Enrollment numbers drop less than expected in 2024, but more schools move into low enrollment advisory status

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As anticipated, enrollment numbers declined again in 2024. However the drop was smaller than expected at 0.5%, or a loss of 141 students compared to an anticipated loss of 388 or 1.4%. Declining enrollment is a concern because schools are funded on a per pupil basis, and fewer students means fewer resources, specifically staff, for schools.

The Board received the latest enrollment numbers in December, and this month, it learned that the shrinking numbers put eight schools on low enrollment advisory status with enrollments at less than 60% of building capacity and two or fewer average classes per grade level. Whittier and Eisenhower joined Coal Creek, Community Montessori, Eldorado K-5, Flatirons, Kohl, and Mesa, which were identified with low enrollment last year.  

The Enrollment Advisory phase does not call for any specific action but is a way to make school communities aware of the potential impacts of lower enrollment, such as multi-age classrooms or reduced FTE for media specialists, specials teachers (Art, Music, P.E.), counselors, etc.

“The design of Advisory was just to be transparent,” and have “no surprises,” Dr. Anderson explained. He added that he believes school communities have become engaged around enrollment and has met with schools and parent groups. 

This is the second year BVSD has presented the Annual Enrollment Trend Report which looks at enrollment for each school in terms of building capacity and the number of classes per grade level and applies metrics developed by the Long Range Advisory Committee (LRAC) to determine if any response is needed. Based on the metrics and data presented in the report, schools may be identified for either the Enrollment Advisory Phase or the Community Engagement Phase.

In the low enrollment advisory phase, a school will be held to the established staffing funding formulas, multi-age classrooms may be necessary, and library, counseling, and specials may be limited. At the community engagement phase, BVSD will call on the school community to collectively develop a plan for how to respond, which could include continuing to operate at the established staffing funding formula, developing focus or specialized programming, reallocating grade levels with a neighboring school or closure/consolidation.

No new schools were identified for a community engagement process, which gets triggered when a school has an enrollment of less than 50% of the building capacity and an average of 1.5 or fewer classes per grade. 

Last year, Heatherwood Elementary’s enrollment numbers prompted a community engagement  process to generate possible options for responding to the situation. In 2023, the school’s enrollment of 226 meant the building was at 46% of capacity and had only 1.5 classes per grade level. Through the engagement process, the Heatherwood community determined that it wanted to establish a new educational focus to attract new students to the school. This year, the school has been getting ready to launch an environmental STEAM program starting in the 2025-26 school year. Early data from Choice Enrollment this year show that no students residing in the Heatherwood attendance area applied to another school. 

Superintendent Anderson credits the community engagement process with getting the program choice right for the school. 

Check out these resources to learn more: 

• Heatherwood Community Engagement Process
• Heatherwood STEAM Presentation
• 2024 Annual Trend Report

Looking ahead, projections indicate that enrollment will continue to decline throughout the district out to the 2029 school year, albeit at a slower rate than last year’s estimate. Overall since the 2020-21 school year, BVSD enrollment has dropped 1,234 students with an average rate of decline of 2.3% per year. Projections show that we will lose another 521 students by 2029, putting nine schools at the Enrollment Advisory Phase and three at the Community Engagement Phase. These schools are distributed with eight in Boulder, one in Louisville, one in Superior, and two in Broomfield.

However, the projections don’t account for action the district is taking to try to slow the enrollment decline. In addition to the new program at Heatherwood, this year BVSD created the Bright Futures Choice Enrollment preference which gives an enrollment advantage to families that live outside of the district, but work here and choose to enroll their students here. According to Superintendent Anderson, 320 students applied with this preference and 269 have accepted seats. 

“Based on the policies this board has passed, based on the work that our team has done, we are trending in the direction we would have hoped for when we started this work back in 2021,”  Anderson said. 

“That doesn’t mean the work is done. We have lots to think about, to contemplate, especially about attendance boundaries and continuing to engage with LRAC,” Anderson commented to the Board.

