Declining, or leveling off? What BVSD’s own enrollment forecasts show

A Mesa parent noticed that the district’s forecasts for Mesa and Bear Creek moved in opposite directions between October 2025 and February 2026, and a district planner’s email describes births leveling off. This memo lines up every enrollment forecast BVSD has published since 2023 against what actually happened, to see whether declining enrollment still describes the years ahead or mainly the years behind.

The planner’s email

On January 24, 2025, senior planner Glen Segrue sent Rob Price and Susan Cousins the new capacity table, the spreadsheet behind each year’s trend report. He wrote that noticeably fewer schools met the engagement threshold than under the previous forecast, because the elementary projection for 2028-29 was about 100 students higher than a year earlier. His reasons: elementary enrollment in fall 2024 came in about 110 over projection, 2024’s kindergarten class was large, and the newest birth data showed births leveling, with small gains in the Nederland and Flatirons areas. In his words: New birth data (2023) shows continued leveling off generally. Email, 1 page Between the two published tables the difference at 2028-29 is 270, not 100; the email doesn’t say what his figure measures.

The copy the group received has a file name that reads like January 2026, but the header is dated January 24, 2025, and the contents match that year: the forecast ends in 2029-30, the newest births are 2023’s and the large kindergarten is 2024’s. It is not in the Boulder Reporting Lab production; its layout matches the district’s records-request releases.

The table he attached is the one on page 9 of the February 11, 2025 report, marked updated January 24, 2025. p. 9 Its Boulder rows reappear unchanged on slide 17 of the October 21, 2025 work session, where the Board turned from the LRAC’s school-by-school thresholds to a regional approach. p. 17 The LRAC heard the same message on January 27, 2025, and the February 2025 report told the Board that enrollment would keep declining, but more slowly than the previous year’s forecast. LRAC minutes p. 11

Four editions of the elementary forecast

Each January the planner projects every school five years ahead. These totals cover the 32 district-run elementary schools in the district’s capacity tables. Charter schools, Boulder Universal and Halcyon are not in those tables, so the totals run about 740 below the elementary line in the proposal. Jan 2024, p. 11 Jan 2025, p. 9 Jan 2026, p. 9

The oldest edition is the one the LRAC worked from. It reached the Board on March 14, 2023 as a K-12 projection by level with charter schools included, and again at the May 16, 2023 work session on the committee’s draft metrics with charter schools taken out, which is the version charted here; the district’s December 2023 comparison of projection to count dates it April 10, 2023, and its 2023-24 figure of 10,173 is the one compared there. Mar 2023, p. 6 May 2023, slide 9 Dec 2023 comparison Its non-charter series counts Boulder Universal and Halcyon, 35 students in 2022-23, with the 32 schools in the later tables, so the line starts at 10,391 where those schools alone had 10,356 and runs a few dozen high throughout. Oct 2022 counts by school From that base it projected a drop of 912 elementary students, 8.8 percent, by 2027-28. Fall 2023 came in 55 below it, and by 2025-26 the 32 schools had 9,689 against its 9,810.

In students, each edition projects a smaller five-year drop than the one before, 912, 900, 521 and 281, and the January 2026 edition is the first in which elementary enrollment turns up before the five years are out. Starting from a fall 2025 count that came in low, the newest forecast is below the January 2025 one in every year; it is above the January 2024 one in every year the two share.

Where the decline is now

Segrue told the Board on September 15 that he first noticed very small kindergarten classes around 2012, and that the smaller classes then brought down elementary enrollment, moved on to middle school and are now reaching high school. Rob Price made the same point later that evening. 1:19:01 2:42:17 The most recent year still hit elementary hardest: fall 2025 lost 255 elementary students, against 105 in middle school and 165 in high school. Dec 2025, p. 5 In the forecast the elementary losses shrink from there, to 147, 175 and 99, before the rise. By the district’s own forecast, nine-tenths of the elementary decline from the 2014 peak to 2030-31 has already happened; for middle schools it is a little over half, and for high schools a little under half. Proposal p. 12 Enrollment by year, 1996–2025

Between the October 2025 work session and the proposal, the forecast for 2029-30 fell by 681 students. Only 98 of that was elementary; 263 was middle school and 320 high school. Oct 2025, p. 10 Proposal p. 12

By region

Regions and seat counts are the district’s. The proposal’s summary of the elementary projections describes Boulder, Louisville and Superior, and Broomfield as continuing to decline and Lafayette and Erie as growing slowly, and gives each region’s utilization for 2030-31, which matches this table. Proposal p. 13 In that same year Boulder’s elementary schools are rising, from their low of 3,928 in 2028-29 to 3,999. In Lafayette and Erie, growth at Meadowlark, from 471 to 605, offsets declines at Lafayette, Pioneer and Ryan.

