Growth and Decline

No.

The January 2025 Board meeting will only have to do with the criteria that staff will use to make recommendations on school pairings. We have recently scheduled meetings with families for their feedback on the criteria and very much look forward to those.

Actual school pairings will be taken up by the Board in April 2025. Families will have opportunities to provide input on those ahead of any decisions being made.

If DCSD pairs, for example, six (6) elementary schools, this means that three (3) existing elementary schools will pair into three (3) other existing elementary schools. Six (6) schools will then have been paired into three (3).

DCSD's long-standing promise to families has been a neighborhood school nearby. Many families and students have benefitted from this commitment and DCSD intends to maintain it now and moving forward. While longer bus rides (30-45 minutes) to under-enrolled schools may be a short-term solution for some, it is not a long-term, sustainable solution for most of our kids, particularly in elementary school. Busing long distances also creates increased bus driver demand at a time when all school districts, including DCSD, are struggling to find and keep them. 

In addition, busing students to another under-enrolled school could also mean transporting them to a school outside of their geographical feeder, which is not likely to address the impact of lower enrollment now and would create difficulties for families who want a particular feeder for their child. 

While DCSD has and will continue to consider all options to minimize the impact of declining enrollment for our kids and families, changing boundaries and/or feeders are both complicated processes and not likely to address the impact of lower enrollment now or in the long term. 

Yes. In the event of a successful bond election, DCSD will use $20 million of the bond funds to improve receiving buildings in preparation for additional students, increased programming, and any other facility need, along with ensuring that the paired buildings stay well maintained for new District uses. 

Any school that is paired will remain District property and re-purposed for other DCSD programming-- the buildings will be maintained and active. In fact, the paired buildings may allow us to move student programming out of currently leased space into buildings we own and maintain (better for the students and the taxpayers). This approach also has the added benefit of allowing DCSD to re-constitute the building as an elementary school if neighboring schools become over-enrolled in the future.

Yes. Once the decision for pairing schools is made in April 2025, DCSD staff will work with parents and building staff in those buildings along with traffic engineers, local law enforcement, and local government authorities to help ensure students come to school safely.

If DCSD moves 6th graders for some schools in the North Planning area to middle school, every impacted family will have the opportunity to enroll in a neighboring elementary school that houses 6th grade. Families in other parts of DCSD enjoy this same choice.

DCSD is only looking to pair elementary schools in August 2026, and not middle or high schools. Every school in the North Planning Area is experiencing the same population decline, whether neighborhood, charter, or private school. Under state law, DCSD addresses the impact of under-enrolled neighborhood schools. Charter schools and private schools have their own governing boards and parent communities who navigate declining enrollment impacts at their own schools.