Taking attendance: Private schools battle enrollment challenges

Independent private schools — those not operated directly by religious organizations — say they’re bucking a trend seen nationally and locally of declining enrollment.

Overall private-school enrollment — measured as a percentage of the overall K-12 student population — declined throughout much of the Boulder Valley and Northern Colorado from 2009 to 2014, according to a BizWest analysis of American Community Survey data by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Boulder, Broomfield and Larimer counties all posted declines in the percentage of kindergarten-through-12th-grade students, with only Weld County recording a slight increase. In raw numbers, Weld County’s private-school…