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The Jeffco faculty district is contemplating closing a college that serves grades 7-12 and turning it right into a specialised highschool the place college students would examine for explicit profession paths.
The draft plan for Jefferson Jr./Sr. Excessive College in Edgewater was mentioned by the Jeffco faculty board on Wednesday after it was first offered to the neighborhood final month.
The district isn’t calling the proposed adjustments a college closure. Fairly, it’s calling it a transition, regardless that the constructing would possible not serve any college students for at the very least a yr and will serve fewer grades when it reopens. Not like up to now, district leaders say they’ve time to work on the plan and need the neighborhood’s enter. No remaining determination has been made.
“If we discover that there’s help for this plan, that we are able to construct one thing with neighborhood that there’s real pleasure about and momentum for,” then the district would possibly current a remaining suggestion to the board in June or August, stated Claire Takhar, Jeffco’s govt director of strategic initiatives. A closure wouldn’t occur till the 2026-27 faculty yr.
The draft plan is the results of a college boundary examine the district commissioned final yr that seemed on the long-term viability of the district’s present faculty feeder patterns. The examine discovered that the Jefferson articulation space served the fewest college students within the district and was anticipated to proceed to see enrollment declines. If enrollment this fall confirmed proof that the estimates have been on observe, the district wanted to give you a plan, district leaders stated.
Proper now, Jefferson Jr./Sr. Excessive is serving 629 college students, barely up from final yr’s official rely of 594 college students. A bit greater than 78% of the college’s college students qualify for sponsored meals, a measure of poverty.
The district’s boundary examine made a couple of short-term suggestions for boundary adjustments within the district, and a few long-term suggestions that might end in extra faculty consolidations sooner or later.
For now, Jeffco leaders stated they don’t seem to be contemplating adjustments to some other faculties.
In comparison with the opposite short-term suggestions, the boundary examine didn’t counsel a selected change to the Jefferson articulation space, however did conclude that the boundary was unsustainable resulting from anticipated declining enrollment. The examine estimated that by the 2027-28 faculty yr, Jefferson Jr./Sr. Excessive would solely serve roughly 372 college students.
The district has since adjusted these numbers and on Wednesday instructed the college board that it expects the college to serve 447 college students in 4 years, nonetheless properly under the college’s capability.
The examine additionally checked out the potential for rearranging faculty boundaries to even out enrollment. But it surely discovered that due to faculty selection, which permits so many college students to select a college exterior their neighborhood, boundary adjustments have little impact on balancing enrollment.
Within the 2023-24 faculty yr, the examine discovered 40% of all Jeffco college students have been selecting a college exterior their designated boundary.
Within the boundary of Jefferson Jr./Sr. Excessive, the district discovered that 47% of households are selecting different center or excessive faculties.
“Merely shifting boundary strains with out closing a college and eliminating that possibility is unlikely to power a change in enrollment conduct of our households,” the report acknowledged.
“We’re taking a look at an unlucky sufferer of the privilege of selection for households,” stated Jeffco board member Erin Kane. “My concern particularly is we’re seeing one other Title I faculty basically being deserted resulting from neighborhood selection. It’s a extremely exhausting actuality.”
District workers identified that demographics additionally play a big position within the neighborhood’s enrollment decline.
“Edgewater itself as a metropolis is altering actually quickly,” stated Lisa Relou, the district’s chief of workers. “Gentrification is going on at a speedy tempo.”
Relou additionally identified that simply on the opposite facet of Edgewater, the Denver faculty district had really helpful closing close by Colfax Elementary for low enrollment. That college has been spared for now.
The examine additionally discovered that the district is serving about 91% of the youngsters within the county, that means that enrollment declines can’t simply be attributed to college students selecting choices exterior of the district equivalent to non-public faculties or homeschooling.
Even creating specialised programming “doesn’t essentially attract new households to Jeffco; as an alternative, these packages merely inspired extra motion throughout the district itself,” the examine acknowledged.
Nonetheless, on Wednesday, district workers talked about doing simply that with Jefferson Jr./Sr. Excessive. The draft plan from the district would shut the college for the 2026-27 faculty yr, and doubtlessly reopen it a yr later as a brand new possibility faculty for highschool college students.
The plan additionally would transfer sixth grade college students out of elementary faculties within the space in order that by 2026-27, Lumberg and Edgewater elementary faculties would solely serve preschool by fifth grade. For secondary grades, the neighborhood would merge with the Wheat Ridge articulation space, so college students would feed into Everitt Center College after which into Wheat Ridge Excessive College.
Over the following couple of months, the district is planning to host “co-design classes” with the neighborhood to discover the plan in additional element, with a deal with what sort of faculty Jefferson Jr./Sr. Excessive would flip into.
Two preliminary choices embody a deal with profession training, however one would permit college students to attend the newly designed faculty part-time, much like the district’s Warren Tech mannequin. The second possibility can be a full-time career-focused faculty.
One board member characterised the proposal as “ambiguous.”
Member Danielle Varda stated “it sounds lots like closing a college, consolidating and determining what to do with the constructing, simply stated in numerous methods. I feel folks would possibly really feel the identical method.”
Superintendent Tracy Dorland stated that as a result of the district is permitting the neighborhood to assist it plan, leaders don’t but have solutions to all of the questions being posed by households and neighborhood members.
“I really feel like there hasn’t been an expertise, particularly on this neighborhood, however I feel in a lot of our communities, the place district management is sitting down on the desk saying, ‘Let’s speak about this, we don’t have all of the solutions,’ and other people truly believing us, and understanding that the opposite facet of the coin of the district not having all of the solutions is ambiguity and a necessity from district management for folks to carry options and concepts,” Dorland stated. “It’s actually uncharted territory.”
The Jeffco faculty district, which this yr is serving 75,495 college students, the second largest district within the state, has already closed 21 faculties since 2021 resulting from massive drops in enrollment.
On the time of these faculty closures, the district dedicated to not closing any excessive faculties and issued a moratorium on such closures, however that moratorium has ended.
In line with the boundary examine, Jeffco nonetheless has 18 faculties which can be beneath 60% capability. The examine projected that quantity to develop to twenty-eight faculties by 2027-28. On the identical time, seven faculties are over 100% capability. In 2027-28, the examine projected six faculties to be over capability.
District leaders stated that whereas the choice to shut or transition Jefferson Jr./Sr. Excessive hasn’t been made, the worry is that if the college’s enrollment downside isn’t addressed, in a couple of years, the district should shut it when enrollment turns into unsustainable.
The primary neighborhood co-design assembly is scheduled for Feb. 11.
Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado masking Ok-12 faculty districts and multilingual training. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.