LAPORTE, Colo. — Denver7 has been covering the multi-million dollar budget shortfall the Poudre School District experienced earlier this year due to high costs and low enrollment. As thousands of kids return to class Thursday, families told Denver7 they wanted to know what solutions the district has come up with to make up for those shortfalls.
Plans by the Board of Education to close several schools in the 2025-2026 school year have been scrapped, but what other plans are there to fix the economic woes plaguing the district?
"I haven't heard much. A couple surveys went out, and that's about it," said Sarah Kintzley of the efforts she's noticed since the spring.
Kintzley's daughter is headed to Cache La Poudre Middle School as a 6th grader this year. It's a choice the family almost didn't make when CLP was on the chopping block.
"If they switch us after [students] already started at one school, it's going to be a lot harder on [the students] than if we had just known then, maybe we could have made different efforts to switch them to a different school before that," said Kintzley of her concerns about CLP possibly closing in 2025 after her daughter would have already started.
Education
Poudre School District puts school closure, consolidation plans on pause
While there are no plans right now to close or consolidate schools, the challenges for the district remain the same: High costs and low enrollment. District officials said enrollment in the district has dropped by 1,230 kids over the last four years, having a big impact to per-pupil funding. The current Kindergarten class for this school year is around 200 students less than projected. They expect that trend to continue with enrollment projected to decrease by nearly 10% across the district between 2023-2027.
Here is what a school district spokesperson told Denver7 in April:
"We are putting in additional money that we have not in years past. Approximately $6.6 million to help maintain the operations of our schools with smaller than efficient number of students," said Madeline Novey with Poudre School District. "If we do not do something now, we will be potentially kicking down the road, a problem that has already been moving through our system in our community for years."
Denver7 reached out to Poudre School District on Monday to request an interview. The request was denied, but a video posted to the district's Facebook page shows this year's budget has been trimmed by $6.6 million from the budget and Central Administration by cutting around 100 positions. Another video describes "Central Administration" positions as, "staff from various departments that support schools, including employees who support curriculum and programming, maintain buildings, work on accessibility, and keep school grounds looking fresh."
Poudre School District later sent Denver7 a statement about the cuts, explaining that $2.4 million of the $6.6 million cuts came from the central administration cuts. A breakdown of exactly which positions were cut was not available.
"I really hope that they'll give us more information about that and what positions they decided to cut. As parents of our children going to school, we really like to know what's going on," said Knitzley.
Some families in the lower enrolled schools told Denver7 they're hopeful there will be more open communication now that school is starting, but they can't help but feel like they're not out of the woods yet.
"We're excited that our kids get to go to the school that we're hoping that they could," said Knitzley, "but I still have this dark looming feeling that there could be some stuff coming down later."
In the statement, school district officials said the Board of Education is considering a mill levy measure to "help attract and retain exceptional teachers and staff; renovate schools to create career and technical education spaces; update curriculum, resources and materials to prepare students for their futures; maintain our aging buildings; and support our neighborhood schools."
The district said information on that proposed mill levy is expected to be published by the district in the near future.
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