The attorney suing Denver Public Schools (DPS) over its plan to shutter campuses has called the decision to delay releasing its school closure list until after the bond vote “fraudulent,” arguing the district’s messaging — promising to relieve overcrowding by building new schools — undercuts its own justification for closing others due to declining enrollment.

Two months after the board adopted guardrails for school closures, DPS Superintendent Alex Marrero requested a month-long delay, citing the need for the October Count data to complete the analysis.

The delay, district officials have said, was driven by the availability of student data — not the bond election — and that Marrero’s team needed more time to analyze enrollment figures from the October Count to inform his closure recommendation.

Initially, officials said they could not share the Oct. 1 enrollment data in the Nov. 7 presentation because the figures were under a state embargo. But the district later clarified that it uses a 10-day window — five days before and after Oct. 1 — to finalize the official count. Yet documents reviewed by The Denver Gazette showed that the Oct. 1 count data was, in fact, publicly posted in an embedded link within the presentation — though not explicitly labeled as such.

District leaders said the bond and school closures are not at odds, arguing that the growth in the district is uneven with enrollment shrinking in some parts and growing in others.

Publicly shared documents suggested the district relied on enrollment data from Sept. 17 — two weeks before what’s called the “October Count” taken every year on Oct. 1 to determine school funding, which in Colorado follows students.

Two days after voters approved a nearly $1 billion bond measure — which promised every campus would benefit with the district slogan “our word is our bond” — Marrero released his school closure list.

“That’s an inconsistency between telling voters that DPS needs bond money to create smaller classrooms while it is closing schools, which has the effect of increasing class sizes,” said Lisi Owen, the attorney representing Mamás de DPS.

Filed in December, the lawsuit originally requested a preliminary injunction that Owen later withdrew.

Still, the Mamás de DPS lawsuit, among other things, is challenging these school closures at the end of the academic year: Columbian Elementary, Castro Elementary, Schmitt Elementary, International Academy of Denver at Harrington, Palmer Elementary, West Middle School, Denver School of Innovation and Sustainable Design.

Three other campuses — Kunsmiller Creative Arts Academy, Dora Moore and DCIS Baker — are set to be reconfigured, with students being absorbed into other schools.

Of the 10 schools, five are located in southwest Denver, a region with a predominantly Hispanic student population.

‘This quote is incomplete’

The board approved Marrero’s August request to delay releasing his closure list.

Future closure lists, however, must be provided in October and only once every three years. Executive Limitation 18 — also known as EL-18 — also restricts the superintendent from using low enrollment and test scores as the sole justification for closing a school.

The October deadline for a school closure list wasn’t arbitrary.

Board members have said the timing was designed to align with the district’s school choice process, which begins in January, to give families enough time to explore other options if their school is slated to close.

District officials pushed back on the criticism, saying the bond’s promise to reduce overcrowding was aimed specifically at the Far Northeast, a fast-growing region of the city.

The bond language on the ballot said the funds would be “addressing overcrowding and reducing class size by building new schools and expanding capacity in existing schools.”

“This quote is incomplete,” said DPS Spokesperson Scott Pribble. “It becomes true when you add the context of the ever-growing Far Northeast.”

Pribble pointed to a series of community presentations in the lead-up to Marrero’s recommendation that described DPS as a district “growing in some areas and shrinking in others.”

And he argued that the ballot language — promising to “address overcrowding and reduce class size by building new schools and expanding capacity” — was “incomplete” without that context.

The ballot measure presented to voters did not mention the Far Northeast or otherwise specify where the new schools or expansions would occur.

‘The information withheld was material’

The language for the 2024 bond listed a litany of items for which the money would be used.

The bond is also expected to pay for building enhancements to improve school safety, replace leaking roofs, address outdated electrical and fire systems and provide cooling systems for schools that lack air conditioning in addition to addressing overcrowding.

“If the board had told people before the bond vote that they were closing schools, I think that people would have looked at the bond measure with a lot more skepticism because it talks about reducing class sizes,” Owen said.

Owen argued that Denver voters should have known — before casting their vote on the $975 million bond package — whether schools with promised upgrades were slated for closure.

On Nov. 5, Denver voters overwhelmingly passed the bond measure with 75% of the vote. That same week, Marrero announced he was recommending the closure of seven schools and the reconfiguration of three others.

“The information withheld was material,” Owen said. “It potentially could have changed the vote if voters had that information.”

Had taxpayers reject the bond measure, Denver taxpayers could save about $20 million a year, according to Chuck Carpenter, the district’s chief financial officer. Although he also said taxpayers wouldn’t immediately accrue that benefit. With previously outstanding bonds, Carpenter has said, it could take “five or six years” before voters would have felt any relief.

Denver voters have approved more than $2 billion in ballot measures in the previous four presidential elections.

DPS has been requesting — and getting voter approval — for bond measures over the past three decades, Carpenter has noted.

School districts have used bonds for decades to finance capital improvements as a way to raise large sums of money to pay for projects now that can be repaid over time later, when, backers have argued, the cost of materials and labor would have gone up.

‘Voters expect honesty and transparency’

The 2024 DPS bond represented the largest borrowing put before voters.

The Colorado Supreme Court has affirmed that if ballot measures contain more than one purpose, it must be prepared in such a way that every voter may vote up or down each choice.

The fact that Denver voters could not vote up or down on each project listed, Owen contended, invalidates the bond measure.

“Denver voters were not able to ‘understandingly’ cast their ballots for the bond measure because of how it was written, as well as DPS’ knowing concealment of relevant information,” Owen said.

This is what Owen is arguing in the Mamás’ lawsuit, in addition to casting doubt on the enrollment numbers the district has publicly provided in justifying the closures.

Kim Monson, president of the Colorado Union of Taxpayers (CUT) said she finds the district’s explanation suspect.

“When presenting a tax extension or a tax increase, voters expect honesty and transparency from elected representatives and bureaucrats,” Monson said in a statement. “We find the timing of the announcement of DPS school closures, two days after election day, very curious.”

Founded in 1976, CUT advocates for taxpayers to “keep their hard-earned dollars” and educate the public on government spending, according to the organization’s website.

“We question if voters would have approved this massive bond indebtedness, on the heels of significant property tax increases, if they had been given the whole story,” Monson said.

The closure list, which the board ultimately approved, was put forward in response to years of declining enrollment. DPS officials have pointed to falling birth rates and rising housing costs — particularly in historically working-class neighborhoods — as key drivers pushing families out of the city.

The district has lost more than 2,500 students since the 2019–2020 academic year, when enrollment peaked at 92,112 students, according to state data. That decline would have been steeper if not for the recent influx of immigrant students, whose arrival has buoyed enrollment by more than 3,000.

Fewer students mean less per-pupil state funding, which officials say makes it increasingly difficult to sustain under-enrolled campuses.

Board President Carrie Olson — who has defended Marrero, saying he did not mislead the public and the board — did not respond to an email seeking comment.