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What's on my mind this week: When a district describes its deficit as the consequence of forces beyond its control — declining enrollment, expiring federal aid, state funding that's never been enough — those forces are real. But they aren't the whole story. The choices a district makes about how to spend the money it has are also forces, and they accumulate over a decade, the same way deficits do.

That same gap between what districts decide and what families experience shows up elsewhere in this issue. A Jeffco phone policy will land in classrooms this fall in a community where some students have rehearsed lockdowns and others have hidden from a gunman. There's a difference between a policy designed for a hypothetical emergency and one written for the lived experience of families who've been through a real one.

Adams 12 will announce school closures in September or October, and according to a reader survey I ran last week, most of the parents who'll be affected hadn't heard that the plan was coming.

Let's dig in.

Jeffco's audited financial reports show the district's deficit isn't the result of a single year or a sudden shock. Revenue grew. Per-student revenue grew faster. Spending grew faster still. And during the same decade that classrooms lost teaching positions, administrative spending grew nearly twice as fast as instruction.

In the 2016 school year, Jeffco's total revenue was $820.5 million. By 2025, it was $1.2 billion — a 46% increase. Per-student revenue rose from $9,461 to $15,833, a 67% jump. The per-student figure climbed because the district was bringing in more and educating fewer students.

But total expenses climbed 59% over the decade, outpacing revenue by 13 points. That's the household version of a familiar problem: when your paycheck rises but your bills rise faster, you end up short even when you're earning more.

By the books — Jeffco, FY 2016 to FY 2025:

The accounting: General Administration, as Jeffco classifies it in its audited reports, includes the salaries and benefits of central administrators, including PERA contributions and health insurance, as well as the operating costs of those offices. Instruction includes teacher salaries, teacher benefits, classroom supplies and the costs that support what happens in front of students. Both categories are measured in the same way, which makes the comparison possible.

Between the lines: Running operating deficits is common for large school districts. They typically cover the gap with reserves, federal aid or both, and Jeffco has done both for 16 of the last 20 years. What changed isn't the deficit. It's what the district has available to absorb it. The federal pandemic relief that covered the 2021 through 2024 school years is gone. The reserves that covered earlier deficits have run low. The cost base built up over a decade — central office payroll, construction debt, operating commitments — isn't easily reversed. The pattern Jeffco's books show is what school finance researchers describe as a failure to "right-size."

Why it matters: District leaders have framed Blueprint cuts as the consequence of forces beyond their control. The audited reports tell a more complicated story. The cushions that used to hide a decade of choices are gone. That's why the cuts that used to be invisible to families are visible now.

What's next: The Partnership for Fiscal Sustainability committee delivers its revenue recommendation to the Jeffco Board of Education May 11. District leadership has signaled a mill levy override request in the $30 to $45 million range annually, which voters would likely see on the November ballot.

A reader caught something I missed. After this article was published, a reader emailed to flag a fund consolidation I hadn't accounted for. Effective July 1, 2024, the district folded three previously separate funds — Transportation, Technology and a portion of Child Care — into the General Fund. The district didn't mention it when I asked them to explain the year-over-year increase in General Administration spending.

What it changes: the more recent year-over-year figures I cited, particularly the $18.5 million increase in the two years before the Budget Reduction Blueprint, partially reflect the consolidation.

What it doesn't change: the decade-long pattern. General Administration grew 139% from FY2016 to FY2025, and FY2016 was eight years before the consolidation. Even if consolidation accounts for several million dollars of the FY2025 figure, General Administration grew far faster than revenue over the decade.

Reporting works best when readers push back. If you've spotted something in any of my coverage that doesn't add up, please tell me.

