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Several Denver-area school districts cancel classes Friday amid national shutdown

By January 30, 2026 | updated 15 hours ago

FILE PHOTO: Students roam the East High School campus during lunch on Tuesday, May 20, 2025. (PHOTO: Tom Hellauer, The Denver Gazette)

The protest is in response to ICE operations

Several Denver-area school districts canceled classes on Friday due to staff shortages amid a shutdown campaign nationwide.

The shutdown, held across the country on Friday, came about in response to recent U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in Minnesota. A website with information about the shutdown called for it as a means to “stop ICE’s reign of terror.”

There are also a slew of protests scheduled throughout the state on Friday and Saturday.

Most Denver Public Schools remained in operation Friday, with the only closures being the district’s special education center-based programs and Early Childhood Education Programs, the district said in a statement.

Additionally, some schools — George Washington High School, North High School, South High School, East High School, Joe Shoemaker Elementary and McMeen Elementary — saw a two-hour delay, but none was closed fully, the district said.

By contrast, some of the city’s neighboring school districts decided to begin the weekend a day early in light of a significant amount of anticipated staff absences.

One such district was Aurora Public Schools, which announced on its website that it would be closing all of its schools, as well as the Pickens Technical College on Friday and switching it to the Professional Release Day originally scheduled for the following week.

“We always seek to keep schools open to provide critical learning, social-emotional support, mental health resources and healthy meals for our students. However, after closely monitoring the number of staff absences across the district for tomorrow, we have determined that APS will not have enough staffing capacity to safely operate schools. We recognize the impact this may have and sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this will cause many of our families,” district officials said in the announcement.

In Adams County School District 14, the superintendent sent a letter to families that the district would hold a “teacher and staff work day,” in lieu of a traditional school day, according to Alsup Elementary, a member of the district.

Officials from the Boulder Valley School District wrote on its website that nearly a quarter of its teachers had submitted leave for Friday and that, as a result, the district could not operate its schools in a standard manner Friday.

“While we learned about the protests earlier this week, we did not anticipate this impact, with both the Colorado Education Association and the Boulder Valley Education Association communicating to teachers this week that tomorrow is not an authorized day of action,” school officials wrote.

Instead of a full closure, the district’s schools will remain open throughout the day, with teachers and staff in attendance providing alternative activities for students. The district also excused all absences for its students.

Denver Gazette Reporter Nico Brambila contributed to this report. For more on this story, and others, visit the Denver Gazette’s news partners 9NEWS.

Michael Braithwaite

Reporter

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