Which schools were named, and when
Specific schools appear in closure-adjacent discussion long before the proposal, and long before May 2026: in the district's own annual reports to the Board, in its long range advisory committee's minutes, in the decks it prepared for three city councils, and in a neighbouring district's note of a meeting with the superintendent. This page collects every instance in what we hold, what each one actually says, and what it does not show.
- The district named schools itself, in print, from February 2024. Its annual enrollment trend report to the Board listed six schools in the Enrollment Advisory phase — Coal Creek, Community Montessori, Eldorado K-5, Flatirons, Kohl and Mesa — and one, Heatherwood, in the Community Engagement phase. The February 2025 edition named eight, adding Eisenhower and Whittier.
- The February 2026 edition stopped naming them. Presented to the Board on February 10, three weeks before the first community session, it reports counts only: seven schools in Advisory, two in Engagement. The two names surfaced a month later in the advisory committee's minutes: "Two schools—Heatherwood and Flatirons—currently meet the community engagement criteria."
- Two of the four schools the proposal closes were never flagged in any actual year. Douglass and Birch appear in none of the status lists; Birch reaches Engagement only in the 2030-31 projection. The metric-driven naming and the final list are not the same set.
- In February and March 2026 the district showed three city councils school-by-school screens. The Boulder deck states that resident students cannot support two classes per grade at Bear Creek, Flatirons, Heatherwood, Douglass, Mesa and Whittier. All three Boulder schools now slated to close are on that slide. The Louisville and Superior decks name Coal Creek, Eldorado, Monarch, Fireside and Louisville Elementary against the same screen.
- On March 16, 2026 a neighbouring district's note records the number. Broomfield's City and County Manager wrote, after meeting the superintendent and the assistant superintendent of operational services, that "two elementary schools and possibly one middle school are currently being considered for closure."
- At the same time the district was drawing the line publicly in both directions. On February 11 it told a student journalist that the mountain schools, Gold Hill and Jamestown, were "NOT part of the conversation regarding possible action." On April 27 it demanded a correction from a news outlet for naming likely schools, on the ground that "the district does not, yet, have a plan."
- What is not here. Nothing before May 2026 lists the four schools the proposal closes. The naming in the record is a capacity screen, a status ladder and a count — not a closure list.
What counts as naming a school
Three different things get called "naming a school" and they are worth keeping apart, because the district's answer to each is different.
The status ladder is the committee's early-warning system, adopted in the June 2023 metrics document: a school at or below two classes per grade and 60% capacity is in an Enrollment Advisory phase, and one at or below 1.5 classes per grade and 50% capacity, with a five-year trend, is in a Community Engagement phase. June 13, 2023 metrics The engagement phase is not a closure step. Its text calls for "a community-based process to develop possible solutions" — which is what Heatherwood got, and Heatherwood stayed open.
The capacity screen in the 2026 council decks is a different cut: how many classes per grade the resident students of an attendance area can fill. It names schools without proposing anything about them.
A closure candidate list is the third thing, and it is the one the district said repeatedly it did not have. Nothing we hold from before May 2026 is one.
The district's own reports
The annual enrollment trend report goes to the Board each February. Three editions sit in the window, and they do not treat school names the same way.
| Report | Schools named | How |
|---|---|---|
| February 2024 report | Advisory: Coal Creek, Community Montessori, Eldorado K-5, Flatirons, Kohl, Mesa. Engagement: Heatherwood. |
Named in the summary, with the thresholds. Projects six schools in Engagement by 2028-29, "nine in Boulder, one in Louisville, one in Superior, and two in Broomfield". |
| February 2025 report | Advisory: Coal Creek, Community Montessori, Eisenhower, Eldorado K-5, Flatirons, Kohl, Mesa, Whittier. Engagement: Heatherwood continuing. |
Named in the summary, same form as 2024. |
| February 2026 report | No school named | Counts only: seven Advisory, two Engagement for 2025-26. The summary page switches to district-wide projections — 14 schools at or below two classes per grade by 2030, seven at or below 1.5. |
The October 21, 2025 work session deck, the session that set the direction, also gives counts rather than names on its metrics slide: eight in Advisory, one in Engagement, rising to three in Engagement by 2029. Oct 21, 2025 deck
Fair to the district: a report can stop naming schools for good reasons, and the counts were still published. But the effect is that the last school-level status list the public could read before the proposal was the one from February 2025, naming eight schools, and the schools meeting the closure-trigger criteria in 2026 reached the public through committee minutes rather than the report itself.
