More people turning to not have kids, creating enrollment concerns for Colorado school districts

36-year-old Denver resident Ria Sylvester says she has lived a pretty fulfilled and busy life, despite not having or wanting to have children in it.  

"I like to travel, and I like to go to concerts and shows," said Sylvester. "I would say [at] about 25-26, I was like, 'I don't think that the life that I want with money and time to travel, kids are going to be in the equation,' and I called it then." 

Yet, her reasoning spans beyond money and time.  

"Things are not great. 10 years from now, I would hope that they'll be better, but the environment alone, the air's not going to be as great. Let's hope our economy is better. I don't want to necessarily do that to a kid," she said. 

It's a sentiment that is being shared more and more among people in the state.  

"Births are down about 8,000 fewer births per year now today, than in 2007," said Elizabeth Garner, state demographer for the Colorado Department of Local Affairs. 

Declining birth rates is also creating big challenges for public school districts across the state, with the Colorado Department of Education announcing this week that enrollment at public schools have declined for the second year in a row. 1,800 fewer students were counted in October 2023 than in 2022.  

"We're prepared for this, we've predicted it," said Tracey Dorland. 

Dorland is the superintendent for Jefferson County Public Schools. According to the CDE's report, enrollment in the district dropped by 906 students between 2022 and 2023. 

When you look at the data, and you see the number of students for example that were graduating in 12th grade, versus the number of students who are joining our district in kindergarten, there's a big gap," said Dorland.  

The superintendent says it's an ongoing trend that's forced the district to close 20 schools since 2021.  

"We are likely done with school closures for a while," she said. I think it's the hardest work that a lot of districts will have to face in the coming years as the enrollment continues to decline." 

For the Boulder Valley School District, there was a drop in 125 students between the last two years, with both declining birth rates and the cost of living playing a role in enrollment.  

We do have relatively expensive housing, as well as folks that are aging in their homes as well, makes it tough for new families to move into the area," said Randy Barber, chief communications officer for Boulder Valley School District. "That does impact young families being able to come in, and we see that especially in our younger grades. Kindergarten and first grade, that kind of thing." 

Barber says they are lucky to be in a position where they do not need to close schools at this time but are continuing to look at what can happen as enrollment numbers continue to decline.  

"We're expected to decline about 2,100 students over the next five years. and that's about a rate of 1.5%. So, if we continue to go in that direction, we could face some of the challenges that other school districts surrounding us have in regard to our schools. We're hoping to avoid that," said Barber.  

While the district can't control the trend in birth rates, they plan to continue studying ways they can encourage enrollment and retention and maintain quality resources and staffing across schools.  

"We are engaging a boundary study and a study of our families choice patterns in terms of what they're interested in for their students, and that work will guide the work going forward," said Dorland.  

"I do think that it's going to be, over time, way less people having kids absolutely," said Sylvester.