Historic Colorado School Now Closed After 70 Years

As more schools release for summer break around Colorado, some say goodbye to their schools for a few short months, while others are saying goodbye to their historic school for good after 70 years.

Popular Public School In Colorado Permanently Closes After 70 Years

While some folks bounce around schools a bit growing up, some have the luxury of going to the same school, or schools within the neighborhood their entire life. I went to about 10 different schools from preschool through high school, so myself, like many others didn't have that school and friend consistency.

Most schools are broken up into preschool, then elementary, middle school, and high school. One popular Colorado school that served kids from Kindergarten through 8th grade, has been forced to close after nearly a century of serving hundreds of thousands of students and families over the years.

Arvada K-8 School Closed Permanently After 7 Decades

In the fall of 2023, the Jefferson County School District voted to close Arvada K-8 as well as Coal Creek K-8 at the end of the 2023-24 school year which ended last week. The reason? A decline in student enrollment at the school.

In the last three years, JeffCO Public Schools have now closed 21 schools since 2021, including Arvada K-8 this year after 70 years of serving the local Arvada community.

Opened as Arvada High School is 1954, then served as Arvada Middle School from 1971 until 2010, when it was converted to Arvada K-8. That's a lot of local history that will now be no more.

Why Do Jefferson County Schools Keep Closing In Colorado?

To put it simply, there are fewer kids in the area and the demand for all of these schools is becoming less and less. While the capacity for Jefferson County Public Schools was nearly 100k, they had less than 70k students.

The closure of the Arvada and Cole Creek K-8's will impact just over 500 students, and just shy of 100 school staff members.

The JeffCO Public Schools had this announcement on their website:

Arvada K-8 will close at the end of the 2023-24 school year. Starting in the 2024-25 school year, the new neighborhood school for grades K-5 is Lawrence Elementary school. The new neighborhood school for grades 6-8 is North Arvada Middle School.

While most of the schools I went to growing up are still around, my old middle school, Niver Creek, is now a STEM school. Or at least it was the last time drove by... Everything eventually changes, right?