Growth and Decline

We are grateful to those who completed the survey. Yes, you can access the results. Here they are as of April 4, with redactions of any personally identifiable information.

Yes.

For more than a year, Superintendent Kane has let everyone know that any affected staff member will have a place in DCSD. Our Staffing Protocol explains this in more detail. This explanatory flowchart provides a visual explanation as well.

This document provides answers to questions related to school pairings for students who receive special education services along with contact information for SPED coordinators. Because SPED circumstances for paired schools are very dependent on the actual pairings, we will provide more information once pairings are announced. 

Any family who has open enrolled into a school that will be part of a school pairing will be automatically enrolled into the newly paired school once it opens in SY 26-27. Otherwise, normal open enrollment rules apply for all of our families. 

Yes, as is normally the case. Please see policy JCA/JFB-R.

Yes. Based on conversations with our families, the District will include a bus stop at each of the closing schools starting in School Year 2026-27, among other adjustments. 

While requirements for access to transportation would normally apply with this addition, the District recognizes that school pairings create challenges for some families. Because of that, we will continue to work with our families on additional accommodations as much as our transportation resources allow. 

We believe it is always important to engage staff in an authentic, direct way. Especially so with the hard stuff, like school pairings. Our kids are better off when we do.  

Leadership has spoken with all 16 potentially impacted leaders and staffs directly, engaged in a lot of Q&A and problem solving with them, and conducted surveys on pairing criteria and considerations, among other efforts. View the staff survey results and the families/community survey results.

In addition, leadership created two groups to provide input: one with leaders, departmental staff, and community members from the North Planning Area (the North Planning Area Engagement-- "NPAE") along with a group of licensed and classified staff from each of the potentially impacted buildings along with neighboring middle schools (NPAE for Staff-- "NPAES"). 

Each of these groups has impacted draft policies FCB and FCB-R, staffing considerations, among other important (and difficult) components of school pairings. These groups will continue to meet through April 2025, at least.    

Of course, lots of times, group needs may not fit individual needs, so allowing for both group and individual conversations is important. All of our leaders and staff know that they can individually speak with their building leader and District leadership. 

The NPAE members were drawn from Board community groups along with representatives from DCSD school and operational departments that are likely to be most impacted by school pairings: executive directors of schools, elementary principals, various department leaders from Communications, Budget, Planning, Special Education, PreK, and Advanced Academics. 

As for NPAES, while visiting each of the 16 buildings, leadership asked for volunteers to submit for this group as part of the criteria and considerations survey.

  Members were chosen from the volunteer list based on the need for a split between licensed and classified and then by diversity of position. To the extent that there were more volunteers per school than spaces available per school, volunteers were chosen based on the timing of their volunteer submission and diversity of position. 

There was no application process for membership to either NPAE or NPAES.

Each group is incredibly thoughtful with an array of opinions reflected. 

For over two years, DCSD has discussed the challenges of growth and decline with our entire DCSD community. In addition, all of DCSD can weigh in on policies FCB and FCB-R which bear directly upon school pairings (our webpage has more information on this opportunity), among other avenues to gain information and provide feedback.    

Since the school pairing conversation and impact will be directly felt by Highlands Ranch families and staff, our focus has been and will continue to be on working through the many challenges of school pairings with the Highlands Ranch community. We want to make sure that our HR families and staff have everything they need to support our kids when newly paired schools open in SY 26-27, and beyond.   

We also know that if another community in DCSD experiences a similar drop in enrollment and pairings become necessary, that community's needs may differ from those of the Highlands Ranch community in ways big and small. This is why if DCSD needs to pair schools again, we will tailor our process to the needs of that community just as we have with our Highlands Ranch community, while drawing from lessons learned from our past experience.  

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.