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Save Douglass Elementary

40 Comments

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Danielle Patnode Verified
30 min ago

Douglass is a vital part of the Indian Peaks neighborhood community. It’s been a draw to our neighborhood for young famyfor years. It’s the specific reason we moved into this neighborhood while our kids were babies.

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Matthew Loeb Verified
40 min ago

This school means everything to our kids and our family. The community we’ve built here has made our time as new residents in Colorado feel like home. As residents who are zoned for Douglas and intentionally purchased a home within its boundaries, this potential shutdown is not only a shock but also entirely unfair to our kids.

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S Green Verified
40 min ago

The proposed changes don’t come close to accomplishing BVSD’s goal to create full, robust schools, yet cause so much upheaval - this is not how BVSD should treat its youngest learners. Dissolving one vibrant school and sending kids to three other schools is bad; giving our 74 year old campus away pours salt in a wound. We have been a Douglass family for 13 years and the school staff feels like family. Please slow this process down so that Douglass may be part of the solution.

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Connor Frey Verified
50 min ago

Douglass is the very best of what a school can be—families, teachers, and a truly connected community. After nine years between my two kids at Douglass, it has become one of the tightest communities in our lives. We understand declining enrollment is the challenge, closing Douglass doesn’t solve the underlying problem, it dismantles a thriving community while creating new challenges for Douglass families and the schools expected to absorb. Our ICAN students and all Dolphins need their school.

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Cole Sigmon Verified
50 min ago

The proposal treats children like widgets and schools like containers. Please consider a multiple variate decision analysis that considers economic and non-economic factors to find the best solutions for the district, for current and future students, and for members of the community.

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Zac Mitchell Verified
50 min ago

Douglas is a high-performing school with a rich community built by its attending families, teachers, and staff. The decision to evict the current community population from this building in favor of another with fewer students currently enrolled is irrational.

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Karen Loeb Verified
50 min ago

Amazing school. Needs to be saved!!!!

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Supporter Verified
1 hr ago

Decisions like this should never be a surprise to the affected community. BVSD dropped the ball here. Douglass is a treasure. All three of my kids went to Douglass, and it is uniquely tight-knit community. Neighborhood schools like Douglass are why we keep our kids in BVSD rather than private schools. Converting Douglass into a non-neighborhood charter school sadly seems to show that BVSD is heading in the wrong direction...

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Adam Bloniarz Verified
1 hr ago

This proposal is needlessly destructive of a vibrant, thriving pillar of our community, built up over many years by dedicated teachers, staff, parents, administrators, and students. It sends a terrible message to our children that they cannot trust in the continuity of institutions and communities we put them in. I strongly oppose this unjustifiable proposal.

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Jennifer Lee Verified
1 hr ago

Douglass is a treasure and a gift to the community, do not rob us of it! I am a parent of a current Douglass student and one prospective student.

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Supporter Verified
1 hr ago

Douglas should not be closing

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D R Verified
1 hr ago

With two grandchildren at risk here, I have a dog in the fight—it appears there is a gross lack of transparency of the data, information, and rationale of this decision, and no mention of the success metrics that will be used to measure what is a major upheaval to hundreds of children at Douglas. Additionally, the compressed time frame and absence of including any of the stakeholders in the process doesn’t seem professional or in keeping with the standards set out for the school Board.

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Julie Haughey Verified
1 hr ago

Why would we close a school that was recently built, and bus children from our neighborhood far away to an old school?

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Carrie Cook Verified
1 hr ago

We urge the BVSD Board of Education to vote NO on the proposal to close Douglass Elementary. Our daughters attend Douglass and have grown so much during their time there. Douglass is a thriving, high-performing neighborhood school with exceptional educators, strong academics, and a deeply connected community. Closing it would unnecessarily disrupt students and families and dismantle a school that is working exceptionally well.

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Beth Weekley Verified
1 hr ago

Continuity of care if very important for the children. We are talking about the education of children who have been in the Douglass community since preschool. These kids have taken years to build strong friendships and they have built up a community of adults supporting them at Douglass. Taking this community away is very detrimental to these children. That community and friendship helps children learn and excel. There is research that shows this.

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Alison Smith Verified
1 hr ago

We love Douglass all of our kids went there. It’s an anchor to our neighborhood

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Catherine Pickard Verified
1 hr ago

BVSD has blindsided our wonderful community with this recommendation. We love Douglass and closing this school would be a devastating loss.

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Shannon Cox Baker Verified
1 hr ago

Boulder, and particularly UBC, is increasingly becoming a retirement community for the country’s most wealthy. Close neighborhood schools and you will lose the dwindling number of families that are left. As a 20+ year Boulder/UBC resident and parent of a BVSD teenager, we can’t afford to lose our future generations. Keep Douglass open.

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Travis Arnold Verified
1 hr ago

A single-option 'proposal' created by the board, then voted by said board seems a little odd. Douglass is a fantastic community where 40+% of families choose to send their kids from within the district. At best the board had sloppy math and at worst has an ulterior motive. Regardless, the process and courtesy extended to other schools seems to have been forgotten with regard to Douglass and it's kids.

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Supporter Verified
1 hr ago

Why close Douglass just to move High Peaks into its location? Seems very arbitrary and disruptive to an existing neighborhood school. Please share the data and rationale behind the decision.