colorado Department of Education.

Statewide, K-12 public school enrollment has fallen for more than a decade as fewer Coloradans have babies. In metro Denver, high housing costs are also shifting where families live, meaning that districts, such as Douglas County, are also building new schools even as they close others.

Other districts also have closed schools or plan to because declining enrollment is putting financial pressure on their balance sheets, as schools are funded based on the number of students in their classrooms.

Denver Public Schools will close and restructure 10 schools at the end of the current academic year. Jeffco Public Schools has shuttered more than a dozen schools in recent years.

In Douglas County, declining enrollment has been most prominent in Highlands Ranch.

More than 7,400 students attend elementary school in Highlands Ranch, down from more than 10,400 children a decade ago, according to the school district. Eleven of the elementary schools that send students to the three high schools — Mountain Vista, Thunderridge and Highlands Ranch — in the suburb are projected to have fewer than 400 students, according to the resolution passed by the school board Tuesday.

District officials looked at 16 Highlands Ranch schools before recommending which ones the school board should close.

Under the district’s plan, Acres Green students will move to Fox Creek Elementary School, unless they are affected by school boundary changes also passed by the board Tuesday.

Heritage students will go to Summit View Elementary School, and Saddle Ranch pupils will go to Eldorado Elementary School unless they are affected by the boundary changes.

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