Three Boulder Valley School District parents filed a lawsuit Sept. 30 in Boulder County District Court, seeking to halt the district's plan to close four elementary schools and arguing the school board cut the public out of a process that will reshape where their kids go to class. The plaintiffs are asking a judge to set aside the board's approval of the closures and pause student reassignments while the case plays out.
The lawsuit was brought by Evan Harvie, a parent at Douglass Elementary; Katharine Rosenthal, a parent at Flatirons Elementary; and Theresa Schultz, a parent at Mesa Elementary, according to Boulder Reporting Lab. The parents allege the board made key decisions about the closure process without the public notice and discussion required under Colorado's Open Meetings Law. Schultz is a mother of three children who attended Mesa Elementary, as reported by Denver7.
The suit challenges the board's Sept. 22 approval of the Resilient Schools plan, which closes Douglass, Flatirons, Mesa and Birch elementary schools, relocates two focus schools and changes the grades served at two others. Board members voted 5-2 to move forward, four weeks after district leaders first announced the proposal. The plaintiffs also filed an emergency motion for a preliminary injunction, according to the Daily Camera, asking the court to stop BVSD from making student assignments based on the plan or taking other hard-to-reverse steps while the litigation is pending.
Parents Say They Were Never Really Heard
Schultz told Denver7 the lawsuit seeks a transparent process, adding that declining enrollment is real and that action is necessary — but that parents should be included when decisions reshape their local communities. She said alternatives should have been considered and constituents should have been heard. Families had worked to keep students at Mesa Elementary through Aug. 25, per the outlet's reporting.
BVSD said in a statement that it is working with legal counsel to respond to the complaint and generally does not comment on pending litigation, the same statement the district gave Boulder Reporting Lab. The district has not disputed the timeline of the board's vote, but it has defended the broader rationale behind the Resilient Schools plan.
District Points to Falling Enrollment and Tight Budgets
BVSD Superintendent Rob Anderson has said the district is ready to move forward with consolidation after discussing it for a long time, according to Denver7. Anderson said the district would recoup and reinvest money in the student experience, which he said the community identified as a priority when consulted the previous spring.
The plan affects 16 of the district's 56 schools, and officials expect the closures to save up to $4 million a year while reducing excess elementary capacity from 37% to 32%, per the Daily Camera. District leaders have said the restructuring is necessary to use resources more efficiently as enrollment declines, and that savings from the closures will support smaller elementary school classes, Boulder Reporting Lab reported.
The numbers behind that argument are stark. Boulder Valley's enrollment fell from 31,169 students in the 2018-19 school year to 27,541 in the most recent year cited, according to the Colorado Sun, and officials expect another 1,706-student decline by 2030. Statewide, Colorado public-school enrollment has been sliding since the 2022-23 school year, most recently dropping by more than 10,000 students, the Sun reported.
A Statewide Pattern of Closures
BVSD has projected that most elementary schools will keep losing students over the next five years, and that by 2030, 14 elementary schools will have two classes per grade level or fewer, with seven projected to drop to 1.5 classes per grade level or fewer, according to the district's own announcement. Boulder Valley is not alone in confronting this math: 73 public schools statewide have closed over the past five years, and other districts including Jeffco Public Schools, Denver Public Schools and the Douglas County School District have also shuttered schools due to enrollment declines, per the Broomfield Enterprise.
No changes will happen immediately. BVSD has said all affected schools, including those slated for closure, will remain open and continue operating through the end of the current school year, with the restructuring taking effect for the 2027-2028 school year. Open enrollment for that school year is scheduled to begin Nov. 1, Boulder Reporting Lab noted.
Whether the lawsuit will change that timeline remains to be seen. The complaint centers on whether the board's process met the bar set by Colorado's Open Meetings Law, which separately has been the subject of state legislative attention — a 2019 bill, HB19-1087, addressed how local governments may post required meeting notices, including allowing postings on government websites alongside physical notices, according to the Colorado General Assembly.
