BOULDER — After years of making family life so expensive that actual families started disappearing, Boulder Valley School District officials gathered Monday night to begin the delicate process of deciding which schools should be sacrificed to the city’s successful war on children. According to 9News, BVSD says enrollment has dropped by 3,600 students over the last decade and is projected to fall another 1,700 in the next five years, with closure and consolidation talks now focused on elementary schools in Boulder, Louisville-Superior, and Broomfield.
The district kicked off the first of six community meetings at New Vista High School, where parents and educators packed in to discuss how best to manage a school system slowly being hollowed out by the kind of housing market that treats a second grader as an unfortunate accessory.
Superintendent Dr. Rob Anderson reportedly opened with a show of hands asking who did not have an idea on what the district should do, which experts said was a refreshing change of pace from the usual public-process ritual where everyone pretends there might be some magical option between “close schools” and “continue ignoring math.”
Officials said they want to bring parents in early because the problem is not going away. Which is true. Once a community has fully optimized itself for retirees, remote workers, trust-fund environmentalists, and people paying $4,200 a month to live above an artisanal dog bakery, the children do tend to stop showing up.
“We know these are tough choices, but we need to preserve the experiences we want for our kids,” said one district leader, using the standard education phrase meaning the district would like to keep arts, language, and reasonable class sizes without the inconvenience of having enough students or money to do that everywhere. “The important thing is that every stakeholder feels heard before we bulldoze whatever’s left of the neighborhood school idea.”
Some parents said they understand closures may be necessary, which is the sort of brave civic maturity that emerges when everyone has spent the last decade watching teachers commute from another county while enrollment charts slide downhill like a Tesla in snow mode.
Sources close to the process said the district is carefully evaluating which schools have become too small to operate efficiently, and which communities still contain enough children to justify a building, a staff, and the ancient socialist fantasy known as a public elementary school within walking distance.
No decisions have been made yet. Anderson said closure and consolidation plans will go to the board in August, with a vote expected in October, giving Boulder-area families several more months to participate in the treasured local tradition of attending meetings about a crisis everyone can already afford to describe in detail.
In the meantime, the district will continue studying enrollment decline, while the broader region continues studying whether anyone under 12 should be allowed to exist west of I-25.
Source: 9News
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