On January 21, 2025, Mamás filed its motion for preliminary injunction. The motion requests that the court order DPS to halt the school closures that it has planned for the 2025-26 school year. We will request that the court set a hearing to accept evidence about whether or not DPS violated its own policy when DPS Superintendent Alex Marrero requested the school closures and the Board of Education voted to approve them.

In November 2024, DPS decided to close ten public schools, in whole or in part. The reason: “declining enrollment.” The lawsuit we filed on December 19, 2024, alleged that DPS Superintendent Alex Marrero had not presented accurate enrollment numbers in connection with his school closure request. 

On January 9, 2025, the Denver Board of Education held a work session in which they discussed the district’s “financial health.” In the slide deck, DPS represents that “DPS K-12 enrollment is at its highest point in recent years,” and acknowledged that its prior enrollment “projections” were wrong. DPS has, nevertheless, showed no signs of voluntarily stopping the school closures it approved in November 2024, even though even the district now appears to acknowledge that the reason it gave for the closures lacks factual support. 

On December 19, 2024, Mamás de DPS, a grassroots parent organization, filed a 142-page complaint against School District No. 1, its Superintendent Alex Marrero, the Denver Board of Education and each of its members, and a consultant named Ben Kleban, whom the Board hired in 2024, alleging serious mismanagement of DPS funds and unconstitutional conditions in DPS schools. Mamás was spurred to action by Marrero’s November 7, 2024, recommendation and request that the Board vote to close 10 schools (7 totally, 3 partially) for the 2025-26 school year. The Board voted unanimously to approve Marrero’s closure request just two weeks later, on November 21, 2024.