Chalked in bold, right outside the front door of Heritage Elementary School in Highlands Ranch, messages on the pavement read “save our school” and “our memories are here.”

Heritage Elementary, one of Colorado’s highest performing schools, is one of three Douglas County School District schools on the chopping block in its effort to accommodate downsizing.

DCSD plans to shutter three schools and move students to three others — a move district officials hope will balance declining enrollment within the affluent Highlands Ranch metro district. The plan, with Board of Directors approval, would be implemented for the 2026-2027 school year.

Community members, particularly from Heritage Elementary, argue the decision disregards the school’s award-winning history, adding that DCSD officials didn’t properly engage with its constituents during this process.

However, DCSD insists it spent two years deciding what schools to close, which included “dozens of meetings for Highlands Ranch staff, families, and community members,” school officials said in a statement. “All of these adjustments will help DCSD ensure that the newly consolidated schools remain efficient and sustainable for years to come.”

DCSD on Monday announced recommendations to “pair” and “consolidate” six schools:

• Saddle Ranch Elementary to consolidate into Eldorado Elementary
• Heritage Elementary to consolidate into Summit View Elementary
• Acres Green Elementary to consolidate into Fox Creek Elementary

Plans also call for moving Highlands Ranch sixth graders from elementary schools into Cresthill, Mountain Ridge and Ranch View middle schools, making them sixth through eighth.

The recommendations face a DCSD board vote on April 22.

“To me, as a taxpayer, why are we giving the school district so much money, and yet they want to shut down three schools,” Heritage Elementary School PTO President Laura Spitzenberger told The Denver Gazette.

“It’s just going to create more problems in three-to-five years,” she said.

On Tuesday, Heritage Elementary community members held a silent protest at the school. Dozens of students and parents chalked messages outside on sidewalks.

“The best teachers and staff on the planet,” one said, while another wrote, “Why would you close down a growing, thriving, award-winning school?”

In 2024, Heritage Elementary was awarded both the Colorado John Irwin Schools of Excellence Award and the Colorado Governor’s Distinguished Improvement Award. U.S. News & World Report named Heritage Elementary the 14th best elementary school in Colorado, scoring its performance rating a 98.67 out of 100.

“We didn’t choose these schools based on worthiness,” DCSD Superintendent Erin Kane told The Denver Gazette on Tuesday.

In 2012, DCSD enrollment topped 11,000 students. By 2026, that number is expected to drop to 6,000 students among 16 DCSD elementary schools in Highlands Ranch — prompting the need to downsize, according to the school district.

“We have more buildings than we need,” Kane said previously. “It’s really important to preserve opportunities for students and for us to make some consolidations.”

Community members argue Highlands Ranch remains growing and family-oriented.

“These are wonderful small neighborhood schools. That’s why families choose Highlands Ranch,” Spitzenberger said.

Heritage Elementary currently enrolls 354 students with a 562-student capacity, while Summit View has 332 students with a 718-student capacity, according to DCSD’s “growth and decline” database.

DCSD officials determined, based on square footage of buildings and classrooms, that Summit View can accommodate the nearly 300 students projected to be enrolled in 2030, according to DCSD’s statement.

“To close one of the highest ranking, best performing schools is shocking,” Spitzenberger said. “I think the staff, we really want to try to rally around them … they were completely blindsided by this, too.”

In a statement on Thursday, DCSD officials said “any affected staff member will have a place in DCSD,” noting that impacted staff members are “guaranteed a commensurate position in DCSD through the 2027-2028 school year.”

“These teachers want to be teachers,” Spitzenberger said. “They don’t want to go to another school and have a lower level, lower paying job.”

Heritage Elementary parent Brooke Chandler, despite residing within the Summit View Elementary boundary, said she chose to send her children — now in second and fifth grades — to Heritage Elementary because of its special education offerings.

“Those teachers make them feel worthy and loved,” Chandler said, lamenting she moved to Highlands Ranch because of the school system.

Now, she fears her soon-to-be sixth grader, who is a special education student, will “lose consistency” with the new, abrupt transition.

Kane called the opportunities for sixth graders “tremendous.” She said transitioning sixth graders have earlier access to culinary, speech, orchestra and performing arts, “all the kinds of things that are really hard to offer in a smaller elementary school.”

New offerings at the combined Summit View Elementary will include increased special education and English programs, according to DCSD.

“It’s so much more than just a building, and that’s why we’re all really devastated,” Spitzenberger said. “It’s not something that we’re taking lightly, because it’s a pillar community.”