The advisory committee
The long range advisory committee's minutes are the place where the 2026 names appear. The LRAC archive has every set.
- Members report that "parents have expressed concerns that their school is going to close. The perception is out there that schools are closing and it is not a secret anymore," and that the topic "has come up at Flatirons". Staff brief the committee on the October 21 work session, at which "staff outlined six options available to the Board to reconfigure the district's facilities portfolio, ranging from allowing schools to stay small to closing some schools."minutes
- Under the annual trend report: "Two schools—Heatherwood and Flatirons—currently meet the community engagement criteria." In the same meeting members report that "parents of elementary school students are questioning what schools will be closing and some are starting to accept that it will happen"; that after the Superior Town Council meeting "there was a perception that the district already knows what schools are closing and is keeping it from the community"; that at Flatirons "teachers are feeling anxious about their jobs"; and that a member who spent time at Heatherwood found "a bit of angst and wonder if the school is going to close now after everything that has been done there."minutes
What the city councils were shown
Between February 19 and March 26, 2026 the district presented to Superior, Louisville and Boulder. The decks are in the records production, and they are school-by-school.
| Deck | What it says about named schools |
|---|---|
| Superior, Feb 19 #114 Louisville, Feb 22 #118 |
"Only Coal Creek, LES, and Superior El. above 2 classes/grade w/ resident students." "Fireside & Monarch resident students are currently at or near 2 classes/grade." "Eldorado resident students would not support 2 classes/grade." "Coal Creek, Eldorado, and Monarch enroll under 2 rounds." "Monarch resident-attending students low and reliant on OE." "Fireside also dependent on OE." "Enrollment declines expected at 3 of 6 schools." |
| Boulder, prepared Mar 13 for Mar 26 #160 | "Resident students cannot support 2 classes/grade at Bear Creek, Flatirons, Heatherwood, Douglass, Mesa, and Whittier." "Heatherwood and Whittier at 2 classes/grade." "Creekside, Columbine, and Crest View resident-attending near or below 50%." Also: 11 schools currently enrolled below two classes per grade, 10 expected to keep declining. |
Flatirons, Mesa and Douglass — the three Boulder schools the proposal closes — are all on the March slide, five months before the announcement. So are Bear Creek, Heatherwood and Whittier, which are not closing. The City of Boulder thread has how that presentation came about.
Fair to the district: these decks were public documents, presented at public meetings, and the screen they use is a consistent, data-based one rather than a shortlist. The shading legend on the regional slides reads "or" where the report's rule reads "and"; the published counts use the stricter test, so the legend is a shading note, not a different rule.
The Broomfield note
On March 16, 2026, the City and County Manager of Broomfield wrote to a contact at Adams 12 after meeting Superintendent Anderson and Assistant Superintendent Rob Price. The note reached BVSD when Adams 12 forwarded the thread. #161 The full thread is reproduced here.
"I also wanted to share that I met with Rob Anderson and Rob Price on Friday to continue the conversation. Based on that discussion, it sounds like two elementary schools and possibly one middle school are currently being considered for closure."
The note does not say which schools, and does not say whether the number covers Broomfield alone or the district. The proposal, five months later, closes one Broomfield elementary and one Broomfield middle-level program. Boulder Reporting Lab reported the note on August 20.
