Colorado’s student count across all 178 school districts has plummeted to its lowest point in a decade, with the state tallying 1,800 fewer students last fall than in 2022, according to data released Wednesday morning by the state education department.
The most recent dip — a 0.2% decline — is not as dramatic as the hit enrollment took during the last school year, when the state reported a drop of 3,253 students, a 0.37% decrease from the year before. But it accelerates a trend of dwindling school populations that emerged across much of the state and country during the pandemic and is poised to reshape how schools operate.
Enrollment in preschool through 12th grade totaled 881,464 students during the state’s annual count in October, with the biggest enrollment drops among its youngest students. The number of kids in preschool, kindergarten and first grade fell by 3,691 kids from 2022 after those same grades experienced a similar decrease the previous school year, state data shows.
Meanwhile, enrollment declines are affecting the vast majority of Colorado school districts — with 113 districts reporting fewer students this school year, up from 94 that saw their enrollment shrink last year. Enrollment in another 65 districts, however, was stagnant or increased, according to data from the Colorado Department of Education.
A convergence of factors is driving the overall downward trajectory — most notably, decades of declining birth rates that are now catching up with classrooms, and an increase in the number of students pursuing home-schooling and online education.
Colorado Education Commissioner Susana Córdova in a statement noted that Colorado’s enrollment dip is part of a national trend as school districts across the country also grapple with enrollment declines, particularly among early grades.
“We know that pre-kindergarten and kindergarten are where students build critical foundations for life-long academic success including language development, early literacy and social skills,” Córdova said.
Even as the number of Colorado public school students has decreased, the percentage change is so small that Jennifer Okes, chief operating officer of CDE, considers enrollment to be “steady” and “relatively stable.”
State education officials had anticipated that enrollment would rebound after its public school student count plunged by nearly 30,000 kids during the height of the pandemic. But enrollment has continued to decline.
With lower birth rates, Okes told The Colorado Sun, “this is sort of what we can expect.”
The enrollment decreases panning out across Colorado mirror declines in other states, which are “very minor decreases year over year,” said Brian Eschbacher, a Denver-based independent education consultant who previously served as executive director of planning and enrollment for Denver Public Schools.
“I think we’re now far enough away from the pandemic impact on enrollment that this is starting to look like a pretty long-term trend,” Eschbacher said.
He noted that enrollment changes vary significantly across schools.
“This doesn’t impact every school equally,” Eschbacher said.
Both birth rates — the number of children per woman — have been on the decline along with the total number of babies born in Colorado in a given year, according to Colorado’s state demographer Elizabeth Garner. Both are compounding factors behind the drop in the state’s school-age population, which directly influences the number of kids in public schools.
Colorado peaked with total births in 2007, when 70,000 babies were born, according to Garner.
That’s significantly more than the 62,100 babies born between July 2022 and June 2023.
The birth rate has also fallen, even as Colorado has seen an increase in the number of women of childbearing age, Garner said. Data from 2022 shows an average of 1.5 births among Colorado women and an average of 1.6 births among women nationally. To fully replace Colorado’s population, the average birth rate would have to climb to 2.1, Garner said.
An elementary classroom is decorated with math reminders Dec. 13, 2022 at Little Elementary School in Arvada. (Olivia Sun, The Colorado Sun via Report for America)
The drop in total births and birth rates in Colorado feed into a nationwide decline of more than 1 million people under the age of 18 over the past decade, which Garner attributes to the onset of readily available contraceptives and fallout from the Great Recession.
Other shifts among students are also changing the complexion of schools. Colorado saw more students turn to home-schooling — up 8.4% over last year to 9,406 kids — and more students migrate to online education programs, jumping 3.4% to 31,839 students total. Fewer students opted for charter schools as charter school enrollment dropped 1.8% to 135,223 students.
Meanwhile, the number of white students in Colorado public schools decreased by 7,526 — a 1.7% drop from last year — and the number of Black students also slightly dipped, with 126 fewer Black students in public schools this year.
Other student groups experienced an uptick: While 3,948 more Hispanic and Latino students enrolled in public schools — up about 1.3% — the number of students who identify as two or more races also rose by 1,528, up about 3.4%.
Even with changing demographics in Colorado schools, the state is lagging in migration — another reason behind the dip in school enrollment.
Last year, Colorado’s net migration — meaning the total number of people who moved into the state after accounting for those who left — was 19,000. Back in the 2010s, the state was gaining 40,000 to 50,000 people, Garner said.