Long Range Advisory Committee continues to look at enrollment in BVSD
The Board also heard an update from the Long Range Advisory Committee. This year, the group has been receiving updates from staff and looking at what is happening with enrollment at the middle level. Enrollment is also declining at the middle level grades, however middle schools are not affected as dramatically as elementary schools. In March, the committee will take a closer look at middle level enrollment at PK-8 schools. 

New enrollment dashboard will make data easier to understand and support transparency with the community
The Board also got a preview of a new data visualization tool intended to make enrollment data more understandable and transparent. The enrollment data dashboard brings together multiple enrollment-related data sets and creates visualizations to make it easier to see relationships and trends and interpret what is happening with enrollment in the district.

Superintendent Anderson explained that having these dashboards will let the Board take deep dives into the data and look at concerning trends.

“It gives us a set of tools to have the conversation. It allows us to be nimble and to have the conversations publicly that we’ll need to have,” Anderson commented. 

One visualization illustrates the information presented to the Board in the Annual Trend Report, specifically how many students are enrolled in each school compared to how many could be enrolled (% capacity) and the number of classes per grade level (rounds). 

Other visualizations show the trends for students enrolled in special programs over the past five years, the number of births in the district, and net enrollment gains and losses between BVSD and neighboring districts. 

Another visualization illustrates the movement of students among different schools through the Choice Enrollment process (formerly known as Open Enrollment). This data has historically been shared on BVSD’s website in the Open Enrollment matrices.

The dashboard is still in development. It is currently available to the Board and staff and will be made publicly available in the spring. 

Anderson told the Board he felt it was important to make this information available to anyone who wants to know to help the district build trust as we navigate this issue. 

“It’s really top notch. I’m impressed at the district’s follow through and commitment to transparency with the community,” Board member Alex Medler commented.

Board takes a fresh look at attendance area boundaries
The new enrollment data dashboard will be particularly useful as the Board moves forward with reviewing elementary school attendance boundaries and considers whether to make changes. The Board had an initial discussion about attendance area boundaries in January and will continue the conversation in March. 

Newly revised Policy JC now calls for the Board to review attendance area boundaries every five years. Prior to the change, the Board had not undertaken a comprehensive look at boundaries in approximately 40 years, although some adjustments have been made when schools have opened or closed. 

Attendance area boundaries assign students to a school according to their residential address where they are guaranteed a seat. Boundaries also provide the framework for bus transportation. 

The January work session focused mostly on elementary school boundaries. The discussion highlighted some characteristics of the existing attendance areas that the Board may want to review, such as fragmented, non-contiguous areas; dual enrollment areas; split elementary to middle school feeder systems; and elementary attendance areas with fewer than 300 students. 

An elementary school needs around 300 students to have two classes per grade level which is an enrollment target identified in the LRAC metrics. Some schools don’t have enough students living in their attendance area to meet that number, while others have more students than could fit in their building if they all chose to attend. At this time, there is enough movement of students through Choice enrollment that larger-than-capacity attendance areas are not a problem.

In Boulder, there are several instances where there is a geographic bubble of students located within one school’s attendance area that are assigned to another, making them non-contiguous with the primary area. There are also a few cases of dual enrollment areas that allow students to choose from multiple schools where they are guaranteed a seat until they choose to enroll in one. There are several dual areas at the elementary level in Boulder and one at the high school level in Gunbarrel. Also in Boulder, there are several examples of split feeder systems where students at one elementary school may be assigned to different middle and high schools depending on where they live.

Although students are assigned to a neighborhood school based on their address, they may choose to attend another school through Choice enrollment if there is space available. Approximately 66% of families districtwide choose to attend their neighborhood school. 

“This is a massively complicated ecosystem,” Superintendent Anderson commented to the Board. 

Board members remarked that they would like to be able to look at data at a regional level in the review process. Several Board members expressed that they would like to understand where there might be opportunities to realize transportation efficiencies. The importance of supporting pedestrian access to schools and community connectedness were also noted. 

The Board will continue its review of attendance area boundaries at its meeting on Mar. 11.