Boundary adjustment proposals aim to rebalance school neighborhood populations in the context of declining enrollment

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The Board continued its conversation about school attendance area boundaries at a work session earlier this month. This time, the Board took a closer look at elementary school boundaries in Boulder, which has seen greater enrollment losses than other areas of the district.  

Watch the latest board discussion on the topic and the first work session in January. 

The discussion looked at attendance areas regionally, with Boulder divided into north and south, generally following the feeder areas for Boulder and Fairview high schools. Among Boulder elementary schools, the size of attendance areas ranges from fewer than 200 students to over 600 students. Adjusting boundaries can rebalance the number of students assigned to each school and support long term planning for the district. However, with open enrollment, ultimately parents decide where students will attend.

An elementary school needs around 300 students to have two classes per grade level, which is an enrollment target identified in the Long Range Advisory Committee metrics. Because schools are funded on a per pupil basis, fewer students means less resources, which could lead to reduced FTE for media specialists, specials teachers (Art, Music, P.E.), counselors, or even classroom teachers.

Preliminary boundary adjustment ideas take aim at geographic population disparity

Staff offered five preliminary boundary change considerations to the Board: two in north Boulder, two in south Boulder and one that affects schools in both regions. 

Assistant Superintendent Rob Price explained that several of the suggestions aim to  balance the number of resident students between attendance areas. For example, one idea proposes reassigning an area east of the Diagonal Highway in Gunbarrel from Crest View, which has 684 students in its attendance area, to Heatherwood, which has 305. There are currently 52 elementary students living in the area. 

Another idea would reassign an area west of Broadway and south of Baseline from Creekside, which has 495 students in its attendance area, to Flatirons which has 193 resident students. There are currently 48 students living in the identified area. 

Staff also suggested the Board could consider converting a dual enrollment area west of Broadway and north of Table Mesa which is currently assigned to both Bear Creek and Creekside to being Bear Creek only. Similarly, another idea shifts a small area west of Broadway and north of Table Mesa from Creekside to Bear Creek. There are 41 students living in these areas combined.

Both Crest View and Creekside have more students living in their attendance areas than could fit in those schools if they all chose to attend. 

The Board was also asked to consider eliminating a non-contiguous “bubble” area within the Whittier attendance zone which is currently assigned to Creekside. There are currently six students living in that area. 

Staff emphasized that the proposed considerations are preliminary and there is still work to do to explore the potential ramifications and outcomes. Community surveys and engagement would be part of processing the ideas. 

Schools foster community in a variety of ways

Throughout the work session, Board members commented on the importance of schools in fostering community connections—whether from shared geography or a shared focus on a program or mission—and how they might be affected by families choosing to leave neighborhoods to attend other schools or by feeder patterns that assign students from one elementary school to different middle and high schools. 

“I see the benefit of the cohesion of elementary schools feeding into a middle, but I also want to be open to supporting open enrollment into our middle schools,” Board member Alex Medler commented. 

The Board asked staff to continue to explore the proposed changes and also requested staff look at simplifying school level feeder patterns to create the opportunity for neighborhood students to matriculate through the system together in their neighborhood schools. 

Plenty of available seats allow students to enroll throughout the district

Collectively, the schools in north Boulder, including Columbine, Crest View, Flatirons, Foothill, Gold Hill, Heatherwood, Jamestown, University Hill, and Whittier, are approximately 60% full, looking at the number of students enrolled compared to how many the buildings could hold. That percentage is expected to drop to 53 in five years. Among north Boulder families, 42% choose to enroll into a school that is not their neighborhood school. This number is 36% for the District as a whole at the elementary level. Overall, the north Boulder schools see a net loss of 290 students from the area. 

The south Boulder schools, which include BCSIS, Bear Creek, Community Montessori, Creekside, Douglass, Eisenhower, High Peaks, Horizons K-5, and Mesa, are at 71% of capacity all together. This number is projected to drop to 65% in five years. Although 1,664 students live in the area, over 2,400 are enrolled in schools there. The open enrollment rate in south Boulder matches the district rate as a whole. Overall, the south Boulder schools see a net gain of 631 students to the area. 

There are four elementary focus/charter schools in south Boulder and one in north Boulder. These schools have no assigned attendance area and rely solely on open enrollment to fill their seats. 

Board President Nicole Rajpal noted that south Boulder has the smallest resident population in the school district and the second largest capacity. Much of that capacity is in focus and charter schools and is filled by students from north and south Boulder as well as other areas of the district. 

Superintendent Anderson remarked that BVSD families make school choices for many different reasons—programs, geography (even for focus and charter schools), feeder patterns, and friend groups, among others. It is difficult to predict how families may react to boundary changes. 

The amount of excess capacity across BVSD schools can also be a challenge in terms of not having enough students—and the funding that comes with them—to be able to provide the full spectrum of resources to schools.

“It is really challenging that we have schools that are approaching 50% capacity," President Rajpal commented. “As time goes by, we are going to continue to see that our schools are going to not be at capacity and are going to continue to approach the thresholds that LRAC has identified,” she noted. “We are going to have Choice, but we have a lot of facilities and at some point, I know it's not today, but at some point we are going to have to have fewer facilities.”

The Board will come back to this topic at a 3-hour work session in May and will also take a closer look at the District’s focus schools. At this time, no changes are being considered for the 2025-26 school year.