Douglas County faces uncertain future with growing neighborhoods missing schools

Douglas County School District leaders are beginning difficult conversations to address changing trends in birth rates and enrollment.

Currently, the district is in a unique situation where some cities are seeing families age out of the school system, while other parts of the county are seeing a baby boom. While funding for school construction is needed in some areas, school closures are on the table in other places too, Superintendent Erin Kane said in a board meeting last month.  

"We can't wait until this is a crisis, and it's not a crisis," Kane said. "This is something we need to make a proactive 3-to-5-year plan showing what we're going to and what it's going to look like so that staff and families have plenty of notice as far as the changes that will happen over time."  

In the Dotseth household, mornings can be a bit hectic, as mom, Lenaya, gets her three young kids ready for the day. For years, their home in Sterling Ranch has been the perfect place to raise a growing family, but soon, this up-and-coming neighborhood may not fulfill all their needs.  

"We don't have a neighborhood elementary school," Dotseth said. "We're hoping one day there will be a neighborhood school that's on our way out of the neighborhood."  

Just a few blocks away from the Dotseth home is a plot of land where Sterling Ranch Elementary was supposed to be built, but last November voters shot down the bond measure to fund it.  

Now, Dotseth's 5-year-old daughter Everlee's assigned kindergarten is in a neighborhood several miles away. Her son Cohen and daughter Avia would eventually have the same situation, if a school isn't built in the next few years.  

"I think that there's just so much to be said for a place where all of the kids in the neighborhood can go and the backbone of a neighborhood and the backbone of a community is somewhere people can gather all together," Dotseth said.  

Sterling Ranch, Crystal Valley and the Canyons are among several rapidly growing communities in Douglas County without a single public elementary school.

It's all part of a much more complicated problem in what the district calls the north planning area, which includes Sterling Ranch, Sedalia, Highlands Ranch, Castle Pines, and the area of Parker called Ridgegate East.  

While new communities in the planning area are booming, no new school buildings are being built, and current ones serving as overflow near those areas are at risk of overcrowding.  

Highlands Ranch, on the other hand, has 18 elementary schools, many of which are seeing declining enrollment. The district attributes the trend to families who moved into the area two to three decades ago no longer having kids in the school system.  

"It's essentially decline being bookended by growth," said Kane. "The pockets are far enough apart from each other that we can't pick up an elementary school from a pocket of decline and put it in an area of growth." 

Superintendent Kane is now tasked with finding a solution that works for both predicaments. It will likely involve closing several under-enrolled schools and pairing their staff and students with another. 

"Based on our initial projections, we're probably looking at two to three pairings," Kane said.  

While it's too early for any specifics to be figured out, Kane said her priority will be keeping communities together. Because of the district's unique enrollment situation, staff will be guaranteed a job with any consolidation plan.

Ultimately, the superintendent and her staff will give the board their final recommendation. Members will then have the final say on any school closures.  

The earliest a school could be closed or opened would be August 2026. The hope is the district can finalize any plans more than a year out to give parents and communities time to plan.  

"We know these conversations are hard, but we want to have them well in advance so that we're not reacting to an emergency, and instead we're being thoughtful about what's best for our kids," Kane said. 

In the meantime, the district will go back to voters to seek new funding for school construction again this fall. 

Dotseth hopes voters see the value it would bring to families like hers and the community as a whole.  

"We need people whose students have aged out of Douglas County to say, 'hey, someone built a neighborhood school for my kid, I'm going to do that,'" Dotseth said.