We repeatedly hear David Illingworth and Ken Witt talk about enrollment increases in the district. The only way they can make that claim is if they count Merit Academy kids as NOT being part of our district the year that school opened in the ’21-22 school year. From a legal standpoint that’s correct, but it ignores the fact that Merit Academy was physically located in city limits that first year. So I’m going to count them as part of the district, but I’m including all the data at the end here if you want to interpret it differently.
District-wide enrollment
- 2021-2022 school year: 2036 students
- 2022-2023 school year: 2007 students
- 2023-2024 school year: 1904 students
Note that the 2023-2024 numbers are not yet final and won’t be until closer to the end of October, though are showing a 5% decline in enrollment. I have not included pre-K in these numbers due to the universal pre-K program new to Colorado this year – comparisons to past years are not applicable as a result.
When Merit Academy opened for the 2021-2022 school year, we did see a 2.6% enrollment boost – that school helped fill a niche here, though Covid is also credited with driving people out of cities and to the suburbs. Note though this was before the current board was voted in.
2021-2022 school year (data per the CDE)
1832 students in the district schools, 1749 if you don’t count pre-K. Merit had 287. Total is 2036, or 2119 with pre-K.
2022-2023 school year (data per the CDE)
Total is 2007, or 2122 students with pre-K.
2023-2024 school year (preliminary data from 9/25 district count)
Total is 1904, or 2026 with pre-K.