The Summit School District has seen a decline in enrollment the past two years. District staff members point to a new trend fueling the drop, which they say has the potential to impact funding in future years alongside changes at the state legislature.  

The district had an approximate 3% decline in enrollment this school year, the board of education learned at a Jan. 30 meeting. Enrollment was down 2% the prior year. 

Chief Financial Officer Kara Drake said a disparity in class sizes for varying grades can play a significant role in how much funding the district receives from the state. Colorado has long used a per-pupil funding model. 

“We have larger 12th grade classes that are graduating out of the system (compared to the number of) kindergarteners coming in,” she said. “So as long as we have that happening in our system, our overall district enrollment is going to continue to decline, and that will ultimately impact our funding.”

Despite a slight drop in enrollment, the district received more funding per pupil in the 2024-25 year thanks to changes made by the state legislature. In the 2024-25 school year, the district received around $12,100 per full-time student, which is an almost $1,000 bump per student compared to the previous school year. 

Currently, the state does not dole out per pupil funding based on current enrollment numbers, but takes into account enrollment over the past five years and uses that average. 

Drake said the district benefited from this in the 2024-25 year, but things could change in the future. While the actual number of full-time students attending Summit School District is 3,306, the five-year enrollment averaging model brought that up to 3,432. 

“That’s a significant increase in our funding by having that averaging component to the school finance formula,” she said. “So removing that, as is currently proposed in the state budget, will be a significant change to next year’s budget for our district.”

Under a reimagined school funding formula passed by lawmakers last year, a new four-year enrollment average is slated to take effect in the 2025-26 school year. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis has proposed the model shift to use a current-year student count in effort to mitigate the $1 billion funding shortfall the state is up against. If Colorado were to implement this next year, the state would save around $147 million, according to the state’s budget director as reported by Chalkbeat Colorado, an education-focused news organization.

Frisco Elementary School had the largest dip in enrollment, dropping 6.3%, followed by Summit High School, where enrollment dropped 5.5%, and Silverthorne Elementary School, which had a 5.1% drop in enrollment. Breckenridge Elementary School saw the most significant increase in enrollment, which rose 6.2%. Upper Blue Elementary’s enrollment had no growth or decline and was flat year over year. 

Breckenridge Elementary is the oldest building in the district and officials sought to acquire funding to demolish and rebuild it by introducing a ballot measure for a $195 million bond. The district proposed $47 million go toward that specific initiative, yet voters shot the ballot measure down in November. 

“A lot of bond survey respondents advocated for combining (Upper Blue Elementary School and Breckenridge Elementary School),” board member Julie Shapiro said. “I’m not weighing in on that right now, but I’m just saying, which numbers do (we) need to look at?”

Drake said Colorado leaves the decision of what size a school should be in the hand of the districts, and there’s no enrollment requirement Summit is bound by. 

Her presentation to the board of education also detailed Snowy Peaks Junior and Senior High School’s building being at 98.8% capacity. She said any school at 100% is considered over capacity and the typical building capacity for a school is 80 to 85%. 

Board member Chris Guarino, who is a construction project management consultant, was asked to weigh in. 

“(Around) 85% is when you start planning for an expansion or replacement,” he said. “(Around) 90%, the red lights are going off.”

Summit School Districts’ 2024-25 enrollment was around 0.1% off from what district officials anticipated. Based on enrollment numbers taken in October, 41.4% of students in the district are  Hispanic, 53.5% are white and 5.1% were in the “other” category. According to last year’s presentation on enrollment, 40.4% of students were Hispanic, 54.6% were white and 5% were in the “other” category.