By Nicole C. Brambila | Denver Gazette
Last year, when the Denver Public Schools (DPS) Board of Education established guardrails for campus closures, Superintendent Alex Marrero requested a one-time extension before releasing his closure list, citing the need for the October Count enrollment data for his team to complete the analysis.
“I don’t believe that we’re going to have an accurate count no earlier than October,” Marrero told the board during the Aug. 15 meeting, in which he requested additional time.
District documents suggested otherwise — specifically, that the district obtained enrollment numbers in September. In public documents, the September data was cited as justification for the closure list.
Some have suggested the reason for the delayed release was to avoid antagonizing voters at a time when the district needed their support to pass a nearly $1 billion bond. District officials and the board defended Marrero, saying his actions were not nefarious.
In the documents reviewed by The Denver Gazette, Marrero’s team publicly cited an “actual count” taken two weeks before the October Count, despite Marrero’s earlier claim that the official data — from the October Count — was essential to determine which schools should be considered for closure.
The October Count is taken every year on Oct. 1 to determine school funding, which follows students in Colorado. That is, a consistent dip in the count over a few years would mean a drop in funding.
Just two months before that August meeting, the board adopted Executive Limitation 18 — also known as EL-18 — which restricted the superintendent from using low enrollment and test scores as the sole justification for closing a school. It also required the superintendent to provide a closure list to the board no later than October.
The board members’ insistence on an October deadline isn’t arbitrary. They have said the timing is designed to align with the district’s school choice process, which begins in January, giving families enough time to explore other options if their school is slated to close.
Still, the board approved Marrero’s request for a one-time extension to present the closure list in November.
For future closure lists, the superintendent must provide it October and only once every three years.