Flatirons, Mesa and Birch: what the records show about property plans

Two questions, tested against all 397 files BVSD released to Boulder Reporting Lab: did the district prepare to repurpose or dispose of the Flatirons, Mesa or Birch properties, and did it evaluate school properties to determine their value?

1. Every district mention of the three schools

Across the production, Flatirons appears in 28 files, Mesa in 25 and Birch in 6. Stripping out community-authored material and repeated quotations, this is the complete set of district-authored references.

Read fairly: the three schools sit inside the district's stated enrollment screen, which is real and consistent across every deck. What the record does not contain is any step from "below two rounds" toward "here is what we would do with the building".

2. Reuse and disposal activity in the record

Everything that touches the future of buildings, in date order. None of it names Flatirons, Mesa or Birch; where a building is named at all it is Washington (sold after 2003) or Platt (middle-school land).

1. 2024-10-31
   Price, to a parent pushing a CU tennis facility on Platt Middle School land: "there are some additional considerations and potential plans for the area at Platt Middle School, which I am unable to share at this stage." Never explained; in March 2026 the district said it was "not in a position… to have conversations about… dedicating district land". #144Unrelated to the elementary process, but the one instance of undisclosed land plans.
2. 2025-07-23
   Anderson to Flatirons Habitat for Humanity, which had proposed affordable housing on district land under a new state land-lease law: "I'd be open to a conversation. We do have a few parcels currently available. The district did attempt something like this before I arrived in 2018 and the community push back was fairly significant." A meeting was set for the week of Aug 18, 2025; its outcome is not in the record. #23Parcels, not school buildings; the earlier attempt is the Twin Lakes site in Gunbarrel.
3. 2025-10-24
   Senior Planner Glen Segrue and Board secretary Laura Shafer search for the 2005 memorandum with the City of Boulder on "school site disposal": after 2003 "the City responded with threats that would make BVSD selling property to developers difficult", so the MOU gave the City first right of refusal and a one-year lease on any closed site; it "guided us on the sale of the Washington school site". The document itself was not found. #36The same week as the Board's long-range planning work session. This is the clearest sign of disposal groundwork, and it is procedural.
4. 2025-11-19
   Bond staff scope a district-wide facility assessment with architect HCM: condition (FCI), educational adequacy and utilization tracking, the last "critical… when assessing options for school closures, mergers, or managing population decline"; a thorough assessment "would require approximately 12 months"; cost estimates per item, not market value. HCM was to present in January 2026. No RFP, contract or result appears. #45 #44
5. 2026-01-22
   A parent sends Anderson an article on adaptive reuse of closed Fort Worth schools. "Thanks Allie for sharing!" #52
6. 2026-02-06
   City housing staff share their draft Council memo with Segrue. It lists "Land Banking activities led by City of Boulder, Boulder Housing Partners, and the school district (ongoing)" under public-land disposition for affordable housing. Segrue forwards it to Price. #74
7. 2026-03-02
   Price forwards Better Boulder's housing report to Communications as "good takeaways" for the Council deck. The report recommends "Work with schools and institutions like BVSD to build housing on their land (like the Twin Lakes effort)". #127
8. 2026-03 (early)
   A Bear Creek teacher, writing after Anderson's staff visit: "you mentioned that a primary concern with closing a school was that a charter school would buy it and open a competing facility." She proposes choosing closures by which buildings are most "saleable" to non-school buyers. Her letter reaches Barber as "FYI". #171Second-hand, but it is the only stated view from the superintendent on what should happen to a closed building, and it is about avoiding a buyer, not finding one.
9. 2026-03-24
   Summer playground projects at Heatherwood "and four other schools" are put on hold "until the Board takes action this fall"; bond design continues so that "updated information on the existing needs of the building and current pricing for improvements" is ready in September. On Apr 9 Price adds that elementary bond work was "pushed… to phase four… because we knew this decision was coming". The four other schools are not named. #175 #234
10. 2026-03-27
    Price to a private school asking about space: "At this time, we do not have any available space… we likely will not have any information to share regarding potential space availability until summer 2027." #178
11. 2026-04-09
    Livestream, asked what happens to closed buildings. Price: "We haven't thought about a plan. We don't have a plan in our back pocket to come out of the gate… really hard to have this discussion until you know what schools are impacted." Anderson: "We're not trying to free up buildings so we can sell them to make money… those are one-time dollars"; after October "we'll be ready to partner with communities municipalities… Are there other uses for the school district for that facility?" No teacher-housing plan "today". #234 #189
12. 2026-02 to 04
    Every municipal deck places "Facility real estate process if needed" in Phase 7, November 2026 to August 2027, after Board action. #115 #160 #212
13. 2026-06 (end)
    District staff meet the Museum of Boulder and ask for its space requirements. On Jul 6 the Museum sends them ("At our last meeting, you requested some specs for housing the collection"); on Jul 13 Price replies: "We'll revisit this information in the fall (Oct/Nov) when we know exactly which schools will be available." #370The specs attachment was not produced. This is the only exchange in which BVSD solicits a partner's requirements for a building.
14. 2026-07-20
    Bob Yates (Museum) to Price and Anderson after the reporter calls: "not only have we not had discussions with you or anyone about specific schools, we don't even have an agreement with BVSD about whether a space-sharing arrangement is possible." #377
15. 2026-07-21
    Barber to the reporter, who had heard Whittier and Southern Hills discussed: "No. No conversations. I'm curious on who your source is - since that has no basis in fact." Two days later: "district staff have met proactively with municipal partners, prior to the beginning of planning… our team did meet with the Museum of Boulder, at their request, at the end of June… Any conversations about specific buildings will come after the Board approves a plan." #375 #384
16. 2026-07-23
    Asked whether a partner's interest in a building is a factor in any decision, the Board President routes the question to Barber and does not answer it. #389
17. 2026-07-27
    Adams 12's COO forwards Price Jeffco's cost of "mothballing" a closed school: about $157,000 a year for an average 42,000 sq ft building (maintenance $63k, utilities $54k, tech and security $16k, disposition $14k, insurance $7k, admin $3k); Jeffco "pay[s] a broker and a public relations firm" to dispose of property. Price: "Thank you, Molly!" #393The last item in the production. A peer's disposal playbook, received four weeks before the plan.

