Poudre School District parents, staff weigh in on draft school consolidation scenarios

Parents, teachers and others shared plenty of concerns Wednesday night about the draft scenarios to consolidate and close some schools and redraw boundaries for others that were shared with the Poudre School District Board of Education a night earlier by a 37-member steering committee.

About 80 people showed up for the second of seven scheduled listening sessions designed to gather feedback on what everyone agrees is a difficult process to address declining enrollment and the associated budget cuts.

They weren’t screaming and yelling about the scenarios, although many were obviously connected to schools that are among the most likely to be impacted. Instead, they were explaining their concerns, discussing them with one another and asking questions while seated at 11 tables in the media center at Fort Collins High School. Each table had a member of the Facilities Planning Steering Committee present to facilitate discussion and take notes on the issues they raised:

• What are the impacts on staffing?

• Will the plan actually save enough money to make the process worthwhile?

• Why are the most affordable areas of Fort Collins impacted the most?

• Are decisions going to be based strictly on enrollment numbers and budget concerns at the expense of culture and other factors that are more difficult to quantify?

• Will discussion even matter, or have decisions already been made by PSD leadership and the Board of Education?

A similar session Wednesday morning at Timnath Middle-High School drew 52 participants, said Josie Plaut, associate director of Colorado State University’s Institute for the Built Environment. Plaut and her organization are serving as facilitators for the Facilities Planning Steering Committee and its work.

More: Enrollment declining slower than projected as Poudre School District weighs consolidations

The committee will host five more listening sessions designed to gather feedback over the next two weeks that will be incorporated into a refined list of two to three recommended options that will be presented to the Board of Education on May 28, Plaut said. The school board is scheduled to make a decision at its June 11 meeting.

Any recommended changes will not take effect until the 2025-26 school year, giving students and families time to adjust and the district time to create implementation plans.

Remaining listening sessions are scheduled for:

• Monday, March 25 – 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at PSD Support Services Complex, 2407 Laporte Ave., Fort Collins.

• Monday, March 25 – 6-8 p.m. at Rocky Mountain High School, 1300 W. Swallow Road, Fort Collins.

• Wednesday March 27 – 6-7 p.m. online (a link will be provided on the PSD long-range planning website).

• Thursday, March 28 – 5:30-7:30 p.m. at Lincoln Middle School, 1600 Lancer Drive, Fort Collins.

• Thursday, April 4 – 6-8 p.m. at Future Ready Center at Foothills mall, 215 E. Foothills Parkway, Suite 510 (near the northwest entrance), Fort Collins, with interpreters available for those who primarily speak Spanish.

An online questionnaire will also be available until 10 a.m. April 5 on PSD's long-range planning website, www.psdschools.org/long-range-planning.

The Board of Education has also scheduled two listening sessions to receive public feedback:

• Tuesday, April 16 – 5:30 p.m. in the auditorium at Poudre High School, 201 S. Impala Drive, Fort Collins.

• Tuesday, June 4 – 5:30 p.m. in the auditorium at Fort Collins High School, 3400 Lambkin Way, Fort Collins.

The draft scenarios, Plaut said, were designed to get people talking about consolidations, closures and boundary changes and could change significantly from their current form over the next few weeks.

“We aren’t choosing between scenarios at this time,” she said.

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Cate Withrow, a teacher at Boltz Middle School and parent of students in PSD schools, said the approach “was really well done as far as having specific questions to ask, allowing us to look at the scenarios prior to coming with our assumptions, but then also listening to people and asking questions."

Projections PSD staff and an outside consultant, Flo Analytics, are working with call for a 9.26% enrollment drop from the 2022-23 to 2027-28 school year, which would result in an equivalent reduction in the per-pupil funding the district receives from the state, or a drop of nearly $8 million a year from an annual budget of about $400 million.

The district is also concerned about the under-utilization of many of its school buildings, with about 4,500 empty seats across the district, Plaut said. PSD is spending about $6.6 million a year to subsidize the per-pupil funding in schools with low enrollment to provide them with the same educational opportunities and staff support as those at or above the financially optimized level of 400 students or more for elementary schools and 700 students or more for secondary schools, Chief Financial Officer Dave Montoya told the school board earlier this year.

More: Enrollment declining slower than projected as Poudre School District weighs consolidations

Each of the three draft scenarios includes the closing of two to three elementary schools in north and west Fort Collins and the closure of one to two middle schools; redrawing boundaries for the three elementary schools east of Interstate 25 to better balance enrollment among them; and the consolidation of some alternative schools.

PSD officials hope the level of public involvement will make whatever decisions are made far more palatable to the community than an ill-fated proposal last fall that led to parent protests, student walkouts and significant opposition that ultimately led to it being dropped by Superintendent Brian Kingsley prior to a scheduled vote by the Board of Education.

The more open process involving the entire community that Kingsley promised at that time is the one playing out now through the work of the Facilities Planning Steering Committee.

“Regardless of whatever happens, it’s going to be a shock to whatever community gets their school closed,” parent Makeeba Helms said. “But hopefully, throughout this process, we can make it more understandable and digestible for people, and we can all come together and figure this out and find a way that is still keeping the values that we foster in our communities, but also addressing the challenges that we have.”

Dig into PSD enrollment data

Coloradoan reporter Kelly Lyell compiled enrollment data, capital costs, program details and more for each of PSD's non-charter schools:

▶ See data for PSD non-charter elementary schools here.

▶ See data for PSD non-charter middle schools here.

▶ See data for PSD non-charter high schools here.

Reporter Kelly Lyell covers education, breaking news, some sports and other topics of interest for the Coloradoan. Contact him at kellylyell@coloradoan.com, x.com/KellyLyell and  facebook.com/KellyLyell.news. 

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: PSD parents, staff weigh in on draft school consolidation scenarios