Colorado’s streak of declining enrollment in public schools has continued this school year, with the state seeing a razor-thin dip in the number of students attending preschool through high school — a 0.1% drop compared with the 2023-24 school year.
Data released Wednesday by the Colorado Department of Education shows that declining student counts have become a sweeping trend across Colorado districts: 110 districts and one board of cooperative educational services, or BOCES — well over half of the state’s 178 districts — are serving fewer students this school year than last year. That’s slightly down from the 113 districts and BOCES that reported fewer students last year.
Those include districts in urban, suburban and rural parts of the state, including Buena Vista School District, Adams 12 Five Star Schools and Jeffco Public Schools.
For those 111 districts, state funding cuts could be on the horizon should the legislature embrace Gov. Jared Polis’ latest budget proposal.
“I think it will be really challenging for districts to grapple with the potential loss of funding,” Colorado Education Commissioner Susana Córdova said during a news conference Wednesday morning. “And I think our state has faced a real complexity in how to balance the budget while still continuing to invest in the programs that we think are most important. K-12 is such a large part of the budget that I think it is really challenging. I think we’re going to have hard choices at the state.”
Córdova added that the state education department will do its part to help “lighten the load” for districts, particularly should they have to scale back staff and programs. That could include eliminating “burdensome reporting,” she said, as districts must track and inform the state on a variety of school metrics.
Total student enrollment in the state has consistently fallen over the past five years, except coming out of the height of the pandemic in 2021, when enrollment jumped. Last fall, Colorado tallied 881,065 students in preschool through 12th grade, down from 883,264 students during the previous school year, according to data from the state education department.
The downturns are part of broader enrollment drops across the country, with experts pointing to a decline in birth rates in recent years that is now leading to fewer students in classrooms.
The regular enrollment declines are a dramatic departure from before the pandemic, when Colorado saw student counts climb for nearly 30 years.
The biggest enrollment drops in districts played out in early elementary grades, according to state data, as schools recorded 3,204 fewer students in preschool, first and second grade classrooms. Most other grades, however, saw enrollment bursts. Those include 11th and 12th grades, in which 2,039 more students showed up to schools compared with last year, and 1,401 additional kids in fifth and sixth grades.
Additionally, student demographics are changing across Colorado, following broader demographic shifts in the state. Schools are seeing more diverse student bodies, with the state reporting fewer white students and more students who identify as Black, Asian, Hispanic, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander and multiracial.
Schools saw a notable spike in the number of Hispanic students they serve, tallying 8,722 more students than the previous school year. Over the past decade, Colorado has seen an increase of 26,974 Hispanic students, the state education department reported.
Much tighter budgets could be ahead for districts with shrinking enrollments
Colorado school districts with declining enrollment could meet sizable budget cuts next year, as state leaders weigh how to count students in districts — one of the main factors that determine how much funding districts receive.
Polis has proposed increasing per-pupil funding, meaning he wants to dole out more money to districts for every student they educate. That’s a win for districts.
Another boon for Colorado schools: Polis remains committed to phasing in the state’s new school funding formula — which gives more money to schools for kids with significant needs and better funds rural districts — over six years.
At the same time, the governor has proposed overhauling how Colorado counts students in districts to inform the total amount of funding districts get. The state for several years has funded districts by averaging their enrollment numbers across five years. That way, districts experiencing enrollment declines don’t incur such sharp budget cuts. The state’s new school funding formula adopted by legislators last year would scale down that averaging mechanism to four years.
Polis wants to turn away from averaging altogether and dole out funding to schools based on a one-year student count so that dollars follow existing students and, he argues, can better help schools address those kids’ individual needs.
But for the 111 school districts maneuvering through enrollment declines, funding them based on a one-year count of students would likely result in a reduction in funding, according to Tracie Rainey, executive director of the nonprofit Colorado School Finance Project.
Rainey described the outcomes for districts as “a mixed bag,” noting that some of districts’ funding losses could be offset if they have high percentages of students with additional needs, including kids with disabilities, those learning English and students living in poverty. The new school funding formula, which sets out to pump an additional $500 million into Colorado schools over six years, prioritizes giving schools more money for those students.
Rainey noted that there are “a lot of ifs” at this point as schools wait to see how legislators respond to Polis’ latest funding proposal and how they decide to move forward with school funding during the legislative session, which ends in May.
“It seems to me we’re having the wrong conversation,” Rainey said. “Instead of figuring out how we’re going to cut schools, we should be figuring out what is the revenue we need so that we don’t need to be making cuts to K-12 when we know they’re already underfunded.”
She cited two recent studies that concluded that Colorado needs to commit an additional $3.5 billion to $4.1 billion to education to adequately fund schools so they can fully address students’ learning needs.
House Speaker State Rep. Julie McCluskie, a Dillon Democrat, told The Colorado Sun she is “dedicated” to introducing the state’s new school funding formula for the 2025-26 school year so that the state directs more dollars to serve kids with the highest needs and steps up funding for rural districts.
“Do I think we need to do more in this state to fund schools at a higher level? Yes,” McCluskie said. “And I think that conversation comes next.”
McCluskie acknowledged the hardships districts with declining enrollment face, including a slate of school closures in Jeffco Public Schools.
“I am taking on this issue to talk about how we might approach declining student enrollment in partnership with our education leaders,” McCluskie said. “I think it is extremely challenging to go from four years of averaging to zero overnight.”
Apart from funding conversations, McCluskie said lawmakers can support districts by helping them improve their planning and make effective business decisions early on as they begin figuring out how to operate with fewer students.
In the meantime, districts impacted by declining enrollments are worried about the long-term effect on their budgets.
Enrollment in Durango School District has dropped by about 50-60 students per year mainly because of declining birth rates and increasing housing costs that price out families with young children, according to Superintendent Karen Cheser, who is in her fourth year at the district helm.
Enrollment this year totals 4,360 students.
Cheser said she would not support Polis’ proposal to fund schools based on a one-year student count, describing it as a “sudden and catastrophic change” that would spell out serious funding cuts for her schools. She estimates a funding cut close to $1 million.
“Since we already spend 87% of our budget on personnel (and still are not able to pay our staff enough to keep up with cost of living),” Cheser wrote in an email to The Sun, “we don’t see any way that the cuts wouldn’t impact staffing.”
Those fears resonate in Mountain Valley School District in Saguache in southern Colorado, where 236 kids in preschool through high school attend school.
Enrollment declined 10% in the past year as the rural district lost 23 students, according to state data.
Superintendent Brady Stagner attributes that downturn to a mix of factors, including high mobility and the loss of farming and ranching families, whose land is now owned by one or two major companies.
Stagner, who stepped out of retirement to lead the district, said his district budget already runs tight and the district struggles to offer classes and programs beyond core subjects. A funding hit under Polis’ latest budget proposal would likely strip the district of “a safety net” and could impact staffing, Stagner said.
That only puts opportunities to offer more advanced programming, like a trades program and business program, farther out of reach.
“There’s just so many options that our kids don’t get because of limited funds,” Stagner said. “It is disheartening to know that these kids aren’t getting the same opportunities that the kids are 30 miles down the road.”