This commentary is by Ty Haney and Katie Wolf, parents and members of the Flatirons Elementary School community.
A neighborhood elementary school is more than a building where kids learn to read. It is the beating heart of a neighborhood.
It is where children walk to school in the morning. Where parents meet one another. Where friendships form among families who live blocks apart. It is a playground, a gathering place and an anchor connecting generations of neighbors.
Closing a neighborhood school is like ripping the heart out of a neighborhood.
The Boulder Valley School District recently proposed closing four neighborhood elementary schools in response to declining enrollment. In doing so, the district is asking us to accept a simple premise: Enrollment is declining, so neighborhood schools must close.
Under BVSD’s Aug. 25 proposal, the district would close Birch, Douglass, Mesa and Flatirons elementary schools. District officials say consolidation would reduce empty seats and give schools a fuller complement of teachers, counselors and programs. But closing schools is not the only way to achieve those goals.
Declining enrollment is real, but school closures are not inevitable. They are a policy choice.
That doesn’t mean there is nothing to fix. Smaller schools can cost more per student, and uneven enrollment makes it harder to distribute teachers, specialists and programs equitably. But before the school board makes a decision this disruptive and irreversible, we should ask a more fundamental question: Have we exhausted less destructive ways to adapt?
Start with the district’s own cost structure.
Our analysis of BVSD budgets over the last decade found that central administrative costs grew about 50% while enrollment declined about 10%. If the district has fewer students but substantially more bureaucracy, closing neighborhood schools should not be the first or only answer to the resulting financial pressure.
The proposed closures also need to be put in perspective. BVSD estimates the district would save approximately $3.5 million to $4 million annually, a small fraction of its overall budget, while one-time facility modifications could cost up to $10 million, plus transition costs. That’s very little savings for a lot of community heartbreak.
We’ve been down this road before. BVSD closed multiple schools in 2003. The district has never publicly disclosed to the community how much those closures saved. During an Aug. 31 livestream, however, Superintendent Rob Anderson said that, more than 20 years later, the district is still hearing about the fallout.
This isn’t unique to Boulder. A recent Stanford University study found that school closures rarely bring the savings districts expect, especially when closures prompt students to leave the district entirely.
There is another lever BVSD can pull: the enrollment system itself.
BVSD doesn’t simply send every child to the closest school. Neighborhood boundaries, open enrollment, focus programs and other policies influence where students go. The distribution of students among our schools isn’t purely an act of nature. It is something we designed.
And what we designed, we can redesign.
If one school is overcrowded while another nearby neighborhood school has empty seats, we can redraw boundaries. We can reform open enrollment. We can place attractive programs in under-enrolled schools. We can change how choice interacts with neighborhood enrollment. We can intentionally distribute students and resources more effectively across the district.
These options involve tradeoffs. But so does closing a school.
Declining enrollment requires change. Pretending otherwise won’t help our children, teachers or taxpayers. But change does not automatically mean closure.
Before permanently removing the hearts of our neighborhoods, the district should show the community how the alternatives compare with the closure plan. What happens if we reduce administrative growth? What happens if we reform enrollment policies? Could a combination of approaches preserve neighborhood schools while addressing the district’s resource constraints?
Those scenarios should be modeled publicly and compared with closures in terms of finances, educational outcomes, transportation, community impact and long-term flexibility.
Only then can the community understand the actual choices in front of us.
The most dangerous idea in this debate is that we have no choice at all.
We do.
Closing neighborhood schools is a choice. Before we make it, we’re asking BVSD to delay the vote and prove it is the best one.
Complaining administrative costs growing by “50%” is classic misdirection. If the district spent $1m on administrative costs, and that grew to $1.5m over the last 10 years, that’s a drop in the bucket compared to the $35-$40m BVSD could save over the next 10 years with closures.
Moreover, it is misleading to suggest that this growth is useless “bureaucracy.” It’s reasonable for salaries to increase for administrators, just like they do for teachers. And in the last 10 years, administrative responsibilities have increased. The state and the federal government require more of schools, which increases administrative burdens. Everyone deserves raises, and compliance with the law is not free.
Increasing costs and decreased funding are tied to declining enrollment. We can’t overcome that math with administrative costs or enrollment policies. The solution is more students. And that requires more housing, to make it more affordable for young families to live in BVSD. Hopefully the people unhappy about school closures will start demanding a solution that will actually work.
I don’t see how BVSD can justify its administrative overhead
Change Enrollment 2022 v 2027
29,011 – 2022
27,541 – 2026
−5.1%
Administrator headcount
68 – 2022
76 – 2026
+11.8%
Teacher headcount
1,818 – 2022
1,649 – 2026
−9.3%
YES!!!!
Flatirons Elementary is more than a school. It is part of the heart and identity of Boulder. For generations, it has helped shape young people who carry forward the values, character, and sense of community that make this mountainside town such an extraordinary place to call home.
If we want Boulder to remain a place where young families can put down roots, raise their children, and invest in our community, we must protect the institutions that make that possible. Flatirons is one of them.
Losing a historic and exceptional school like Flatirons would mean losing far more than a building or a line item on a budget. We would be giving up a piece of Boulder’s identity and diminishing the future we hope to leave to the next generation. Flatirons Elementary is not simply a neighborhood school. It is an irreplaceable community asset worth fighting for.
Flatirons Elementary is an invaluable part of Boulder, both culturally and economically (considering neighborhood real estate implications). It embodies the values that make this mountainside community so special and helps pass those values on to the next generation.
If we want Boulder to remain a place where young families choose to put down roots and build a future, we must protect institutions like Flatirons. This historic and exceptional school is more than a neighborhood asset. It is an investment in the future of our entire Boulder community.
Thank you for bringing in a well spoke alternative idea to the issue – Most don’t remember the closing of Mapleton Elementary school or Washington Schools it was a travesty and something regrated later as you said it did not help the financial crisis at the time. BVSD administration cost needs to be looked at in detail; I had a friend working there for over 20 years and was always in shock at how many high paid upper management there is and how much waste – also how many are still working from home or remotely? How much does open enrollment cost us? because it breaks down the neighborhood schools too, how many people send their kids to private schools and get tax breaks. So much to learn about before school closure – they are an easy mark
We as a community should have the power to rethink and restructure the system. The old way does not serve us anymore, it’s in our hands to be creative in addressing an obstacle that will eventually bring advancement to all. We can do this. We don’t need to close schools we just need to show up and support each other.
Yes to multifaceted approach, but school closure has to be part of the equation given the trend data. In addition to closure, cut admin, redraw boundaries and change programming at underenrolled schools. We’ll likely need to close 2-3 more elementary schools and 1-2 middle schools within next 5 years. Agreed that preserving neighborhood schools should be the priority over focus/charter.