A Denver-area school district has been sending students to college – and billing the state – under a much-touted program that state education officials say they didn’t know about.
For the past seven years, about 30 to 40 students a year at Sheridan High School have enrolled at Arapahoe Community College on the state’s dollar – even after students technically had enough credits to get a high school diploma.
State law guarantees an education to all Coloradans up to 21 years of age or through a high school diploma.
When students enrolled in Sheridan High’s 21st Century program graduate, they walk in a cap and gown with their class. But instead of a diploma, they get a certificate that allows them to stay enrolled as a Sheridan student.
With state money the district gets for each student – which in Sheridan is about $5,700 – the district is paying tuition and fees at Arapahoe.
“We’ve been aboveboard on this. … We’ve never tried to hide it,” said Michael Poore, superintendent of Sheridan schools, a tiny district southwest of Denver with 1,600 students. “The state knows that we’ve been doing this.”
About 200 students have gone through the program since it started. But two state officials – the deputy commissioner at the Colorado Department of Education, and its director of school finance – say they’ve never heard of the Sheridan program.
“If every school district in the state did this, and we were providing (college) education for 50,000 seniors, it would probably break the budget,” said Vody Herrmann, the director of public school finance.
Sheridan High School principal Greg Gotchey said the 21st Century program is among the best things the school does.
“Our kids come to us, oftentimes, from parents who barely finished high school,” he said.
About 67 percent of the district’s students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch – a standard measure of poverty.
Sheridan’s program came to light after reports last week of a similar idea at Denver’s Abraham Lincoln High School.
Lincoln principal Scott Mendelsberg has 100 students who have finished high school graduation requirements and are enrolled at the Community College of Denver this fall.
By substituting a regular high school diploma with a certificate approved by the Denver Public Schools Board of Education last week, the school can get per-pupil funding for those students.
With that money, Mendelsberg will pay their college tuition.
Mendelsberg said he’s doing it to bring hope to the southwest Denver school. “To me, it’s really a matter of how you’re going to spend the money,” he said. “We’re spending money to build a jail, and to me, it’s like, ‘What’s the education level of people in jail?”‘
Jennifer Fisher just completed 51 credit hours at Arapahoe Community College through Sheridan High’s program. She hasn’t paid for anything except books. Sheridan even provided transportation.
“Personally and financially, it was really hard for me to picture putting myself through college,” said Fisher, 20, who will transfer to Metropolitan State this fall. Roscoe Davidson, deputy education commissioner, said these post-high school programs raise huge legal questions for state leaders.
Ultimately, he said, it will probably go to the attorney general.
“We’re in a period of fact-finding here,” he said. “I think we need a re-interpretation of state law.”
Staff writer Allison Sherry can be reached at 303-820-1377 or asherry@denverpost.com.