📌 Jeffco's draft phone policy meets a community where some students have hidden from a gunman. The board votes in May on the district's first standardized cellphone policy, ahead of a July 1 state deadline. Most of the more than 400 commenters asked for stricter rules; EHS-connected commenters asked for the opposite, wanting phones accessible in the seconds before a lockdown begins. The district's draft lets individual schools go stricter but not looser — a one-way valve that addresses only one half of the disagreement. Read the full story →

📌 Evergreen records show shooter targeted the GSA. Witness accounts in the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office's 664-page investigative report, released April 23, describe the shooter referencing the school's Gay Straight Alliance during the attack and walking past the GSA classroom repeatedly beforehand. The records also document an 8th-grade report that the shooter and a close friend had been seen looking up guns on a school computer at Evergreen Middle School. According to those who knew about it, nothing came of it. Read the full breakdown →

📌 Adams 12 closure rulebook returns to the board next week. The criteria the district will use to decide which schools close in fall 2027 return to the board May 6 for revision, with a final vote expected before summer recess. Superintendent Chris Gdowski will name specific schools in September or October. Read more →

Jeffco produced the consultant contracts I asked for

Last week, I told you the district had asked $4,923 to produce contracts with 13 outside consultants for fiscal years 2023-24 through 2025-26. I narrowed the request to the contracts themselves, the procurement policy and any sole-source justification for one specific vendor.

The district produced the records without further charge and said it had no sole-source documentation because "all agreements are within procurement thresholds or awarded via a formal process." I'm working through what the contracts show and will share what I find.

📍 What Westminster offers students for mental health and what's actually reaching them. Three Westminster High School students have died during the 2025-26 school year, and a student ambassador has now twice told the school board that classmates "don't completely feel mentally supported." I'm digging into what counselors, partnerships and crisis programming the district has in place at WHS, what's been added or stretched as losses have continued and how the district measures whether students know what's available.

📍 Why some of Westminster High School's most popular classes are being cut. International Baccalaureate electives, including IB History of the Americas and IB World Languages, are being eliminated heading into 2026-27, alongside schedule changes that students say make it harder to take both IB and Westminster's new Ranum Innovation Campus pathways. I'm asking the district what's driving the cuts and what they mean for students aiming for out-of-state colleges where concurrent enrollment credit doesn't transfer.

44% — share of Adams 12 readers who said they hadn't heard about the district's 2027 closure plan before reading my April 22 story.

I included a survey at the bottom of last week's Adams 12 closure article. Of 105 readers who responded, 44% said they were "not familiar — this is new to me" with the district's plan to consider school closures in 2027. Another 34% said they were "somewhat familiar." Only 22% said they were "very familiar" and following closely.

Once readers learned about the plan, concern rose sharply: 32% said they were "very concerned" their child's school could be on the list, and 31% said "somewhat concerned" — 63% combined.

A reader survey of 105 self-selected respondents isn't a representative poll. But the gap between "I hadn't heard about this" and "I'm very concerned" tracks with what Deputy Superintendent Beau Foubert told the board April 15 about the rulebook's structure: that gathering input on which schools to recommend "can easily be crossed around, 'it should be them, not us.'"

May 6, 6 p.m.: Adams 12 Five Star Schools Board of Education regular meeting. The school closure criteria draft returns for revision. Education Support Center, 1500 E. 128th Ave., Thornton.

May 11, 5 p.m.: Jeffco Board of Education meeting. The Partnership for Fiscal Sustainability committee will deliver its revenue recommendation, the basis for a likely November mill levy override ballot measure. Education Center, 1829 Denver West Drive, Building 27, Golden.

May 12, 5 p.m.: Westminster Public Schools Board of Education regular meeting. Westminster High School Lecture Hall.

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I can't be everywhere, but you are. If something's happening in your district or school that doesn't add up, I want to hear about it. A policy that makes no sense. A budget line that vanished. A question no one will answer.

You can stay anonymous. I protect my sources.

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Class Notes is reported and written by Suzie Glassman for the Colorado Trust for Local News. I do the homework on your schools, so you don't have to.

WHY CLASS NOTES? Class Notes is your guide to the schools that matter to you, covering education across Jefferson, Adams and Weld counties. I don't just recap board meetings — I dig into budgets, policies and the decisions that affect your kids, your taxes and your community. The best part? It's FREE.

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