“We have seen a slowdown in migration,” she said. “Therefore, we have not seen an increase in kiddos.”
The one caveat stems from an influx of migrants, which has affected enrollment at some Denver and Aurora schools, Garner added.
The state is forecasting a decline in the number of school-aged children in Colorado until 2030. However, Garner anticipates that Colorado will start to see an increase in births as the number of women of childbearing age likely continues to grow.
“We’re still forecasting Colorado to grow, although slower,” she said. “And we will have more women of childbearing age. Therefore, even with these low birth rates we’ll start to see total births increase, but not big spikes. Just kind of getting back to the level that we might have been at back in 2007.”
“Only if we start to see an increase in births,” she added, “then we’ll start to see an increase in the school-age population.”
Making a decision on when to close a school
Seven of Colorado’s 10 largest school districts have experienced enrollment declines this school year: Jefferson County School District, Douglas County School District, Adams 12 Five Star Schools, Cherry Creek School District, St. Vrain Valley School District, Poudre School District and Boulder Valley School District.
The state’s biggest school district, Denver Public Schools, saw a modest bump in its enrollment, which grew by 371 students after seeing its enrollment drop by just over 1,000 students last year.
When a district’s student population shrinks, the ripple effects touch every part of a district — from its funding to its teacher workforce and its school buildings — and can tee up some tough decisions, Okes said.
“It’s very challenging when they have declining enrollments, and then they have to make decisions about when do you close a school?” she said. “And that is really a major issue that districts have to contend with.”
Jefferson County Public Schools has wrestled with high-profile school closures in recent years, including last year when it shuttered 16 elementary schools, largely because of declining birth rates leading to fewer students in elementary grades.
Since Superintendent Tracy Dorland began overseeing the district in 2021, Jeffco has closed 20 schools.
“That is I think some of the hardest work a school district will ever do,” Dorland said, “but our communities have gotten through it and we’re transitioning and continue to support those school communities as they transition and combine two school communities into one.”
Kindergarteners complete math exercises Dec. 13, 2022 at Little Elementary School in Arvada. Little Elementary serves students kindergarten through fifth grade and enrolled additional students from Parr Elementary and other surrounding Jefferson County schools starting in 2023. (Olivia Sun, The Colorado Sun via Report for America)
The metro school district’s enrollment has declined by about 10% since the 2019-20 school year, what Dorland calls a “pretty dramatic” downturn. This year, Jeffco has 906 fewer students in its classrooms — a nearly 1.2% drop from last year with enrollment totaling 77,078 students in preschool through 12th grade.
Jeffco has now moved through another phase of closing schools, turning its attention to higher grades. The district has decided to shut down Moore Middle School in Arvada and shuffle students to Pomona High School, which will evolve to serve kids in sixth through 12th grade. Additionally, Jeffco plans to close two K-8 schools next fall — Arvada K-8 and Coal Creek Canyon K-8.
But the hard decisions come down to more than closing schools, Dorland said. When school enrollment takes a dip, it can affect whether a school can provide critical before- and after-school care for families as well as impact how teachers are deployed across classrooms. Small student counts also sometimes cause one teacher to take on a class with multiple grades, such as third and fourth grade, which Dorland said is especially challenging because standards for different subjects like math differ across grade levels.
“And so the teacher is then spread very thin in terms of her or his ability to make sure that the students get the standards that they need for that school year,” she said.
Kindergarteners complete math exercises Dec. 13, 2022 at Little Elementary School in Arvada. Little Elementary serves students kindergarten through fifth grade and enrolled additional students from Parr Elementary and other surrounding Jefferson County schools starting in 2023. (Olivia Sun, The Colorado Sun via Report for America)
In other scenarios, schools with few students might have only one teacher per grade level, Dorland added, noting that it robs teachers of the opportunity to lean on and collaborate with colleagues who teach the same grade level and would benefit from advice about how to approach specific lessons.
“It makes the teaching profession even harder for our staff,” she said.
Jeffco’s district leaders do not expect enrollment to rebound in the next three to five years, Dorland said, but like many Colorado districts facing an overall decline in enrollment, pockets of Jeffco’s community are growing, including in northwesten Arvada.
“It’s an anomaly in Jeffco because other areas are seeing great declines,” Dorland said, “and so you need to begin looking at this more regionally and really trying to create a future facilities plan based on what we see in different regions.”
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