Births

The district counts births from Colorado birth certificates matched to its attendance areas. Births by attendance area Boulder’s births fell faster and for longer than the east side’s, until 2019; both have been flat since. Dec 2025, p. 12 In 2025 kindergarten kept the same ratio to births five years earlier as in 2024, and the class of 1,626 was the largest since 2022. p. 13 Enrollment summary

The state demographer’s county totals cover different ground and still drift down: Boulder County, which includes Longmont and the rest of the St. Vrain district, had 2,525 births in 2019 and 2,304 in 2024, while Broomfield County’s stayed between 635 and 685. State Demography Office The district’s own table is the one its forecasts use.

How close the forecasts come

District-wide the forecasts land within about one percent, one year above and one below. Individual schools miss by more. One year out, last fall’s misses averaged 4.3 percent across the 33 elementary schools the district projected at 100 or more students, from −16.8 percent at Community Montessori to +8.0 percent at High Peaks. Fall 2025 comparison Two years out, the January 2024 forecast for fall 2025 missed the 30 district-run schools of that size by 6.4 percent on average, and five by more than 10 percent, Bear Creek by +14 percent. The proposal chooses schools on a five-year forecast.

On September 15, Price said the planner’s projections had been very accurate for 19 years, and the superintendent said they come within one percent in 19 years out of 20. 1:05:56 2:05:07 That matches the district-wide totals. Director Jason Unger recalled enrollment coming in below projection in each of the last two years and tied that to the October 2025 change of course. 1:44:01 The district’s own comparisons show one year above and one below, though the October 21, 2025 deck did show the preliminary fall 2025 count under the forecast. Oct 2025, p. 10

Mesa and Bear Creek

Between the October 2025 work session and the February 2026 report, Mesa’s 2029-30 figure fell 22 and Bear Creek’s rose 38, as the parent found. Oct 2025, p. 17 Feb 2026, p. 9 The district hasn’t explained its school-level revisions, but its own documents show four things that line up with them:

• Bear Creek has beaten every forecast. Fall 2024 came in at 318 against 287 in the January 2024 forecast; fall 2025 at 312 against 273 in that forecast and 308 in January 2025’s.
• Births in its neighborhoods have rebounded. In the Bear Creek, Mesa and shared attendance areas they rose from 33 in 2019 to 70 in 2024, close to their level in 2012 to 2014. The shared area alone went from 11 births in 2023 to 28 in 2024. Children born in 2024 start kindergarten in 2029-30, the year Bear Creek’s forecast jumps from 288 to 310. Numbers this small swing from year to year.
• Bear Creek gained an area. In September 2025 the Board moved the Bear Creek/Creekside shared area, 37 elementary students in 326 homes, into Bear Creek from 2026-27, letting current Creekside students stay. Study item, p. 22 Map
• Mesa came in below. Fall 2025 was 224 against 230 in the January 2025 forecast, and its new forecast holds at about 202 from 2027-28.

The proposal would close Mesa and merge the Bear Creek, Mesa and shared attendance areas. Its own figures for the combined area: 473 resident students in 2027-28 and 522 in 2030-31, against 492 seats in the Bear Creek building, with enrollment of 392 to 445 and then 403 to 462, depending on how many Mesa families follow. Proposal p. 51 Sept 15 deck, p. 20 On September 15 Segrue acknowledged that 522 is more than the building holds and said that even at 85 percent, the highest share of residents who attend their neighborhood school, the figure would be about 455. 2:02:13 The two schools’ separate forecasts add to 512 in 2029-30 and 521 in 2030-31, though those describe two schools, not one.

The five elementary schools the proposal closes

In the January 2026 forecast, Douglass, Flatirons and Monarch’s K-5 are level or higher in 2030-31 than now; Birch and Mesa fall through 2027-28 or 2028-29 and then hold. The proposal describes Flatirons as staying at one class per grade and Mesa as projected to continue to decline. p. 50 p. 53 Summary, p. 58

Every elementary school

All three editions, every school and year (CSV)

What the group can say, and what to avoid

Timeline

1. Mar 14, 2023
   LRAC update to the Board

   The committee’s five-year projection reaches the Board, K-12 by level with charter schools included: elementary from 11,075 to 10,142 by 2027-28.

   p. 6
2. May 16, 2023
   Board work session on the LRAC’s draft metrics

   Slide 9 is the same projection without charter schools, “smaller elementary cohorts progressing to secondary”: elementary from 10,391 to 9,479 by 2027-28, middle school from 5,429 to 5,082, high school from 9,338 to 8,456.

