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nity Table’s partnerships:

Medical Care: Stride Medical, Red Rocks Community College

Wednesdays

Community Table has partnered with Stride Medical to provide primary care services for people who are uninsured or underinsured. Stride comes to Community Table’s campus every Wednesday, and Red Rocks Community College will soon begin o ering medical services at the nonpro t as well.

Dentistry: No Smile Left Behind ird Wednesday of the month

Once a month, No Smile Left Behind performs basic dentistry for patients on Medicaid or those who are uninsured. e nonpro t cannot provide dental surgeries but can give referrals for those in need.

Shower and laundry truck: Bayaud, The Dignity Project

Fridays (Tuesdays forthcoming)

Every Friday, Bayaud Enterprises’ shower and laundry truck rolls up to Community Table, o ering free, hot showers and complimentary laundry. e Dignity Project has a similar truck that will begin visiting Community Table on Tuesdays starting soon.

DMV services: DMV To Go ird Friday of the month

DMV To Go o ers full DMV services — including drivers licenses and car registration — for all community members on the third Friday of the month.

Mental health: Ardent Foundation workshops, Advocates for Recovery

Quarterly/Tuesdays e Ardent Foundation provides quarterly workshops on mental health, the last of which focused on coping mechanisms and stress relief, and the next of which will be held in July. ese sessions are open to the whole community.

Advocates for Recovery provide weekly meetings with clients interested in recovery services, every Tuesday.

Government assistance: Je erson County, Benefits in Action

Wednesdays

On Wednesdays, a representative from Je erson County or one from nonpro t Bene ts in Action come to help folks with enrollment in government assistance programs including SNAP and WIC. Representatives help clients identify and enroll in programs they might be eligible for.

Housing navigation: City of Arvada

Fridays

Arvada Housing Navigator Lisa Chavez meets with clients on Fridays at Community Table to help them apply for a ordable and governmentassisted housing.

Other partnerships

In addition to these partnerships, Community Table is working on nalizing a partnership with the Je erson Center for Mental Health to get a kiosk set up on site. e nonpro t partners with the City of Arvada’s One Small Step program for homeless criminal defendants, o ering a table with resources outside of the courtroom.

Community Table also runs ve mobile food pantries: Elevado Mobile Home Estates, the Arvada House, Mountain Vista, Highlands West and Mountain Terrace are the communities the nonpro t serves with its mobile pantry, spread out from Arvada to Wheat Ridge to Westminster.

A partnership with Doordash’s Project Dash allows Community Table to reach 50 individuals who are unable to come to the nonpro t’s Arvada campus in person. Baldassare said that sta is evaluating how many people can be included in the free program going forward.

e United States Postal Service Food Drive returned this year after going on hiatus during the pandemic — Community Table has received about 63,000 pounds of food, short of its 80,000-pound goal. Donations for the United States Postal Service Food Drive will be accepted until Sunday, May 28.

Martin said Community Table’s big- gest need right now is canned goods.

“We really need to donations of canned goods and those kinds of items because those have gone down,” Martin said. “We’re still having supply chain problems, the rising cost of food, it’s increasing for (donor’s) families too. So, we don’t get as much food as we could use. “

Martin added that the donated food brings in a variety.

“As opposed for us going somewhere and buying 10 cases of green beans: they’re bringing in carrots and corn and it’s giving us a real variety to the store,” Martin said. “Plus, the community likes to help with this program.” if it earns a low state rating this fall, triggering possible state action, the district will recommend closure. e school is the only one that is nearing state action for low performance. e district describes its work as data driven, and has published some school data that it may consider in deciding on closures.

With elementary schools last year, the district identi ed for closure or consolidation schools that had fewer than 220 students, or were occupying less than 45% of the capacity of their building, and had another elementary school within 3.5 miles that could absorb displaced students.

Compared with elementary schools, Je co’s 22 district-managed middle and K-8 school facilities tend to be in better condition, and have a narrower range of enrollment and utilization. Some regions, or articulation areas as the district calls them, have only one middle school fed by all the elementary schools, further complicating closures.

Here are some takeaways about middle schools in Je co: ose three schools are: Coal Creek Canyon K-8, Moore Middle School, and North Arvada Middle School.

Of 22 neighborhood middle schools and K-8 schools in Je co, 18 are losing more students through the choice process than they attract, and only four schools gain students through that process. Colorado law and Je co’s system allow families to send their children to any school in the district or to transfer to schools in other districts that will accept them.

Of those 18, four schools lose more students than remain enrolled. Carmody Middle School, for example, had 892 students choose to attend di erent schools, according to district data, leaving only 626 students at the school.

A similar out-migration of students was one of the factors the district cited in emergency school closures including one two years ago.

Nearly all of the Je co-managed middle schools and K-8 schools are projected to lose students. According to district gures, seven middle or K-8 neighborhood schools will have fewer than 500 students next school year, and three of those schools are already occupying less than 50% of the capacity of their school building.

Coal Creek Canyon K-8 is projected to have 91 students next fall. e school currently serves 100 students.

Moore Middle School is already being considered for consolidation. e school’s principal partnered with the principal of Pomona High School in ask- ing the district to approve a plan to consolidate the schools and turn Pomona into a sixth grade through 12th grade school instead. e school district is expecting estimates of the cost of required building upgrades, before taking a vote this summer. e district’s overall average for all middle and K-8 schools is 36%. e ve schools that occupy more than 80% of their building average 25% of their students as qualifying for subsidized lunches.

At the other end of the range, one Je co middle school is over capacity. ree Creeks K-8 in Arvada enrolls 1,112 students. About 8% of the students there qualify for subsidized lunches, a measure of poverty, much lower than the district average. is school is the only one currently projected to have signi cant student enrollment growth next year.

Among the seven middle and K-8 schools in Je co that occupy less than 60% of their building’s total capacity, the schools average nearly 50% of students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunches, a measure of poverty.

Also, schools that have faster enrollment declines are more likely to have more students living in poverty. For example, among 10 schools with projected enrollment declines of more than 5%, an average of almost 42% of students qualify for subsidized meals, compared with about a 32% average at schools that have a small decline or that are projected to be growing.

Since schools are funded based on the number of students enrolled, schools with fewer students end up with smaller budgets and aren’t able to provide as many resources or learning opportunities as schools with more students.

Among the middle schools and K-8 schools that the district is considering closing or consolidating, K-8 schools on average spend more than middle schools per student. One school, Coal Creek Canyon K-8, which is serving about 100 students, is spending $21,994 per student, more than 28% over the average per student cost at the district’s other K-8 schools. Chalkbeat is a nonpro t news site covering educational change in public schools.