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One of many Denver elementary faculties that can shut this spring will reopen within the fall as a preschool middle. One other would be the new house of an present center and highschool that serves college students who’ve struggled elsewhere.
The destiny of three extra soon-to-be vacant buildings continues to be up within the air.
The Denver faculty board voted in November to shut seven faculties on the finish of the varsity yr and partially shut three extra because of declining enrollment. However solely 5 of the ten faculties are in standalone buildings that can turn out to be empty this summer season. The opposite 5 faculties share buildings with different faculties that can stay open.
As falling start charges result in enrollment declines throughout Colorado, an increasing number of faculty districts discover themselves going through the identical tough questions as Denver: When is it crucial to shut a faculty due to low enrollment? And what ought to the district do with the empty constructing?
Some districts, together with Jeffco Public Colleges, have bought shuttered faculty buildings to native municipalities, housing builders, or personal faculties. Others, like Aurora Public Colleges, have reopened some buildings as magnet applications. The Thompson Faculty District in Loveland labored with a nonprofit to transform certainly one of its vacant buildings right into a youth homeless shelter.
Denver Public Colleges officers just lately up to date the varsity board on plans for repurposing the 5 buildings that can turn out to be vacant this summer season, which they’ve pledged to not promote. The plans had been knowledgeable by the outcomes of a survey despatched to households on the 5 elementary faculties, in addition to by neighborhood conferences at three of the colleges: Palmer, Castro, and Columbian.
What is going to occur to the 5 buildings?
Palmer Elementary Faculty, positioned at 995 Grape St., will turn out to be a preschool middle for the 2025-26 faculty yr. Palmer presently has three preschool school rooms and can develop to 4 preschool school rooms subsequent yr, consistent with what households mentioned they wished.
The district hasn’t but determined what to do with the opposite classroom house within the constructing.
The college library at Palmer will stay open to the neighborhood, although district officers are nonetheless determining the small print. The district is “exploring each bodily separation” from the preschool school rooms “and time-limiting library entry to make sure that the protection of our college students stays our high precedence,” mentioned Andrew Huber, the chief director of enrollment and campus planning for DPS, in feedback emailed to Chalkbeat by a district spokesperson.
The repurposing of Palmer will take minor development work to deliver the constructing into compliance as a standalone preschool middle, Huber mentioned. The district doesn’t but have a value estimate, he mentioned, however plans to pay for the renovations with funding from a bond measure authorised by Denver voters in 2020 that was earmarked for preschool.
Palmer’s playground was beforehand up to date with cash from the 2020 bond. In complete, the district spent at the very least $4.6 million of 2020 bond {dollars} on the 5 closing elementary faculties whose buildings will probably be vacant or repurposed subsequent faculty yr.
Castro Elementary Faculty, positioned at 845 S. Lowell Blvd., will reopen this fall as the brand new house of Summit Academy, a district-run “pathways faculty” for center and highschool college students who’ve struggled at different faculties and could also be susceptible to dropping out.
A number of neighborhood members — together with Virginia Castro, the widow of Richard T. Castro, the civil rights activist for whom the elementary faculty was named — campaigned for Summit Academy to take over the constructing, at the same time as the varsity board rejected an software from a Denver constitution faculty, Compass Academy, that requested to do the identical.
Summit Academy is presently positioned about two and a half miles south of Castro in a constructing that neighborhood advocate Milo Marquez, co-chair of the Latino Schooling Coalition, described as a former financial institution constructing and not using a health club or sports activities fields.
“I visited the varsity and left with the sensation that these college students and their devoted academics and directors deserve an actual faculty,” Virginia Castro instructed the varsity board in January.
DPS will spend about $250,000 this summer season to maneuver Summit Academy’s furnishings and supplies to the Castro constructing, redo the signage and paint, add safety cameras, and purchase further excessive school-sized furnishings, Huber mentioned.
The district expects to spend $750,000 extra over the following yr so as to add science labs to the constructing, he mentioned. The cash will come from a separate bond measure Denver voters authorised in 2024. The 2024 bond included funds earmarked for college reconfigurations.
Regardless of surveying dad and mom and convening a neighborhood assembly, the district doesn’t but have a plan for the reuse of Columbian Elementary Faculty, positioned at 2925 W. fortieth.
The Columbian neighborhood expressed an curiosity within the constructing changing into a standalone preschool middle, like Palmer, however the district doesn’t want extra preschool seats within the northwest a part of the town, officers just lately instructed the varsity board.
Some neighborhood members requested about Columbian changing into a toddler care middle for infants and toddlers ages 0 to three. District officers mentioned they had been open to the concept, however it might take time to companion with the town or a neighborhood group to make that occur.
The subsequent step is for the district to carry extra neighborhood conferences and invite households and educators from different elementary faculties in northwest Denver to brainstorm, officers mentioned.
The district has not but held neighborhood conferences at Schmitt Elementary Faculty, positioned at 1820 S. Vallejo St., or the Worldwide Academy of Denver at Harrington, positioned at 2401 E. thirty seventh Ave. Huber mentioned that’s as a result of no single reuse emerged as the most well-liked possibility when the district surveyed households at these two faculties.
“At Harrington and Schmitt, the neighborhood had various concepts and distributed suggestions about attainable makes use of of the constructing, suggesting that we should always take our time making the correct choice somewhat than speeding it,” he mentioned.
Denver Public Colleges has repurposed vacant buildings earlier than. In 2021, the district leased the long-empty Rosedale Elementary constructing to the Catholic Archdiocese of Denver. It’s now house to St. John Paul the Nice Excessive Faculty. In 2023, DPS closed Fairview Elementary for low enrollment and repurposed the constructing for a particular schooling program.
Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.