Denver Public Schools faces declining enrollment for the coming year
Denver Public Schools faces declining enrollment for the coming year. The largest school district in Colorado is challenged with trying to keep students in its classrooms.
The district is projected to lose nearly 1,000 students K-12 in the upcoming school year, according to data obtained by CBS News Colorado.
Now, DPS has hired someone solely focused on enrollment. Russell Ramsey is the director of DPS Enrollment and Campus Planning.
He steps into the role as the overall enrollment has declined by more than 5,000 students from 2019-2022. That's an average of 1,600 students per year.
The steepest decline was in elementary schools where enrollment has dropped 15% since 2014.
The district points to low birth rates and increased housing prices throughout the city of Denver, a trend that some worry could continue.
"The same trend that we saw in enrollment last year in our five-year prediction is the same one we're looking at for the next five years, which is around an 8% or 9% decrease in school-aged kids that live in the Denver metro area. And each year, as we get better data, and better information, we try to improvise and improve our models so that we can continue to have good estimates. But, as far as we can see in the future there will be a continued decline in enrollment," said Ramsey.
Ramsey said DPS will invest in a recruitment strategy in order to try to reverse how many students are leaving the district.
