Colorado parents uncertain as district decides which three Highlands Ranch schools to close

Douglas County School District will be consolidating schools in one community using funds from a bond passed by voters earlier this month.

Any of Highlands Ranch's 18 elementary schools could be impacted. The district is currently in the process of deciding which three schools will be closed and which other three schools will absorb their students.

"There's a lot of uncertainty for the parents in my community," said Highlands Ranch mom of two, Emily Drost.

Highlands Ranch parents are worried about their children's future education.

"We specifically sought out Sand Creek Elementary School because they have such a small class size already, but now that classes are getting smaller and smaller ... My first grader, for example, she's in just one class of first graders, and there's 26 kids in her class," Drost said.

It's a story of demographics: new schools are needed in growing communities like Sterling Ranch, while families who bought homes in Highlands Ranch in the 1990s no longer have young children, leading to declining enrollment at those schools.

"Students are missing out on opportunities because buildings that used to have 500, 600 kids now have 300 kids, sometimes less," said DCSD Superintendent Erin Kane.

DCSD will close three Highlands Ranch elementary schools in 2026 and combine the students with three others.

"So we'll be bringing two school communities together into one for the school communities, and that's the one we will invest in through the bond," Kane said.

 But it's not clear which of Highlands Ranch's 18 elementary schools will be impacted.

"We've really struggled as a smaller school with the fact it could be closed," Drost said of her children's school, Sand Creek Elementary.

"There have been a lot of rumors circulating. We don't really know what the criteria is," said Highlands Ranch mom Nicole Mann. She lives walking distance from her children's school, and worries about the impact of its possible closure.

The Board of Education is expected to unveil the criteria in January that will be used to make decisions about which schools will close.

"We know what the criteria won't be. This is not a worthiness discussion. It's much more of a practical discussion, considering things like traffic and safety," Kane said.

The district would prefer to keep kids together with their classmates and to keep them with the same feeder high school.

"My hope is that the school district won't be breaking up the individual schools themselves, so my kids will stay with their friends," Drost said.

Closed school buildings will be kept by the district for school programming, Kane said. When demographics shift down the line, they could be reopened as schools. Kane added that staff will not lose their jobs with the district.

"I would just like to know as soon as possible what schools are going to be consolidated so that parents can make plans," Mann said.

The district expects to announce which schools will be closed in April 2025, but there will be another school year before consolidation happens in the fall of 2026.

Right now, the district is holding community engagement meetings for parents. The next one will be Wednesday at 6 p.m. at Mountain Ridge Middle School.