To the Boulder Valley School District Board of Education, I'm writing about the proposal to close Mesa Elementary and merge it into Bear Creek. I'm not a parent there, but I know four kids who attend, and I've watched what that school has done for them. Mesa's RISE program is particularly good with kids on the autism spectrum, and I don't think that kind of support survives a move intact. The kids I know have grown at Mesa in ways I don't think would happen at a larger, less flexible school. For a kid who depends on a small, predictable environment, routine and familiar staff, a bigger consolidated school isn't a neutral change of address. It can undo years of progress. I understand the district is under real budget pressure and that Boulder has significant excess capacity across its elementary schools. But closing Mesa treats the problem as a spreadsheet line instead of a community. The relationships between these kids, their teachers, and each other took years to build. Merging them into Bear Creek doesn't save money in any sense that matters to the families living through it. It moves the cost onto them. I'd also ask the board to think past this budget cycle. Boulder's population is aging. As older residents leave their homes over the next decade, more young families will move in, and the district will need elementary capacity again. Rebuilding a school community from nothing takes years. It's not just a building, it's trust between families and staff. If Mesa closes now, the district may find itself trying to recreate exactly what it dismantled, at greater cost, once demand returns. The vote is scheduled for September 22. I'd like the board to look harder at alternatives before finalizing this closure, and to weigh what merging RISE students into a new environment will actually cost them.