School Closures
48+ schools closed. Communities devastated. An enrollment death spiral.
The Scale of Destruction
Between 2005 and 2016, Denver Public Schools closed or replaced 48 schools and opened more than 70, the majority of them charters. The churn was relentless: entire neighborhoods lost their anchor institutions, replaced by schools with different names, different missions, and different accountability structures.
Since 2018-19, 15 additional schools have closed. In 2024 alone, 7 schools were closed and 3 restructured in a unanimous board vote, affecting 1,087 students and saving an estimated $29.9 million.
The Montbello Catastrophe
The most emblematic closure. In 2010, the DPS board voted 4-3 — Seawell, Pena, Easley, Hoyt — to phase out Montbello High School and replace an entire feeder pattern with new district and charter schools. After seven hours of public testimony in packed rooms, six entire schools were replaced.
The community called it their "Hurricane Katrina."
The replacement schools — DCIS Montbello, Noel Community Arts School, Collegiate Prep Academy — by Seawell's own later admission, "for the most part, failed and continue to fail."
The board's decision triggered a recall petition against Board President Nate Easley. The Denver community was outraged. Parents, teachers, and alumni made clear that they never consented to the dismantling of their neighborhood schools — and that the replacements were imposed on them by outsiders who did not understand their communities.
After a decade of failure, the board voted unanimously in 2021 to reopen Montbello High School. The $80 million renovation was described as "the biggest project DPS has built in a long time." A generation of students had already been lost.
Who Gets Hurt
Closures disproportionately hit poor, minority, and Latino communities. The pattern is consistent and damning:
- The 2024 closures specifically impacted Denver's Latino communities in the southwest, forcing kids to be bused far from their neighborhoods.
- Parents reported not feeling heard in the closure process — decisions were made behind closed doors and presented as fait accompli.
- Wealthier families are better equipped to navigate school choice; marginalized families face barriers — transportation, information access, flexibility — that make "choice" a cruel fiction.
- Neighborhood schools anchor communities; their closure strains working families and weakens neighborhood fabric.
- The temporary 2006 closure of Manual High School "disenfranchised and displaced Black and Latino students" — a wound the community has never forgotten.
The reformers talked about "choice." What marginalized families got was chaos — their schools shuttered, their children scattered, their communities hollowed out.
DPS Enrollment Decline
DPS projects continued enrollment losses, potentially triggering more closures in a vicious cycle. As schools close, families leave the district. As families leave, more schools become candidates for closure.
This is the enrollment death spiral that the reformers created. The portfolio model promised competition would improve outcomes. Instead, it created a landscape of instability where no school — traditional or charter — has a secure future, and where families have learned that their neighborhood school could vanish at the next board meeting.
The state legislature has watched this unfold. Education advocates have sounded the alarm. But the closures continue.
The $466 Million Question
Seawell spearheaded the 2012 bond campaign that passed measures 3A and 3B plus a $49 million tax increase. The total package was staggering. But where did the money go?
Billions in bonds. Hundreds of millions in outside money pouring into board races. Schools opening and closing in rapid succession. And through it all, the district's debt grew — and its enrollment shrank.
For a full accounting of DPS debt, bond failures, pension shortfalls, and school property sales, see StopDPSDebtNow.com — tracking the financial wreckage of two decades of corporate education reform.
Continue Reading
- The Fight for North High — 1,200 signatures ignored, a charter forced into the building
- The Charter School Problem — How the charter-first approach gutted neighborhood schools
- Corporate Education Reform — Stand for Children, DFER, and the billionaire pipeline
- Resources — Denver education advocacy and community links