Boulder Valley enrollment dropped by about 1% this school year, a smaller decline than originally expected.

In the fall, according to a report on the agenda for Tuesday’s school board meeting, the district enrolled about 250 fewer students for a total of 27,273 K-12 students. The meeting starts at 7 p.m. at the Education Center, 6500 East Arapahoe Road in Boulder. It also can be watched live on the school board’s YouTube channel.

Last year, the school district’s enrollment dropped about 2%. The district last year saw its largest decrease in high school enrollment in more than 20 years, but enrollment losses overall were mainly concentrated in kindergarten and first grade.

The trend of elementary enrollment losses continued this year. Kindergarten enrollment was down about 120 students, with 1,538 students in the current class — the smallest kindergarten class in 20 years with the exception of the 2020 pandemic year.

Overall, not including charter schools, elementary enrollment declined by 273 students, or about 2.6%. Elementary enrollment also is expected to continue shrinking as the smaller kindergarten classes move up through the grades.

Aside from the mountain schools of Gold Hill and Jamestown, the district’s smallest neighborhood elementary schools — all under 250 students — are Boulder’s Flatirons with 164 students, Nederland with 165 students, Boulder’s Mesa with 233 and Boulder’s Heatherwood with 226 students.

Middle schools, not including charters, saw an unexpected increase, gaining 76 students, up about 1.4%.

High school enrollment dropped by about 71 students, or a little less than 1%. Stronger student gains at middle school and in ninth grade may be students re-entering the system after leaving for private schools or home schools during the pandemic, according to district officials.

Boulder, Louisville and Superior are largely driving enrollment declines, according to district officials, but the typical offset of new students from housing growth in Lafayette and Erie didn’t happen in 2022 or 2023.

Enrollment in the district’s five charter schools stayed about the same as the previous years. The number of out-of-district students who enrolled, however, increased from 2,370 students in 2022 to 2,549 students this fall.

With enrollment expected to continue to shrink in future years, the 29-person Long Range Advisory Committee made recommendations in the spring centered on elementary schools. Based on those recommendations, the district will create an annual enrollment trend report in February that includes the number of classes per grade level and five-year enrollment projections for each elementary school.

A community engagement process will be triggered when enrollment declines below 50% capacity, the school has fewer than 1.5 classes per grade level, and the school is projected to continue at that level for at least five years. Outcomes following the process could include adding specialized programming or school closure or consolidation.

The school board also evaluated enrollment-related policies in a series of study sessions this fall, including looking at school attendance area boundaries, open enrollment rules and choice school policies.

The school board plans to discuss a summary of the work so far on declining enrollment at a Jan. 16 study session. An update on enrollment is set for the Feb. 13 school board meeting.