   Slide 9 LRAC archive
3. Dec 12, 2023
   Annual enrollment update

   Fall 2023 count of 27,273, down 249 students but 196 above the forecast. The district’s comparison dates the forecast April 10, 2023; non-charter elementary came in at 10,118 against 10,173.

   Forecast vs. count Summary, p. 16
4. Feb 27, 2024
   Annual Enrollment Trend Report to the Board

   The first annual report the LRAC asked for. Its forecast, dated January 26, 2024, has district-run elementary enrollment falling from 10,074 to 9,174 by 2028-29, with six schools in the community engagement phase by then.

   Table, p. 11 Summary, p. 13
5. Dec 10, 2024
   Annual enrollment update

   Fall 2024 count of 27,132, down 141 students but 247 above the forecast. Kindergarten 1,609.

   Forecast vs. count Enrollment by year
6. Jan 24, 2025
   Glen Segrue to Rob Price and Susan Cousins

   The new capacity table: fewer schools meet the engagement threshold, the elementary forecast is about 100 higher at 2028-29, and the 2023 births show leveling.

   Email
7. Jan 27, 2025
   LRAC meeting

   Segrue tells the committee that births are showing signs of leveling after steep declines in Boulder and that the new projections are higher than last year’s, with a larger kindergarten.

   Minutes
8. Feb 11, 2025
   Annual Enrollment Trend Report to the Board

   Enrollment to keep declining through 2029, but more slowly than the previous forecast; elementary about 1 percent a year; two fewer schools flagged than a year earlier.

   Table, p. 9 Summary, p. 11 Executive summary
9. Sep 23, 2025
   Board adopts attendance boundary changes

   Among them, the Bear Creek/Creekside shared area (37 elementary students) goes to Bear Creek from 2026-27; current Creekside students may stay.

   Study item, p. 22 Map
10. Oct 21, 2025
    Board work session

    The January 2025 forecast, unchanged, with the preliminary fall 2025 count shown below it. Staff project 10 of 14 Boulder schools at or below two classes per grade by 2029, and the Board turns to a regional approach.

    p. 10 p. 17 p. 39
11. Dec 9, 2025
    Annual enrollment update

    Fall 2025 count of 26,607, down 525 and 284 below the forecast. Kindergarten 1,626, the largest since 2022. Staff again report births leveling after steep declines in Boulder, and resident net migration faltering.

    Forecast vs. count Births and kindergarten, p. 13 Summary, p. 14
12. Feb 10, 2026
    Annual Enrollment Trend Report to the Board

    The forecast dated January 26, 2026: all grades down 1,670 by 2030-31; the elementary table falls to 2028-29 and rises after. The summary slide says district enrollment will keep declining, with elementary driving the facility and staffing impacts.

    p. 6 Table, p. 9 Summary, p. 11
13. Mar 9, 2026
    LRAC meeting

    Segrue presents the February report to the committee.

    Minutes
14. Aug 25, 2026
    The proposal

    Uses the January 2026 forecast: the by-level chart on page 12, the regional summary on page 13 and the school-by-school cases.

    p. 6 p. 12 p. 13 p. 51
15. Sep 15, 2026
    Board work session

    Segrue explains the method; directors ask about accuracy, the five-year horizon and the Bear Creek and Mesa numbers.

    1:05:56 1:44:01 2:02:13
16. Oct 1, 2026
    Fall 2026 count day

    Nine days after the vote. The count usually reaches the Board in December.

What to ask for

A records request to the district could ask for:

1. The capacity workbooks behind each edition: the spreadsheet attached to the January 24, 2025 email and its January 2024 and January 2026 counterparts, with resident students by grade and school.
2. The inputs to the January 2026 forecast: the net migration and open-enrollment assumptions, the housing units counted for each school, and the birth file by attendance area, including 2025 births when the state releases them.
3. The method behind the combined-school ranges for every consolidation in the proposal, such as the 403 to 462 for Bear Creek and Mesa.
4. Any analysis of the October 2026 count against the January 2026 forecast, as soon as it exists. The count is taken October 1, nine days after the vote.

Related

• The Long Range Advisory Committee: the thresholds these tables apply, and how the Board set them aside.
• September 15, 2026 work session transcript, from 1:05:56
• The spring Resilient Schools survey
• All records pages