Read fairly: the district's consistent public position, "no plan until the Board decides, then a real-estate process", is matched by what the record shows staff doing: gathering process and cost information, meeting partners in general terms, and not naming buildings. The exception is the Museum exchange, where the district asked for a partner's specifications and tied the follow-up to which schools "will be available".

3. Valuation: what was searched and what came back

The extracted text of all 397 files was searched for the terms below. Hits are listed only where they concern district property; the rest are tax, city or vendor contexts.

Near misses worth knowing about

• Facility condition, not value. The HCM scoping (Nov 2025) and the "Ed Specs" work with HCM (a Mar 27 meeting, an Apr 17 check-in, special-education review of options June 22–July 10) are about what buildings need and what a receiving school must contain, not what a site is worth. #44 #194
• Withholding investment is the mirror image of valuing. The bond "phase four" deferral and the playground hold mean the district decided in 2022–2026 not to spend on candidate buildings, and to price their needs by September. That is a cost decision about schools that might close, not an appraisal of what they would fetch. #175 #234
• A vendor offered a building evaluation and was declined. A roofing contractor flagged warranties expiring at Nederland, Pioneer and Whittier; Price: "we are not interested in scheduling an evaluation at this time." #156
• One parent's report of a board member. A Mesa parent wrote on Jan 28 that "The board member who said they will not take into account any other data other than property values is concerning." It is her characterization of a remark at the Jan 27 meeting; the board member is not named and the recording is not in the production. #59

4. What this record cannot show, and where the answer would be

• Custodians. The request named Anderson, Shafer, Barber and Price. #390 Property work in this district runs through the Senior Planner (Segrue handled the 2005 MOU question, the City housing memo and Better Boulder), Bond Planning (Stoppenhagen and Konradi handled HCM and the playground hold) and the CFO (Sutter). None of their mailboxes was searched. A follow-up request for those three, using the same terms plus "appraisal", "broker", "HCM", "facility assessment", "Ed Specs" and "phase four", is the direct test of the negative in this memo.
• Calendar items. Requested and not produced. The Museum meeting, the Habitat meeting, HCM's January presentation and the municipal meetings would all be calendar entries showing who met whom and when.
• Missing attachments. The Museum's specifications, HCM's presentation, and the list of the "four other schools" whose playground work was deferred.
• Dates. The production ends July 28, 2026. The Aug 25 Board presentation and anything since are outside it.
• Search terms. The request asked for emails containing "the names of the schools under consideration for closure". No such list existed on July 24, so it is unclear the district searched by school name at all; Flatirons, Mesa and Birch appear here only where other terms also hit.
• A public check that costs nothing. Colorado's open-meetings law lets a board meet in executive session to discuss "the purchase, acquisition, lease, transfer, or sale of any real, personal, or other property interest" (C.R.S. 24-6-402(4)(a)). Board agendas from October 2025 onward will show whether any executive session was noticed under that provision. That is the one place a property discussion could have happened lawfully out of view, and the notice itself is public.

Documents cited