Parents who are suing Boulder Valley over its school closure plans have filed a motion of contempt in Boulder County District Court, claiming the school district’s BVSD is the Place to Be Showcase violated the judge’s orders.
The lawsuit, filed Sept. 30, follows the Boulder Valley school board’s 5-2, Sept. 22 vote to close Boulder’s Douglass, Flatirons and Mesa elementary schools and Broomfield’s Birch Elementary in response to continued enrollment declines. The changes are slated to go into effect in fall 2027.
Parents Evan Harvie, Katharine Rosenthal and Theresa Schultz — who are represented by lawyer Eric Maxfield — also filed an emergency motion for a preliminary injunction. The parents represent the three Boulder schools marked for closure.
At an Oct. 8 hearing on the injunction request, Judge Dea M. Lindsey issued a stay on implementation of the school closures plan until she reaches a decision, which was expected as early as this week. But following the hearing, both sides filed responses, with the judge responding that more time will be needed to consider the additional information.
The annual showcase, held Wednesday at the University of Colorado Boulder Events Center, is described as an opportunity for families to learn about all the district’s schools in one night, under one roof, before open enrollment.
But, according to the contempt motion filed by the parents on Wednesday, this year’s event didn’t include booths for the schools marked for closures, based on an event map published on the district’s website. Not including those four elementary schools, the parents claim, counts as implementation of the school closure plan.
According to the motion, “precluding enrollment at schools slated for closure and forcing families to plan their lives and futures around other schools is a method of implementing the (school board’s closure) resolution and is relatedly a means of ensuring the demise of those schools.”
Other concerns noted in the motion include a “pop up” on the Flatirons Elementary website that indicates the school will close, as well as an online K-12 neighborhood school finder that no longer includes the four schools slated for closure.
Boulder Valley spokesperson Randy Barber said in a written statement that the school district has complied with, and will continue to comply with, all court orders.
“The court’s temporary stay did not prohibit BVSD from holding the BVSD Is the Place to Be Showcase or providing families with information about enrollment options. Nor did the stay prescribe how that information could be shared.
BVSD will continue to follow all applicable court orders as the legal process proceeds.
In the lawsuit, the parents are asking the court to prevent the school district from making student assignments based on the plan or take other steps that would be difficult to reverse until the case is resolved. They’re also asking the court to hear the case on an expedited schedule.
The lawsuit doesn’t ask the court to decide which schools stay open or what educational policy the school district should adopt, according to the parents. It also doesn’t seek to pause open enrollment, school tours or information sessions.
Suggestions from the parents who filed the lawsuit include that the court order the district to set aside the approved plan and require “a properly noticed public process with genuine engagement.” The school board then could vote again “to make the policy decision it believes appropriate.”