What the district was saying at the same time
- In the sidebar drafted for the superintendent's byline in a national magazine: "While a number of schools are on our radar, we recognized that one school, Heatherwood Elementary in Boulder could use some help immediately." The published version reads "only nine of our district's 56 schools are on our radar for declining enrollment."#10 · the sidebar, published and draft
- The chief communications officer rewrites a principal’s reply to a Gold Hill family. His approved version: "Gold Hill and the other mountain schools have been protected from conversations happening in other parts of the district regarding declining enrollment, which includes the potential for possible school closures." The draft he replaced had said there had "not been a formal conversation about school closure at this point".#15
- The chief communications officer answers a student journalist asking about Gold Hill and Jamestown: the mountain schools "are NOT part of the conversation regarding possible action.... and while closure, consolidation and programmatic changes are possible at other elementary schools -- no decisions have been made at this time."#92
- The day before the first community session, the same officer tells a vendor the district has "projects we've got coming up -- including the likely closure/consolidation of schools".#232
- A correction is demanded of Boulder Reporting Lab, which had named Flatirons, Heatherwood, Kohl, Eldorado K-8, Whittier International, Louisville Elementary, Monarch K-8 and Columbine: "the district does not, yet, have a plan. As a result, it would be inaccurate to report a list of schools that are 'most likely to face closure.'" The reply sets out what the district had said: decisions limited to schools serving elementary students, in three regional areas, not including the mountain schools.#312 · the April 28 reply · the story
A board member's worked examples
On April 8, 2026 the board vice president sent staff a critique of how the options were being explained, using named schools to make the categories concrete: "Real world example in my neighborhood: You close Mesa and its students are assigned to Bear Creek," and, for co-location, "Community Montessori co-locating in Mesa's campus with an ongoing Mesa." #215 The full critique is reproduced here.
These are illustrations of what the words mean, written by someone arguing the district was "sugar coating" the options by not saying "close a school" plainly. They are not a proposal, and should not be quoted as one. The proposal that arrived in August does close Mesa into Bear Creek and does relocate Community Montessori.
The quiet stretch
Between the Gold Hill correspondence of June 2025 and the end of January 2026 the production contains no document naming a school as a closure or consolidation candidate. The September 8, 2025 boundary feedback names Crest View, Heatherwood and Creekside, but about the attendance boundary change, not closure. The one family inbox we have read end to end shows the same silence: no district email mentioned closure at all until February 10, 2026. what BVSD emailed families
What this does not show
- No pre-May closure list. Nothing we hold from before May 2026 names Flatirons, Mesa, Douglass and Birch together, or names any school as one the district intended to close.
- The status ladder is not a closure list, and the district can fairly say so. Heatherwood sat at the top of it for two years and is a receiving school in the proposal.
- The council decks were public. Whatever else they show, they are not a private naming.
- The Broomfield note is a paraphrase by someone outside the district, of a meeting we have no minutes of, with no schools named and no stated scope.
- The and/or difference is not a rule change. The shading legend on the regional slides differs from the report's rule, but every published count uses the stricter test.
- Names alone prove little. Six schools are on the March Boulder slide and three of them are not closing; two of the four that are closing are on none of the district's status lists.
Timeline
- Annual trend report names seven schools by status.report
- Annual trend report names nine.report
- Boundary work session deck and the 2023 metrics circulate internally; status counts, one school in Engagement through 2027.#5
- AASA sidebar drafted: "a number of schools are on our radar". Gold Hill families told the mountain schools "have been protected from conversations happening in other parts of the district regarding declining enrollment, which includes the potential for possible school closures."#10
- Board work session on declining enrollment; six options from keeping schools small to closing some. Metrics slide gives counts.deck
- Advisory committee: "it is not a secret anymore"; Flatirons named as a place where the topic has come up.minutes
- Mountain schools ruled out by name, in writing.#92
- Advisory committee minutes name Heatherwood and Flatirons as meeting the community engagement criteria.minutes
- Boulder council deck names six elementaries against the two-classes-per-grade screen.#160
- Broomfield's manager records "two elementary schools and possibly one middle school".#161
- Special programs asked to hold the week of June 22 to review "possible closure/consolidation options"; the analysis is booked for June 22 to July 10.#193
- Board vice president's critique uses Mesa, Bear Creek and Community Montessori as worked examples.#215
- Correction demanded over a story naming eight schools; "the district does not, yet, have a plan".#312
- The proposal names Flatirons, Mesa, Douglass and Birch for closure.
How this was searched
Every file in the 397-document production was converted to text and searched for the name of every BVSD elementary and K-8 school within 260 characters of closure, consolidation, reuse or candidate language; 75 of the 321 files dated before May 1, 2026 matched, and each was read. A second pass searched the same files for list language — "which schools", "list of schools", "on our radar", "most likely to close". The district's three annual trend reports and the committee's minutes were then read directly from BoardDocs and the LRAC archive. Weather closures, a payroll question about a water-main day and parent advocacy letters naming their own schools were set aside.
Related: the records explorer · the enrollment forecasts memo · the LRAC archive · the Broomfield thread · the City of Boulder thread · the Museum of Boulder exchange, whose July 2026 emails name no school.