WEEK OF FEBRUARY 20, 2025
VOLUME 123 | ISSUE 12
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DCSD approves policy to guide school closures District is expected to name three facilities in Highlands Ranch soon BY MCKENNA HARFORD MHARFORD@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
The Douglas County School Board unanimously approved a policy to help guide school closures, including the planned closures of three elementary schools in Highlands Ranch in 2026. No schools in Highlands Ranch have yet been named as part of the merging of six schools into three. The district is expected to announce which schools will be recommended for consolidation in March before the formal recommendation is made to the school board in April. The board will vote on school consolidations at the April 22 meeting, and then there will be a transition year before the schools are merged for the 2026-27 school year. SEE CLOSURES, P5
Nikki Brooker, the founder of the nonprofit organization, YANA, celebrates the one-year anniversary of the organization’s new program called Strong Mamas, Thriving Babies, in which moms who deliver babies at UCHealth Highlands Ranch, AdventHealth Parker and Castle Rock receive a year-long wrapPHOTO BY HALEY LENA around service.
Strong Mamas, Thriving Babies marks anniversary You Are Not Alone is support group for moms with children of all ages BY HALEY LENA HLENA@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
2025
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Nikki Brooker assumed there was nothing else she would do besides be a school teacher. But once she saw the heartbreaking ripple effect in the community after two moms took their children’s lives in Highlands Ranch, she knew she had to do something.
Tears still come to her eyes when she thinks about how her husband supported her in her effort to make a change. “He’s the one who said, ‘go do this, go do good in the world,’” Brooker said. Brooker established the nonprofit YANA — which stands for You Are Not Alone — in April of 2017. And almost eight years later, she is part of a new ripple effect — one that supports the mental health and needs of moms in Douglas County. “We’re supporting the people who create the people,” Brooker said.
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How it all started
Having been a teacher for nearly two decades, Brooker was working in north Denver as an assistant principal in 2016 when her family noticed the job was taking a toll on her. She left that position, and began substituting at Bear Canyon Elementary in Highlands Ranch, where her son attended school. November 2016 was coming to a close when Brooker got a call from the principal saying she was needed in the building the next day. Ushered into a room with other adults, Brooker and the oth-
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ers were told that a mom had picked up her 3- and 5- year olds from the school the day before, and ended up shooting and killing them and herself in the family minivan in what used to be the Sports Authority parking lot in the Lone Tree area. Brooker was at the school providing support when she noticed a sixth-grade boy sobbing. When she asked what was the matter, he replied, “Ethan was my reading buddy. How am I supposed to be OK with the fact that his mom murdered him?” SEE ANNIVERSARY, P2
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