Denver superintendent: More school closures could be necessary before moratorium is up

“Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to get the latest reporting from us, plus curated news from other Colorado outlets, delivered to your inbox. After 65 slides that showed how Denver Public Schools could face budget deficits in the years to come, the school board president asked the superintendent to give it to her straight. Would DPS need to close more schools, she asked at a meeting last week? And when? The answer was yes. And possibly soon. After closing or shrinking 10 schools last year due to declining enrollment, the board put a four-year moratorium on school closures . But the moratorium had an out: If enrollment or funding shifted substantially, the superintendent could recommend closures before the four years were up. Superintendent Alex Marrero said that will likely happen. “We will not exhaust the moratorium,” he said on Thursday. “I can’t say it will be next year. I have good confidence that it could be the following year. Surely the year after that.” Enrollment in DPS is shrinking , driven largely by lower birth rates and high housing prices that push families out of the city. Fewer students means less per-pupil state funding. And less funding means the district will face tough decisions on how to balance its budget. Officials had estimated that last year’s school closures would save the district $6.6 million. The board is set to vote next month on a proposed $1.49 billion budget for the next school year. It’s balanced, but a five-year forecast shows a cumulative $28 million deficit if the district were to take no action to address it — a scenario that Marrero and other officials said is unlikely to happen, in part because DPS could ask voters this fall for a tax increase . Still, some board members seemed worried. “We know this is coming,” board member Amy Klein Molk said to Marrero at the meeting. “What are we doing today to get us ready for the future?” Among other strategies, Marrero pointed to administrative cuts as a way to reduce expenses. The district laid off the equivalent of about 61 full-time central office employees this spring, according to a presentation given to the board. It also added 12 employees, resulting in a net savings of $8.1 million. Coupled with 38 central office layoffs last year , the district has cut $12.7 million from its headquarters in the past two years, the presentation says. But Marrero said there’s not much more to cut. “We’re long gone from the days of being a bloated central office,” he said, “and now what we’re balancing is some requests from schools for support. The more that we trim, the more likely that we’re going to get yearnings from school sites saying, ‘Hey, we’re not getting support.’” The district also faces increasing costs, officials said. Two of the biggest are rising prices for electricity, water, and natural gas and an increasing need for special education services. Although DPS’ total enrollment was down 1,200 students this year from last year, the number of students who require special education services increased by 1.5%, according to the presentation. Over the past six years, the district has added 25 more programs for students with disabilities — which DPS calls “center programs” — at an average cost of $232,000 per classroom. DPS will add another nine center programs next year, said Katie Hechavarria, the district’s executive director of finance. Much of the need is for programs that serve students with autism. The district has also had to hire more paraprofessionals to work with students with disabilities, officials said. While the number of teachers in DPS decreased by 2% over the past six years and the number of central office staff and administrators decreased by 6%, the number of paraprofessionals increased by 28%, according to the presentation. Next year’s proposed budget includes $29.1 million for 613 “dedicated adult supports,” which are paraprofessionals that work one-on-one or in small groups with students with disabilities. Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org .

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