What goes up must come down – when it comes to school enrollment, too. No public school district has the same number of students from year to year, and no neighborhood that supplies students to that district stays the same, either. A cul-de-sac teeming with kids on bikes becomes, in seemingly no time, a cul-de-sac of graying heads walking dogs and awaiting their grandkids’ visits on weekends.

That’s worth pondering anew as Colorado school districts once again make news with controversial talk of permanently shuttering some schools amid declining enrollment.

The state’s largest school district, Denver Public Schools, announced recently it was looking at closing 10 schools – scaled back to five by the district administration last week following pushback from its board. Second-largest district Jefferson County Schools in west metro Denver is closing 16 elementary schools after a unanimous board vote.

Colorado Springs School District 11 and Pueblo District 60 also have been losing students to suburban districts, with D-11’s enrollment dropping by more than 4,000 students over the past four years. School closures haven’t been proposed, but staff positions have been on the line.

It’s inevitable. Especially Colorado’s urban school districts have lost families to outlying areas as inner cities become less inviting places to raise children for a range of reasons. Often left behind in the inner-urban cores for Colorado cities are the most at-risk kids from low-income households.

The result is schools that simply serve too few children to be feasible. As state funding per pupil declines along with shrinking enrollment, the cost of staffing, managing and operating a school building – heating, power, cleaning, upkeep – remain largely the same.

A private-sector organization would take the obvious step of repurposing the facility for a more efficient use – or shutting it down and putting it up for sale. For public schools, it’s not so simple.

Understandably, parents are alarmed at the prospect of losing their children’s school. Factors ranging from transportation to familiarity – a sense of community – foster an attachment to a neighborhood school.

The blowback to school boards and administrators can be intense. Denver Superintendent Alex Marrero “prioritized” only five schools for imminent closure after several board members frowned on his prior recommendation to close 10. The full board is scheduled to vote on his revised proposal this week.

School districts – administrators, teachers, elected boards and the parents who elected them – ought to rethink the whole issue. And school choice – charter schools and other specialized programs that meet different kids’ needs – needs to play a central role.

Choice already has been employed across the state for years to enhance academic achievement. Districts also should advance choice to check declining enrollment.

School districts cannot afford to keep schools open if they have too few kids; west Denver’s Fairview Elementary School, for example, has only 128 students. That shortchanges all of a district’s students, who could use the wasted funding for more teachers and other resources.

Similarly, parents – for the sake of their children’s education – cannot afford to tie their kids to a neighborhood school at all costs, based only on its location.

Underenrolled schools could compete for more students by offering programs other schools don’t offer. Charter and innovation schools, like Denver’s, are examples but are just the start. Allow all schools to be creative. An elementary school music program that lets kids record their own hip-hop? A reading program in which students can self-publish their fiction?

For schools that have gotten too small, it’s time to think big.

Denver Gazette Editorial Board