Enrollment is declining again this year at the Eagle County School District.
Early estimates show that the district is down 250 students from last school year, continuing a trend of declining enrollment that has lasted more than a decade.
Bryson Beaver, the district's chief financial officer, presented early enrollment numbers to the school board on Nov. 12.
On Oct. 2, the district took a count of all the students present in school or able to establish attendance, and then sent the numbers to the Colorado Department of Education to be certified. The district is currently working with unofficial numbers, as the state will release final enrollment tallies in January.
The 2025-26 school year decline looks to be bigger than in 2024-25, with enrollment down 3.8% this year compared to 2.2% last year.
This deficit consists of 83 fewer elementary students, four fewer middle school students and 162 fewer high school students than last year.
The school district's falling enrollment has several causes.
School enrollment has been declining throughout the country for years. "Between 2019 and 2023, enrollment fell around the country by 1.2M students," wrote Philip Qualman, district superintendent, in emailed responses to questions from the Vail Daily. "This is attributed to falling birth rates, and increased homeschool/private schooling options."
"Birth rates in Colorado have reached their lowest levels since 2007," Qualman wrote.
Last year, Colorado hit a 10-year low for public school enrollment. The Eagle County School District was no exception. The district lost 185 students last year, marking the biggest enrollment decline in 10 years.
Eagle County also has some area-specific reasons that have led to lower enrollment. "From 2020 to 2023 Eagle County lost 1,260 residents," Qualman wrote. "Housing costs are at all-time highs, and few young families can afford to live here."
Due to the rising cost of living in Eagle County, fewer young people are settling locally and starting families. In 2023, there were 509 births in Eagle County compared to 872 in 2007, a 40% decline.
In Colorado, though schools are funded by property taxes, counties are required to give school-related collections to the state, which then distributes funds to each school district based on the school funding formula. In the 2025 legislative session, the State Legislature passed a new school funding formula that will take full effect in the 2030-31 school year. School funding between 2025 and 2030 will consist of a mix of the old and new funding formulas.
The amount of funding a Colorado public school district receives from the state to cover its operating costs is directly tied to its enrollment numbers. In preparing this year's budget, district administrators attempted to estimate the number of students the district would see in 2025-26. However, the unofficial October count shows the district's actual enrollment is 190 students below its estimates.
In 2025-26, as the state transitions from its old school funding formula to the new one, a district's funded pupil count will include an enrollment average over four years, including the current year and the three immediately prior, for schools with declining enrollment. This helps limit some of the financial impacts of the decline. For Eagle County, averaging will leave the district with a decline of 47 students in the 2025-26 school year.
District staff are currently estimating a $500,000 budget deficit for the 2025-26 school year that must be made up in January budget revisions.
A "hiring freeze is our primary mechanism to adjust the budget," Qualman wrote. "We are currently exploring options in Budget Committee and with the Board of Education."
The district's policy is to consider making staffing adjustments in any school with 20 or more students above or below budgeted estimates. This would mean every in-person high school in the district might experience staffing changes, as Battle Mountain High School enrollment decreased by 26 students, Eagle Valley High School by 24, Vail Ski and Snowboard Academy by 20 and Red Canyon High School by 37.
"We've already started conversations with several schools on what can be done in the current year to make some small adjustments to FTE to get them more aligned with the budget," Beaver said.
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